How do you say "dull thud" in Danish?

From the Mother Nature Network


YOU WIN THIS ROUND, CO2: How do you say "dull thud" in Danish? The Copenhagen climate summit ended Saturday. Instead of the legally binding agreement committing nations to take action against global warming many had hoped for, the summit instead produced a vague general accord essentially re-stating the reason they had the summit in the first place. Global warming? Yup, it's a serious problem. Carbon emissions? Yeah, we really should curb those. Even the conference's supposed biggest achievement -- the pledge by the U.S. to raise $100 billion in annual aid annually to help poor nations cope with climate change -- seems like less-than-a-sure thing. Fulfilling the pledge would require Congress to pass a cap-and-trade emissions reduction mechanism, then pledge to send a substantial amount of the tax revenue abroad as foreign aid. With unemployment high in this country and an election coming up, sending billions overseas may not be so popular.

So was there any good news from Copenhagen? Sort of. The embarrassment about the lack of progress should focus minds before meetings scheduled climate negotiations in Germany and Mexico next year. Just as importantly, China and India are hinting now more than ever that they're willing to sign a legally binding, verifiable agreement to curb their greenhouse emissions. The U.S. Senate is far more likely to pass legislation curbing U.S. emissions if China and India are willing to do the same. For complete coverage of the U.N. summit, check out MNN's comprehensive Copenhagen climate talks home page. (Sources: Guardian, New York Times, Los Angeles Times)

Leveling a forest for a windfarm is NOT GREEN!

Leveling a mountain top with dynamite, clearcutting forest to make a windfarm is NOT in any way Clean energy! It is the Antithesis of GREEN. Guess the energy companies just can't help destroying the environment, even for renewable energy.

Verizon might have the most reliable network...

But Verizon sucks in every other way. I have been very unhappy with them for a number of years but have largely felt that I had few other options. Here is the litany:

• For years, every time we had a spate of rain--say for three or more days, our phone line would go on the fritz. We could call out, but we were not receiving calls. And every time, I would call, they would schedule a service call for several days later, the first available appointment. More than once, this was an eight hour window! Of course, as you might imagine, since the ground had several days to dry out, there was no problem found during the service call. So, I'm thinking I should be able to bill THEM for wasting my vacation time.
  

• Next, My cell phone bills have been through the roof; they were my largest discretionary income expense. My daughter's fiancee lives in Ireland. Repeated efforts to allow her cell phones to text Ireland failed, despite the fact that when we had AT&T, she could do so. So her calls to Ireland have added up. Let me repeat that last effort: Dear Verizon, please enable my daughter's phone to text Ireland...Nope nuthin, nada, despite phone calls AND a visit to the Verizon Store (iJustine--you're slam on cell phone companies, actually reminds me of VERIZON!!!)

• My problems with the landlines going out ended when we had a fence put up. Despite the line markings that you get when you call Miss Utility here in Virginia, the fencing folks cut right through the phone line. Verizon, rerouted that line and we've not had any problems since.

• My spouse works from home and her company told her they would pay for a separate phone line for a business phone. She called Verizon and asked them to activate the secondary line that we had in the house. Actually we found that we had several other lines previously wired in the house, as for a number of years the previous owner had rented this house out. Several calls and hours of time spent on the phone with Verizon, on my wife's part, she finally asked me to call and cancel the line. I did.
  

• My daughter got an apartment with some friends from school. I called to set up the phone--we just wanted a landline for an alarm, and occasional calls home, and perhaps even to Ireland so no need for fancy-dancy FIOS. I spend 20 minutes on the phone, not bad. Appointment set up--uh oh.. Well, we can do it for this day between this four hour window, or that day during this EIGHT hour window...I schedule for the weekend day in the four hour window. It's a Sunday, not the best, but hey, not a real problem. The Friday before, we get a call confirming that we wanted FIOS. WTF!?!?! If we didn't want Fios, since the business office was closed, I'd have to reschedule. I told them to cancel the weekend visit. On Monday, before I could call to set up an appt to just get an effing copper line-- Verizon calls my home and leaves a confirmation for a future appointment to set up FIOS. I returned the call, and of course the office was closed. I left the message to please cancel the entire order. (There were other things going on in our lives at that point that made setting up a phone line pretty low on the priority list.) Two weeks or so go by. And this morning, I get a call to confirm the Tuesday morning set up of Fios at my daughter's apartment. Again! I had never rescheduled. I told the representative this story, and she apologized and canceled the order. Hmmmm....

• Finally, for many years I have been paying Verizon for an unlisted phone number. Obviously, we had some vague idea of the importance of Verizon. This weekend I discovered 411.com. Guess what, my name and number are there. And the give away, it lists my land line provider as Verizon. Dear Verizon, just how did 411.com get that information? I think I want a refund for every penny I've paid you to have an unlisted number. I call this Fraud, what do you call it?
  

Seasonal bird kills common, preventable -- baltimoresun.com

This just kills me that we leave the lights on in skyscrapers, just because! Talk about killing two birds with one stone: wasting energy and contributing to the massive die offs of endangered song birds.

Seasonal bird kills common, preventable -- baltimoresun.com

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The Nature Conservancy in Virginia - Eastern Shore Awarded $919,774 Wildlife Grant

The Nature Conservancy in Virginia - Eastern Shore Awarded $919,774 Wildlife Grant

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60th Bird Species Identified in our Backyard Habitat

I've been watching birds with a passion since 2003 and started keeping a list in 2004. Since then, my wife, daughter, five cats and I have seen or heard 60 species on our 1/3 acre plot in the suburbs of Washington DC. The latest showed up two days ago. My daughter called it a warbler and even guessed that it might be a common yellow throat. Tough call in the Fall!

I saw it (her) this morning--sadly camera-less--but looked up the bird the moment I came inside. I'm pretty sure my daughter is right. We've got at least one female or immature Common Yellowthroat. Interestingly, yesterday, the bird was quiet and almost sluggish. Our guess is that she had spent the night in flight and was exhausted. She apparently heard our local birds and stopped for a bite. Today, (or yesterday now that we're right at midnight) she was much more active, gleaning insects from our goldenrod, rosa rugosa, and redtwig dogwoods-- chiking as she gleaned. Could she have been calling to another of her species? That's why I caveated by saying at least one.

I love the fall because I never know what new bird is going to show. I'm sad to think that we will probably not see anymore Scarlet Tanagers, since the Town of Vienna (TREE TOWN by the Arbor Day Foundation) allowed the almost clear cutting of three acres of woods two blocks from our house a few years ago. We subsequently learned from a visit to the USDA's Greenbelt facility that the Scarlet Tanager needs three acres of uninterrupted woods to survive. We've not seen the Brown Creeper or Brown Thrasher, or heard the Barn owl since then either.

Age Of Stupid: Nice Try, Let's Try Something Else

I was disappointed with Age of Stupid, the new global warming documentary by Franny Armstrong and Lizzie Gillett. I liked the premise and agree with their message. Where I find fault is that people like me are already predisposed to listen to their message, which is: we need to act now to reverse the effects of increasing green house gases on the earth's climate. That action needs to be taken internationally, nationally, locally and individually. Unfortunately, the documentary is much like Fahrenheit 9/11, preaching to a choir with zero hope of convincing the other side--in this case, the global warming naysayers and doubters, especially those in the United States, to even listen. Here's the premise of the documentary, which builds it story on published scientific studies:

An old man living in the year 2055 and on an Earth that has been devastated because of global warming, wars over resources, droughts and floods watches footage from 2008 and before and asks why when we knew that we had to do something, we did not. That footage includes two very cute Iraqi children--Jamila and Adnan Bayyoud whose father "was killed by the Americans." Adnan, understandably, says how much he hates the Americans. OK STOP. The US is the biggest culprit when it comes to using more than our fair share of resources, we refused to participate in Kyoto. So we are--ahead of the Chinese and Indians--the most important audience for the film. With the emphasis on the Iraq war anyone who was not knee jerk against the war, is quite likely to tune out the rest of the message. It was stupid to inject that political issue into one that is about the survival of the plant and animal species of the planet--including homo sapiens. I'm disappointed that such an opportunity has been missed.

But the movie did have some desired effects-- it got me thinking about some of the challenges faced by proponents of green technology. One of these is the placement of wind turbines. In Age of Stupid, wind farm developer Piers Guy suffers a loss because land owners are convinced that the turbines will destroy their "view." The NIMBY syndrome is rampant and folks who want to do good should take it into account. Piers, what about all the places where the view is already destroyed by smoke stacks, oil platforms, and landfills? What about thinking about how we can harness the wind as it whips through cities?

I visited Boston a few years ago and noticed on the taxi ride from the airport that a number of buildings near Logan Airport had what looked like really large old fashioned floor fans on their roofs. These could very well have been wind turbines. The relatively small size would necessitate a cage around them to prevent birds and people from being hurt by the extremely fast movement of the blades. This is a guess, but if I'm wrong, why not do this?

Two places that immediately come to mind to place offshore windfarms in the US are the coast of Florida and the Gulf Coast. If oil rigs can be seen, then the view is already ruined. My only concern would be to ensure that they did not add to the annual kill of migratory birds. How about all the despoiled land in Western Pennsylvania and West Virginia, where strip mining and the horrific practice of mountain top removal have already destroyed the view? How about locations that are already filled with smoke stacks and cooling towers of power plants, such as near the Delaware Memorial Bridge, along portions of the Great Lakes? Choosing places like this rather than mountain tops that have yet to be ruined by cell towers makes more sense to me. And about those cell towers--they kill birds! Is there anything that can be done about that? What about the Cell companies figuring out how they can combine a power generating wind turbine on their already ugly tower?

The next issue that comes to mind--although it was not addressed in the movie--is the over reliance on centralized power sources. Why? If the power is coming to my house, why shouldn't my power company figure out how to help me generate some of that power on my suburban plot? Solar panels on my roof? How about small wind turbines, like the ones I thought I saw in Boston?