How could the spill get worse? A hurricane!
Hurricane Rita in 2005. Photo by alpoma on Flickr.
Crap. Hurricane season starts in June. If they don’t get this spill stopped and cleaned up before the first hurricane hits … I can imagine a huge mess. The Associated Press is reporting that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts eight to 14 hurricanes this season, which would make it one of the more active seasons on record.
According to the story:
A hurricane might help break up the oil spill staining the Gulf of Mexico, but the oil won’t affect significantly how tropical storms develop, forecasters said. They don’t know what kind of environmental hazards to expect, though there are fears that winds and waves could push the oil deeper into estuaries and wetlands.
Obama: Stop that drilling, get out of there
Yesterday, President Barack Obama called for a six-month moratorium on oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. The moratorium affects companies that want to drill in deep water, but they’ll still be able to drill in shallow water. The BP spill has now “officially” outpaced the Exxon Valdez spill, winning the title of worst oil spill in U.S. history. It’s still not clear if the company’s most recent “top kill” method will work: That oil keeps gushing out.
“I continue to believe that domestic oil production is important, but I also believe that we can’t do this stuff if we don’t have confidence that we can prevent crises like this from happening again,” Obama said at a White House news conference.
The six-month moratorium is supposed to give the government time to finish its investigation about what happened with the Deepwater Horizon, and what new regulations it should create to stop this from happening again.
Reducing water use by properly caring for soil
I recently subscribed to Yes! Magazine, and I’m anxiously awaiting my first edition in the mail. The most recent edition focused entirely on water use — Editors wrote that in the future they think we’ll have a water crisis similar to the energy crisis we’re currently facing. Here’s an article that puts a new spin on the subject of water use and conservation. Author Frederick Kirschenmann writes, “One of the reasons that we are using such large quantities of water for irrigation is that we have not paid attention to the biological health of our soils.”
Organic veggie gardens at the SunRun Centre, northeast of Toronto, now under new ownership as Russet House Farm. Photo by Peter Blanchard from Flickr.
He says to conserve water, farmers must respect the soil and cultivate it so plants won’t need as much water as in “industrial” farming methods that Kirschenmann says treat soil as “nothing more than a material to hold plants in place while we insert the synthetic nutrients plants require.” The author managed his family farm since 1976, and explains his experience with cultivating soil properly so plants don’t need as much water. He had to turn it around from a monoculture farm with “significantly impaired” soil.
Being on the farm with full management responsibilities for the first time gave me the opportunity to explore theoretical questions I had: Were there ways to manage soil so it would absorb and retain more moisture to sustain crops during drought periods? Could I design a farming system with sufficient diversity to increase its resilience? Or one that was less energy intensive? Was it possible to create a farming system that was more self-renewing and self-regulating?
This rouses the journalistic curiosity
As a journalist who wants to focus on environmental and sustainability topics, this blog post on Food Freedom certainly rouses my curiosity. The post disparages S 510, a food safety bill that has passed the U.S. House and is in line for a vote in the Senate. The blogger makes many extremely inflammatory warnings about the bill like, “It uses food crimes as the entry into police state power and control.”
The journalist in me sits up and says, “Now wait a minute” when I read things like this. It makes me want to look into it on my own. Here’s more info on the bill. More on this later!
Green tip of the day: line drying
Today’s green tip comes from my loving fiance, Aaron. Earlier this week, he needed to wash and dry his cycling shorts and jersey so he could re-use them today. Instead of powering up the dryer for such a meager task, he decided to set his bike gear out to dry on a string of lights we have illuminating the outdoors patio. Thank you, 90-degree Texas day! Even small things like this can make a difference if enough people stop and think to do them.
Now if I could only get him to pick up tortillas from the grocery store after his 40-mile ride today, to save myself a car trip!
EPA to Texas environmental regulators: We’re stepping in
Writing for the San Antonio Express-News, journalist Peggy Fikac reports that the Environmental Protection Agency is taking over clean air permitting for a refinery in Corpus Christi and it may do the same for 39 other polluting facilities across Texas. The EPA says the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has not effectively permitted the facilities to comply with the clean air act. Al Armendariz, an EPA regional administrator says, “The action we’re taking today, together with the 40 objections, is unprecedented.”
One main point of contention is the state’s use of a so-called flexible permit, which sets an air emissions cap for an entire facility but allows leeway for various units within that facility. Regulators and environmental groups say that hinders enforcement of clean-air rules, and Armendariz said that type of permit never has been federally approved.
The EPA also objects to a process that allows a facility to make changes without going through a formal permitting process, meaning the public and the federal government are left in the dark, Armendariz said.
In addition, the federal agency wants all requirements to be detailed within a permit, rather than just having a reference to where the requirements can be found, he said.
This is pretty shocking! The story indicates that some environmental justice groups may have contacted the EPA about the permits in question. A spokesman from a business group says the companies are “aghast,” and a statement from the TCEQ says the agency has “differences of opinion” but will continue working with the EPA for “protection of the environment and public health.”
According to the story:
“I didn’t start my job with an agenda to become the permit-issuing authority for the state of Texas, but some agency has to be,” Armendariz said. “If the state of Texas won’t do it, then I have the legal obligation to assume that role.”
Graphic explains “top kill” approach to plugging Gulf oil well
About 35 seconds into this video by the New York Times, there’s a good animated graphic that explains what BP is doing today to try to plug the exploded oil well in the Gulf of Mexico.
Video by New York Times explains "top kill" method to plug well.
Neo-Mammaw-ism
Renee Studebaker, a columnist for my local newspaper, has a cool article today highlighting some new cookbooks all centered around the principals of eating local from farmers’ markets or backyard gardens.
I’m thinking some of today’s major food trends (eating local, backyard vegetable gardens, sustainability, seasonality and frugality) could be lumped together under one name – neo-Mammaw-ism.
Well, whatever we call it, I’m glad that so many chefs, foodies, gardeners and home and garden magazines are putting out new cookbooks on how to “cook local” – from the backyard garden, from the farmers’ market, and from the community-supported agriculture. They’re making it a lot easier for home cooks to come up with fresh ideas for cooking fresh local produce.
Renee reviewed four new sustainable cookbooks and tried some recipes in the books.
- Eating Local: The Cookbook Inspired by America’s Farmers
by Sur La Table with Janet Fletcher, Andrews McMeel Publishing - “Cooking Light Cooking with the Seasons: An Everyday Guide to Enjoying the Freshest Food,” Oxmoor House
- Cooking from the Garden: Best Recipes from Kitchen Gardener
edited by Ruth Lively, Taunton Press - Edible: A Celebration of Local Foods
by Tracey Ryder and Carole Topalian, Wiley
MyCar electric 2-seater for $13,000
British International Motor Show 2008
This funny little electric car could be yours for as low as $13,000 after an American company, GreenTech Automotive, bought it out from a Chinese company recently.
… the MyCar is an electric two-seater that GreenTech Automotive aims to roll out stateside in 2011.
Maxing out at 40 miles per hour, the MyCar is what’s called a neighborhood electric vehicle, or NEV and is not meant for highway driving.
NYTimes: “Several things clear” about oil spill
The New York Times has a story today about widespread anger from coastal residents as they watch their hometowns become slathered with oil, ruining future prospects of work and normal life in general. This one paragraph, summarizing the major lessons learned from this disaster.
Several things have become clear over the past month. Neither BP nor the government was prepared for an oil release of this size or at this depth. The federal Minerals Management Service, charged with overseeing offshore oil development, has for too long served as a handmaiden of industry. Laws governing deepwater drilling have fallen far behind the technology and the attendant risks. And no one can estimate the extent of the economic and environmental damage, or how long it will last.
Also, make sure to check out the Times’ photo slideshow of the oil making landfall.
This next article made me mumble, “Jesus Christ!”
Federal regulators responsible for oversight of drilling in the Gulf of Mexico allowed industry officials several years ago to fill in their own inspection reports in pencil — and then turned them over to the regulators, who traced over them in pen before submitting the reports to the agency, according to an inspector general’s report to be released this week.
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