Politics

It didn’t command headlines but an important piece of legislation passed recently that involves water research. The House of Representatives on April 23 passed H.R. 1145, the National Water Research and Development Initiative Act of 2009. It’s designed to coordinate national research-and-development efforts regarding water use, supply and demand. The problem is Americans are drinking a lot of tapwater containing trace quantities of prescription drugs and other complex chemical compounds. Currently there is no long-term plan to address this issue and what level of drugs pose health concerns to the public. In line with investigating that problem, it’s also important to study how these compounds can be removed from our drinking-water sources. The...

You wouldn't think so if you read recent press reports. Just like this time last year, the global press is bombarding the public with alarming reports coming from the bottom of the world. From the Discovery Channel on April 28th, 2009 "Huge Ice Shelf Breaks From Antarctica, Fractures." From National Geographic News on April 30th, 2009 "Giant Antarctic Ice Shelf Collapses." From Reuters on April 28th, 2009, "New York City-sized Ice Collapses off Antarctica." Exactly one year ago, similar stories circulated, and if anything, they were more alarming. On March 25th, 2008, the BBC reported "Antarctic Ice Hangs by a Thread," a result, they stated, of "unprecedented global warming." But these reports, both last year and this year, are talking about the same ice shelf - the Wilkins Ice Shelf, an insignificant bit of floating ice that is located on the...

Environmentalism, ideally, is a broad and pluralistic movement that embraces diverse ideologies and myriad disagreements, unified only by a shared and sincere concern for the health of the natural world. Aside from this core value, how individuals and organizations practice their environmentalism must and should display infinite variety, because how love for the natural world is balanced with empathy for the aspirations of humanity is never easy. Environmentalism in this broadest sense is a value that has acquired a welcome momentum in recent years, but challenging this ideal, pluralistic version of environmentalism are powerful political agendas. These agendas have become mainstream and...

Earlier this week, on April 15th, 2009, not coincidentally the day each year when tax returns are due from America's workers, there were "tea parties" held throughout the United States - approximately 2,000 separate events, some drawing over 10,000 people. It is probably accurate to estimate several hundred thousand people participated. In Sacramento, California, at what was reputed to be one of the biggest events, there were over 5,000 people in attendance at peak, but given the duration of the event, well over three hours, and the apparent turnover of people arriving and departing, probably closer to 10,000 people actually participated. Looks like grass-roots to...

Researchers at the University of Minnesota reported recently that the production of ethanol fuelstocks may consume as much as three times more water than previously thought, depending on where they’re grown. They found that ethanol fuelstock grown in Iowa uses the least water — about 6 gallons of water for each gallon of ethanol. While fuelstock grown in Minnesota uses about 19 gallons of water per gallon of ethanol. And that’s just on the farm. The researchers found that total water use in the production of a single gallon of ethanol is up to 2,100 gallons of water — from farm to fuel pump — depending on the regional irrigation practice in growing corn. Although a dozen states in the Corn Belt consume less...

The prevailing challenge facing humanity when confronted with resource constraints is not that we are running out of resources, but how we will adapt and create new and better solutions to meet the needs that currently are being met by what are arguably scarce or finite resources. If one accepts this premise, that we are not threatened by diminishing resources, but rather by the possibility that we won't successfully adapt and innovate to create new resources, a completely different perspective on resource scarcity and resource policies may emerge. Across every fundamental area of human needs, history demonstrates that as technology and freedom is advanced, new solutions evolve to meet...

For decades, California has epitomized America's economic strengths: technological excellence, artistic creativity, agricultural fecundity and an intrepid entrepreneurial spirit. Yet lately California has projected a grimmer vision of a politically divided, economically stagnant state. California has returned from the dead before, most recently in the mid-1990s. But the odds that the Golden State can reinvent itself again seem long. The buffoonish current governor and a legislature divided between hysterical greens, public-employee lackeys and Neanderthal Republicans have turned the state into a fiscal laughingstock. Meanwhile, more of its middle class migrates out while a large and...

It would be an understatement to say we've been accused of taking controversial positions on environmental issues - smart growth, global warming, government reform, fossil fuel and nuclear power, to name a few. The problem, however, is these positions are not adopted out of some pathological need to be contrarian, they spring from genuine conviction based on substantial research and thoughtful deliberation. To keep all this contrarianism in perspective, there is a quote from Mark Twain worth repeating, he said "a cynic sees the cost of everything and the value of nothing." And being mindful of this quote we respect those who adhere to the conventional wisdom on many of these issues. It...

About a year ago I participated for a few months with an industry group that was attempting to insert some rationality into what is probably the most irrational, extremist, dangerous, job-killing, regressive laws in the modern history of the United States, AB32, California's Global Warming Act. Unlike renewable portfolio standards, which can at least be justified by virtue of their potential to improve the U.S. balance of trade and promote energy independence, California's global warming act is based on uncertain science and propelled by political opportunism. It is an utterly futile gesture, and even if it weren't, most of the regulations being solidified regulate land use and...

Pamela Contag is a microbiologist who's as comfortable in the lab as she is in the boardroom, dealing with the business of running a company. She has plenty of experience there, having helped found two startups: Cobalt Technologies and Xenogen. She also sits on the Department of Energy's Biomass Advisory Board. Contag is an astute observer of the biofuels industry. With much of the discussion today focused on second-generation biofuels, she points out that it's still critical for people not to mix up biofuel feedstocks with human foodstocks. That sure spelled a lot of trouble during the first-generation corn-ethanol buildout, which alarmed the public and still dampens enthusiasm for the biofuels market. Contag says there's a list of...

After spending 25 years designing over 600 communities in 45 states and 10 countries, we wrote the book Prefurbia to make an awareness for those involved in the processes of land development about new ideas, techniques and methods that we had discovered relating to suburban site design. In addition to these new methods, the book explains problems with the current regulatory systems, mostly caused by our minimums based regulations, and ending with an example of a new type of "rewards based" ordinance. No matter how great it may be, any development plan is secondary to the presentation. The site plan is only part of the process to approval - the best site plan is only as good as the...

Still absent from much of the discussion regarding state and local government budget deficits is an attempt to properly assess rates of worker compensation. But if one performs this exercise, normalizing for all present and future benefits, it immediately becomes clear that the true compensation of public employees is significantly higher than is being commonly reported, and this fact should be taken into account when arguing what may be the most effective and equitable way to eliminate deficits and avoid public sector bankruptcies. It is common when considering how much one is paid by their employer to reference the annual gross income as the primary measurement - the number that...