You'd think that the lawyer's inability to spell Delaware in the initial filing (found burried on PaeTec's website) would have been an indication of the merits of the case. It was apparently more than just a typo -- it's spelled that way in points 1 and 2. I mean really, if you're going to be writing legal documents you can at least run a spell check first.
Ok, so people seem to have latched onto the idea of global warming and are just trying to discredit that. If you look at any recent scientific literature, you find that the term used is no longer global warming, but global climate change. It's much more accurate, since the effect of raising CO2 levels isn't necessarily a uniform warming effect. A number of places may actually end up colder than now if it disrupts ocean currents (especially places like Europe). And more importantly, higher CO2 levels will cause more extreme fluctuations in global temperatures.
Nobody is going to refute the idea that we'll eventually hit another ice age. The planet's mean temperature has been fluctuating since it first formed. That happens on much longer scales than are being discussed with global climate change. The transition to an ice age (cooling seems to happen more slowly than warming, based on archaeological evidence) happens over an extended period of time; human-induced climate change will occur much more quickly. And because it can happen faster than species can adapt, it's a problem even just to accelerate an otherwise natural cycle.
If you look at any credible source, including studies commissioned by the current US administration which would love to find that global climate change isn't happening, you find that there's near unanimity. Anyone who is trying to tell you global climate change isn't either happening or going to happen given the current situation is just flat out wrong. Rather than just looking at studies by generic *ologists, I'd suggest looking at sources by people who specialize in the environment. People who had rejected the idea of global warming until fairly recently have accepted that it's happening and are instead trying to say we don't need to worry about mitigation right now (see overview of study here [rff.org]). Of course, Mendelsohn's model, by his own admission, doesn't taken into account any externalities which is a serious weakness of it (that and when he gave a talk on campus a couple weeks ago, he ended up using circular logic to answer one of my questions about his results.. oops.)
Since the Earth will be getting warmer, maybe it'll act like a fever and kill the biological agents. And of course when the planet gets warmer, the robots will have even more trouble keeping their internal temperature down. In fact, maybe we should consider increasing CO2 levels to keep us safe from the other dangers...
I cringed when I saw the line that these batteries are environmentally safe. Sure, the actual batter might be, and the manufacturing processes might be as well. But encouraging people to use lots of short-lived, nonbiodegradeable devices and then toss them out sure isn't! And that ignores whether the rest of the products they're encouraging people to (eventually) use these in are environmentally friendly.
In Bush's speech on Sept 11, ge referred to the US as the world's brightest beacon of freedom, and said that we would keep that light shining. Nadine Stroussen, ACLU president, was speaking on campus here about a week ago and mentioned that line, saying she and the ACLU were working with Bush to make sure he kept that promise.
Basically, now is when it's most important to have groups like the ACLU. Like most liberal groups, they're being attacked as unpatriotic, but considering we have cases like Korematsu on the books and not overturned, having groups that will watch out for violations of our rights and raise public awareness is important.
And it's not like it's only leftist groups fighting for these thigns, either. The article in the post didn't mention things like the Alien or Sedition Acts, but some of the languge in the bill Ashcroft is trying to ram through congress. There was a coalition of groups from the ACLU and gay rights organizatons to the NRA and anti-aborition activists all united in opposition, saying that we can find ways to protect the security of citizens *without* depriving them of rights.
First off, the other nations of the world with a higher standard of living than the US also resent the nation. That can hardly be attributed to envy of the US's prosperity. The rest of the world resents that the US acts as if the world revolves around it and everything else is secondary.
As for the environement. It's all just a bunch of scare tactics, right? Well, if you listen to ultra right-wing groups such as capitalismmagaize.com and aynrand.org, perhaps, since it's in their own best interest to promote their ideology which says you shouldn't inconvenience yourself for the benefit of anyone else. Similarly, a story about the severity of global warming from a group like Earth First! wouldn't carry much weight, either, even though they can quote plenty of studies themselves.
So is it just a bunch of scare tactics? We have hard data showing that people definitely have a significant impact on the local climate -- think urban heat islands. Is it possible that in doing so, the local climate can have such a huge effect without impacting the larger world? Not really. There aren't ecosystems that large that exist in complete isolation.
Many people have claimed that carbon sinks, largely in the form of forests, would be more than enough to counter the effect of increase carbon dioxide emissions. The Kyoto Protocol placed significant emphasis on forests for that purpose. Unfortunately for that view, researchers at Duke released the results of a study showing that while the growth rate of plants showed significant initial increases, it slowed dramatically within a couple years (see the last couple paragraphs). What's the implication? That we'd need to constantly be planting forests. And of course since they'd absorbed the carbon we couldn't cut them down since that'd end up releasing the carbon back to the atmosphere. Actually, it isn't known how much of the carbon the trees actuall keep as opposed to storing in short-lived organs like leaves which fall off, decay, and release the carbon back into the environment (see the infor about this ongoing Harvard study). And if you want to know more about the group that did the research for Duke and is conducting related studies, their homepage is here.
Finally, as for the idea that "our president has stood up for his belief that environmentalism, when carried to the extreme, is very unhealthy for everybody"... Well, if you cut through the political commentary in this column you find out that Bush's own ranch has gone to great lengths to be environmentally sensitive. So much for his politics reflecting his actual beliefs.
Since I'm out of the state at school, I emailed home a couple days ago to ask how exactly the whole problem related to the semi-deregulated power industry at home.. Rather than try to summarize it, here's the reply I got:
The main problem "is" due to the semi-privatization but only because of the way it was handled. They broke the production and delivery into three parts instead of having a vertical structure within the process (e.g., Edison produced and distributed the product). Now one entity produces the product, one entity arbitrages the supply and a third entity distributes the product. BTW all three parts might be the same company, but it is 3 different arms handling each segment. It is the inclusion of the middle arm (arbitrage) which is causing all the problems.
The arbitrageurs will sell the product to the highest bidder after tacking on some profit for themselves. Therefore, competing distributors are driving the price up in order to get their needed supply. They are also bringing in higher priced power from outside California, adding to the problem.
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You'd think that the lawyer's inability to spell Delaware in the initial filing (found burried on PaeTec's website) would have been an indication of the merits of the case. It was apparently more than just a typo -- it's spelled that way in points 1 and 2. I mean really, if you're going to be writing legal documents you can at least run a spell check first.
Nobody is going to refute the idea that we'll eventually hit another ice age. The planet's mean temperature has been fluctuating since it first formed. That happens on much longer scales than are being discussed with global climate change. The transition to an ice age (cooling seems to happen more slowly than warming, based on archaeological evidence) happens over an extended period of time; human-induced climate change will occur much more quickly. And because it can happen faster than species can adapt, it's a problem even just to accelerate an otherwise natural cycle.
If you look at any credible source, including studies commissioned by the current US administration which would love to find that global climate change isn't happening, you find that there's near unanimity. Anyone who is trying to tell you global climate change isn't either happening or going to happen given the current situation is just flat out wrong. Rather than just looking at studies by generic *ologists, I'd suggest looking at sources by people who specialize in the environment. People who had rejected the idea of global warming until fairly recently have accepted that it's happening and are instead trying to say we don't need to worry about mitigation right now (see overview of study here [rff.org]). Of course, Mendelsohn's model, by his own admission, doesn't taken into account any externalities which is a serious weakness of it (that and when he gave a talk on campus a couple weeks ago, he ended up using circular logic to answer one of my questions about his results.. oops.)
Since the Earth will be getting warmer, maybe it'll act like a fever and kill the biological agents. And of course when the planet gets warmer, the robots will have even more trouble keeping their internal temperature down. In fact, maybe we should consider increasing CO2 levels to keep us safe from the other dangers...
I cringed when I saw the line that these batteries are environmentally safe. Sure, the actual batter might be, and the manufacturing processes might be as well. But encouraging people to use lots of short-lived, nonbiodegradeable devices and then toss them out sure isn't! And that ignores whether the rest of the products they're encouraging people to (eventually) use these in are environmentally friendly.
Basically, now is when it's most important to have groups like the ACLU. Like most liberal groups, they're being attacked as unpatriotic, but considering we have cases like Korematsu on the books and not overturned, having groups that will watch out for violations of our rights and raise public awareness is important.
And it's not like it's only leftist groups fighting for these thigns, either. The article in the post didn't mention things like the Alien or Sedition Acts, but some of the languge in the bill Ashcroft is trying to ram through congress. There was a coalition of groups from the ACLU and gay rights organizatons to the NRA and anti-aborition activists all united in opposition, saying that we can find ways to protect the security of citizens *without* depriving them of rights.
As for the environement. It's all just a bunch of scare tactics, right? Well, if you listen to ultra right-wing groups such as capitalismmagaize.com and aynrand.org, perhaps, since it's in their own best interest to promote their ideology which says you shouldn't inconvenience yourself for the benefit of anyone else. Similarly, a story about the severity of global warming from a group like Earth First! wouldn't carry much weight, either, even though they can quote plenty of studies themselves.
So is it just a bunch of scare tactics? We have hard data showing that people definitely have a significant impact on the local climate -- think urban heat islands. Is it possible that in doing so, the local climate can have such a huge effect without impacting the larger world? Not really. There aren't ecosystems that large that exist in complete isolation.
Many people have claimed that carbon sinks, largely in the form of forests, would be more than enough to counter the effect of increase carbon dioxide emissions. The Kyoto Protocol placed significant emphasis on forests for that purpose. Unfortunately for that view, researchers at Duke released the results of a study showing that while the growth rate of plants showed significant initial increases, it slowed dramatically within a couple years (see the last couple paragraphs). What's the implication? That we'd need to constantly be planting forests. And of course since they'd absorbed the carbon we couldn't cut them down since that'd end up releasing the carbon back to the atmosphere. Actually, it isn't known how much of the carbon the trees actuall keep as opposed to storing in short-lived organs like leaves which fall off, decay, and release the carbon back into the environment (see the infor about this ongoing Harvard study). And if you want to know more about the group that did the research for Duke and is conducting related studies, their homepage is here.
Finally, as for the idea that "our president has stood up for his belief that environmentalism, when carried to the extreme, is very unhealthy for everybody"... Well, if you cut through the political commentary in this column you find out that Bush's own ranch has gone to great lengths to be environmentally sensitive. So much for his politics reflecting his actual beliefs.
The main problem "is" due to the semi-privatization but only because of the way it was handled. They broke the production and delivery into three parts instead of having a vertical structure within the process (e.g., Edison produced and distributed the product). Now one entity produces the product, one entity arbitrages the supply and a third entity distributes the product. BTW all three parts might be the same company, but it is 3 different arms handling each segment. It is the inclusion of the middle arm (arbitrage) which is causing all the problems.
The arbitrageurs will sell the product to the highest bidder after tacking on some profit for themselves. Therefore, competing distributors are driving the price up in order to get their needed supply. They are also bringing in higher priced power from outside California, adding to the problem.