Why does the news always get your hopes up with statements like “chance of rain today”, when the chance of rain is around 0%? Joanne Allen, I don’t care how badly you wish it would rain, STOP SAYING IT’S GOING TO WHEN IT WON’T. All you do is mislead gardeners.

I need to write two cover letters, but it is SO FUCKING HOT I can’t think straight. For that matter, I have to do some vacuuming and general tidying. I also have to venture out for some scallions and other veggies for the cold soba and tofu salad I’m planning to make for dinner. But it’s too fucking hot to do anything but hide in my air-conditioned room.

On the other hand, shit’s gotta get done. So I’m putting down the computer, hitting the shower, and (at the very least) getting the groceries done before working on those two letters.

Hot damn, we need some rain.

But in spite of these and other achievements, President Obama has thus far failed to use the bully pulpit to make the case for bold action on climate change. After successfully passing his green stimulus package, he did nothing to defend it when Congress decimated its funding. After the House passed cap and trade, he did little to make passage in the Senate a priority. Senate advocates — including one Republican — felt abandoned when the president made concessions to oil and coal companies without asking for anything in return. He has also called for a massive expansion of oil drilling in the United States, apparently in an effort to defuse criticism from those who argue speciously that “drill, baby, drill” is the answer to our growing dependence on foreign oil.

The failure to pass legislation to limit global-warming pollution ensured that the much-anticipated Copenhagen summit on a global treaty in 2009 would also end in failure. The president showed courage in attending the summit and securing a rhetorical agreement to prevent a complete collapse of the international process, but that’s all it was — a rhetorical agreement. During the final years of the Bush-Cheney administration, the rest of the world was waiting for a new president who would aggressively tackle the climate crisis — and when it became clear that there would be no real change from the Bush era, the agenda at Copenhagen changed from “How do we complete this historic breakthrough?” to “How can we paper over this embarrassing disappointment?”

Quick, someone point out that he’s a professional leftist, who’s disgruntled, and probably racist to boot.

“Whaddya mean ‘here we go’?” I asked.

“It’s our first electric bill since we installed solar panels,” mom replied, as she tore open the envelope. “YES!!” she shouted, pumping her fist in the air. “THIRTY-FIVE DOLLARS!”

“What does the bill usually look like during summer?” Christina asked.

“More like three HUNDRED dollars,” my mom said. “And what’s even better is that now that we’ve installed solar, the utility has to buy power from us.”

“Yup,” my dad added. “Not only are we expecting to save a couple thousand dollars over the course of the year, I’m also going to get tax credits and rebates up the wazoo, as well as about $5000 in SRECS.”

These, I learned are “solar renewable energy credits”:

Electricity suppliers, the primary purchasers of SRECs, are required to pay a Solar Alternative Compliance Payment (SACP) if they do not meet the requirements of New Jersey’s Solar RPS. One way they can meet their RPS is by purchasing SRECs. As SRECs are traded in a competitive market, the price may vary significantly. The actual price of an SREC during a trading period can and will fluctuate depending on supply and demand. See recent SREC trading prices.

“You mean the utility has to..”

“Yup! THEY have to buy power from US!” my mom cheered. “Plus, we’ve already got half our investment back in rebates.”

And that go me thinking. Despite the Obama administration’s [willfully?] mistaken belief that “government can’t create jobs” (uh, riiiiight: so the entire US bureacracy doesn’t count as employment?), my friend atrios regularly points out ways that jobs can be created, especially when it comes to energy and energy conservation:

I’m again flummoxed by the idea that there’s just nothing to be done jobs wise.

There are a lot of flat black roofs in Philadelphia. For a not very high per-unit cost, they could all be painted white/silver. This isn’t public infrastructure per se, but it would have public benefits in terms of reducing energy use/carbon emissions, and there are also externalities impacting the heat level of the city as a whole.

The DC version of this cunning plan would be to have a program, so that organizations could apply for grants, which could then… Or maybe they’d have some tax credit which would partially offset costs.

My version is…just go to door and offer to paint peoples’ roofs. I get that it’s a bit more complicated than this, but not too much.

I’d take that a few steps further. Right here in Philadelphia, there are solar panel manufacturers. As a matter of fact, several. And as atrios points out, there are TONS of flat roofs in a city that gets an awful lot of sunny days. Furthermore, I hear reminders every day on the radio that Pennsylvania’s electricity rate caps expire in 2011, with an increase of 10% (at least) expected.

You’d figure with pressures that include the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, two ongoing wars, one of which is was explicitlyabout oil, and oh yeah TEN FUCKING PERCENT UNEMPLOYMENT AND LOOMING ELECTORAL DISASTERS the administration would be all over efforts like this. Imagine the jobs created by installing solar panels on every roof in Philadelphia that wanted one: jobs making the things, jobs shipping them from the plant to the consumer, jobs installing them, jobs maintaining them. Think of the savings for ordinary families, who could then put that extra income into paying off their debts and buying new stuff. Think of the impact on the environment!

Als, they did not go big:

We put together a package that by then the target had been trimmed to $1.2 trillion. And then [White House Chief of Staff] Rahm Emanuel said to me, “Geez, do you really think we can afford to come in with a package that big, isn’t it going to scare people?” I said, “Rahm, you will need that shock value so that people understand just how serious this problem is.” They wanted to hold it to less than $1 trillion. Then [Pennsylvania Senator Arlen] Specter and the two crown princesses from Maine [Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins] took it down to less than $800 billion.

But hey, what do I know. It’s probably just my “permanent outrage and relentless negativity fostered and fueled by the blogosphere” talking.

Via Weather Underground:

Satellite imagery today from NASA’s MODIS instrument confirms that a substantial tongue of oil has moved southeast from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and entered the Gulf of Mexico’s Loop Current. The Loop Current is an ocean current that transports warm Caribbean water through the Yucatan Channel between Cuba and Mexico. The current flows northward into the Gulf of Mexico, then loops southeastward just south of the Florida Keys (where it is called the Florida Current), and then along the west side of the western Bahamas. Here, the waters of the Loop Current flow northward along the U.S. coast and become the Gulf Stream. Once oil gets into the Loop Current, the 1 – 2 mph speed of the current should allow the oil to travel the 500 miles to the Florida Keys in 10 – 20 days. Portions of the Loop Current flow at speed up to 4 mph, so the transport could be just 4 – 5 days. It now appears likely that the first Florida beaches to see oil from the spill will be in the Lower Florida Keys, not in the Panhandle.

Here’s a picture, copied from the article:

And here’s oil that has already washed up on the Florida keys:

It is mostly oil. Note it is not black. It is brown. It is NOT relatively harmless. It is nasty nasy nasty and contains all sorts of nasty stuff besides asphaltenes. It can seep into soils and sand. Tar balls cannot. Oil blobs (Oil-Jello) are most likely caused by dispersant.

If it’s black and gummy, it did not come from this leak. If it’s brown and loose and gooey, it DID come from this leak and you need to quit calling it a tar ball.

I do not know why BP is still in business, why more action hasn’t been taken, and quite frankly why that fuckwad Hayward hasn’t been gibbeted yet and displayed outside the Capitol.

And mark my words: BP will get off. These companies always do. Personally, I’d like to see someone take him out. POP POP POP, as they say in the ‘hood.

Tony Hayward and his goddamn company have wreaked unimaginable violence on the people of the Gulf, and the rest of the world. Like any other psychopathic killer, BP’s reputation is legendary, and they WILL do this again. Just like they killed those poor people in Texas in 2005:

I am just so disgusted and so tired of seeing powerful people destroy the lives of millions and just walk away, from the smirking pile of filth that occupied the white house to Ken Lay (who I have no doubt is laughing it up in Dubai), to Exxon’s paltry payment in Alaska, and on and on.

I could argue that the state has an interest in some kind of harsh public accountability for these crimes, far beyond the President staging an angry moment like he did last week. Letting BP off with a stern talking to, with predictably useless results, undermines the government to the benefit of the corporation. And we all know what happens when the mob decides enough is enough:

Here’s the truth: Tony Hayward will continue to flourish and grow wealthy as the years go on, while thousands on the Gulf Coast (and millions more as the oil moves up the east coast as expected) will suffer, through lost jobs, destroyed fisheries, ruined beaches. Tony Hayward doesn’t give a fuck about any of that. He could give a tinkers damn. He doesn’t go to thos beaches. He doesn’t live there. He doesn’t make a living as a fisherman. Tony can have his food imported from wherever he wants, and probably has it fed to him by a fucking butler named Jeeves.

We live in a country that executes the retarded and the innocent: it is not as if our people are squeamish about the death penalty. We even assassinate our own citizens without so much as a nod to due process. So is the government willing to take out Tony Hayward? And if not, why not? He’s clearly guilty of reckless negligence, destroying the lives of millions, wiping out 2/3 of our domestic seafood supply, and subjecting our country to an environmental and economic disaster that will persist for decades. In a just world, people would be lining up to watch Hayward get drawn and quartered. Shit, I’d even endorse letting Charles Manson out of prison, handing him a pistol and telling him Tony Hayward hates his music.

Obligatory “I’m not a terrorist” note to the Feds: I’m not the guy to take him out, but if someone did, I would attend the funeral just so I could sing “ding dong the witch is dead” during the funeral mass and do the Snoopy dance on his grave.

Then open this in a different window, for the soundtrack effect.

Two weeks ago, the government put out a round estimate of the size of the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico: 5,000 barrels a day. Repeated endlessly in news reports, it has become conventional wisdom.

But scientists and environmental groups are raising sharp questions about that estimate, declaring that the leak must be far larger. They also criticize BP for refusing to use well-known scientific techniques that would give a more precise figure.

The criticism escalated on Thursday, a day after the release of a video that showed a huge black plume of oil gushing from the broken well at a seemingly high rate. BP has repeatedly claimed that measuring the plume would be impossible.

The figure of 5,000 barrels a day was hastily produced by government scientists in Seattle. It appears to have been calculated using a method that is specifically not recommended for major oil spills…

The issue of how fast the well is leaking has been murky from the beginning. For several days after the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig, the government and BP claimed that the well on the ocean floor was leaking about 1,000 barrels a day.

A small organization called SkyTruth, which uses satellite images to monitor environmental problems, published an estimate on April 27 suggesting that the flow rate had to be at least 5,000 barrels a day, and probably several times that.

The following day, the government — over public objections from BP — raised its estimate to 5,000 barrels a day. A barrel is 42 gallons, so the estimate works out to 210,000 gallons per day.

Alex Brandon, photo

if the song’s over, press re-play. heck, if you can get to loop without stopping, i suggest you do so, because this one’s pretty bad too:

The federal Minerals Management Service gave permission to BP and dozens of other oil companies to drill in the Gulf of Mexico without first getting required permits from another agency that assesses threats to endangered species — and despite strong warnings from that agency about the impact the drilling was likely to have on the gulf.

Those approvals, federal records show, include one for the well drilled by the Deepwater Horizon rig, which exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers and resulting in thousands of barrels of oil spilling into the gulf each day…

Aside from allowing BP and other companies to drill in the gulf without getting the required permits from NOAA, the minerals agency has also given BP and other drilling companies in the gulf blanket exemptions from having to provide environmental impact statements…

After the disaster, [Interior Secretary Ken] Salazar said he would delay granting any new oil drilling permits.

But the minerals agency has issued at least five final approval permits to new drilling projects in the gulf since last week, records show.

Despite being shown records indicating otherwise, Ms. Barkoff said her agency had granted no new permits since Mr. Salazar made his announcement.

Joe Raedle, photo

Humans have never been very good at learning basic lessons, and we’ve had an especially hard time grasping the “don’t shit where you eat” concept. We’re getting a crash course in that now, and predictably, it’s unpleasant.

Obama Administration, march 30, 2010:

The Obama administration is proposing to open vast expanses of water along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling, much of it for the first time, officials said Tuesday.

The proposal — a compromise that will please oil companies and domestic drilling advocates but anger some residents of affected states and many environmental organizations — would end a longstanding moratorium on oil exploration along the East Coast from the northern tip of Delaware to the central coast of Florida, covering 167 million acres of ocean.

Reality, April 21, 2010:

The Coast Guard by sea and air planned to search overnight for 11 workers missing since a thunderous explosion rocked an oil drilling platform that continued to burn late Wednesday, more than a day since it sent a fireball into the night sky. Seventeen people were injured, four critically.

Nearly 100 other workers made it aboard a supply boat and were expected to reach shore by early Thursday. The blast Tuesday night aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig 50 miles off the Louisiana coast could prove to be one of the nation’s deadliest offshore drilling accidents of the past half-century…

The rig was tilting as much as 10 degrees after the blast, but earlier fears that it might topple over appeared unfounded. Officials said the damage to the environment appeared minimal so far…

Ted Bourgoyne, a retired professor of petroleum engineering at Louisiana State University, said the explosion was probably caused by natural gas or a mixture of oil and gas coming up through the well, combined with some kind of ignition source.

“Officials said the damage to the environment appeared minimal so far.” That was Wednesday. Today is Friday, and Reality has an update:

The oil rig that exploded, caught fire and then sank 36 hours later could lead to a major oil spill, officials said Thursday, and as a result a remotely operated vehicle is surveying the seas and assets ranging from aircraft to containment booms are ready to be deployed…

Officials had previously said the environmental damage appeared minimal, but new challenges have arisen now that the platform has sunk.

The well could be spilling up to 336,000 gallons of crude oil a day, the Coast Guard said, and the rig carried 700,000 gallons of diesel fuel.

Crude from the well had been burning off but when the rig sank earlier Thursday the fire was extinguished. What’s not clear is if the crude is still spewing below the surface.

Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry said crews saw a one mile by five mile sheen of what appeared to be a crude oil mix on the surface of the water.

Yes, by all means, “Drill, Barry, drill.” Drill up and down the east coast. Drill off of Florida. Drill off of Delaware, New Jersey, and the Carolinas. No one uses those beaches anyway.

So for now, I’m leaning toward climate change, and in my latest for the Philadelphia Weekly, I explain why we’re getting more snow as the planet heats up:

Behind all of this is, as Martin Longman at Booman Tribune points out, is an inability to grasp the fact climate change and the record snowfall might well be connected. “I guess that’s why people stopped using the term ‘global warming,’” he writes, “since it obviously mystifies conservatives.”

I’ll admit the term is confusing, but the fact remains that our crazy weather, from our incredibly wet summer 2009 to the blizzards we just went through, are tied to climate change/global warming. In fact, the connection was predicted almost a decade ago by scientists at the World Wildlife Fund, who argued that in the years ahead, we’d see more precipitation, stronger El Niños, and more extreme changes in the weather overall as the planet heats up. And what do we have this year? A stronger than usual El Niño, a Pennsylvania so soaked in precipitation that we had one of the worst growing seasons ever, and record-breaking blizzards in Philadelphia.

Please drop by and leave some comments!

Damn right you’re gonna get it PJ. President Bush likes his naps and his vacations, and if you wake him up, he’s liable to crush your testicles.

Speaking of President Bush and sleeping on the job, it’s the Third Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina: on this day in 2005, New Orleans drowned while George Bush and John McCain ate cake (it’s also Johnny POW’s McCain’s 189th 99th 72nd birthday today): later, the president regaled everyone by pretending to play guitar. In a few more days, Gustav is expected to hit land, perhaps coinciding with the opening of the Republican’s convention.

Have a great weekend, y’all!

There is no land at the North Pole, but as long as anyone has looked, it has remained a giant block of ice year-round. Scientists have been watching Arctic sea ice melt more and more each year. But each summer in recent years, the amount of ice has gotten thinner and thinner. Each winter’s freeze, therefore, results in a thinner pack that, this summer, could melt altogether.

“The issue is that, for the first time that I am aware of, the North Pole is covered with extensive first-year ice,” Serreze is quoted by The Independent. “I’d say it’s even-odds whether the North Pole melts out.”

And when that happens?
Well, humanity will get what humanity deserves.

Wow. read the whole thing. hat tip to Kos.

Goodwin leads me over to a red 2005 H3 Hummer that’s up on jacks, its mechanicals removed. He aims to use the turbine to turn the Hummer into a tricked-out electric hybrid. Like most hybrids, it’ll have two engines, including an electric motor. But in this case, the second will be the turbine, Goodwin’s secret ingredient. Whenever the truck’s juice runs low, the turbine will roar into action for a few seconds, powering a generator with such gusto that it’ll recharge a set of “supercapacitor” batteries in seconds. This means the H3’s electric motor will be able to perform awesome feats of acceleration and power over and over again, like a Prius on steroids. What’s more, the turbine will burn biodiesel, a renewable fuel with much lower emissions than normal diesel; a hydrogen-injection system will then cut those low emissions in half. And when it’s time to fill the tank, he’ll be able to just pull up to the back of a diner and dump in its excess french-fry grease–as he does with his many other Hummers. Oh, yeah, he adds, the horsepower will double–from 300 to 600.

Read the whole thing. Wow.