A really scary Halloween feature

Image by Tattooed JJ via Flickr

UPDATE II: a REAL scary interview here: The Case for Deflation.

Original post: Short version of "The Crash Course." Well worth a look.

UPDATE: Bill Moyers interviews James Galbraith, son of John Kenneth Galbraith, and one of the few economists who saw through all the "magic of the market" nonsense. It's so good you have to read the whole thing over there. I couldn't find one section that stood out enough to quote separately. The whole thing is outstanding.

Cut Crime: Plant more trees and gardens

A crime-reduction tool. Image by AF-Photography via Flickr

The smart-on-crime strategy: Less paving, more planting:

Planting gardens and parks in neighbourhoods reduces vandalism, graffiti, litter and yobbish activity, research has revealed.

Even in the roughest inner-city estates, those living near gardens, parks and green spaces tend to be better behaved, healthier and live longer than those in 'urban deserts', the study found.

Professor Frances Kuo, who did the research, said being close to greenery was 'essential to our physical, psychological and social well-being'.

Tree friendly: People living near green spaces such as Hyde Park in London (pictured), are less likely to commit crime

'The relationship between crime and vegetation is very clear - the more trees, the fewer crimes,' she said.

'It actually encourages people to use the spaces outside their homes which provides a natural form of surveillance.

'In fact, the data seem to indicate that if you have a landscape where you introduce well-maintained trees and grass, people will find that a safer environment.'

Professor Kuo studied some of the poorest districts of Chicago and demonstrated that crime in neighbourhoods with trees was lower - by as much as 7 per cent - compared with those without a view of greenery, even after factors such as income and education were taken into account.

The University of Illinois professor has carried out extensive research since the mid-1990s showing the benefits of green spaces.

Last Call for Salem Saturday Market 2009!

This is the LAST CHANCE to enjoy the Salem Saturday Market in 2009! Image by NatalieMaynor via Flickr

Don't miss it!

Hi Friends!

Saturday, Oct. 31, is the last day of the Salem Saturday Market for 2009!

Friends of Salem Saturday Market will be there holding a yard sale at our booth ~ our first big fundraiser. Swing by our booth on the northwest side of the Market to see the great stuff we’ve got for sale, at ridiculously affordable prices.

The money we raise Saturday will help get us through the winter months. Although the Market may be finished, our activities and events certainly are not! FSSM is a year-round organization, and we want to keep the momentum going that we’ve gained all summer. So come take a look at our booth, see what we’ve got for sale, or just say hi. We’ll miss seeing all of our great members & supporters every week!

We’re not the only ones with good deals Saturday ~ a lot of the vendors will be selling garage-sale items, too. You’ll find even more great stuff than usual!

Bring the kids, too, for trick-or-treating and a costume contest. There’s even a costume contest for dogs!

We hope to see you you down there – rain or shine! – to bid farewell to a wonderful Market season!

Oh, snap! Another U. Chicago prof. demolishes "Superfreakonomics" idiocy

Steven Levitt, your stool awaits you. Image by Candie_N via Flickr

A truly inspiring, thoughtful, and careful demolition of the superficial, wrongheadedness that permeates the "Superfreakonomics" chapter on the supposed "global cooling."

Upcoming: Trilogy Celtic Trio

Camerata Musica
Trilogy Celtic Trio
2:30 p.m. Sunday, November 8
Loucks Auditorium (Salem Public Library)

Trilogy Celtic Trio (affectionately known as “the three Lauras”) weaves a musical tapestry of misty remembrances, far-away places, and a foot-stompin’ good time when they bring their harp, voice and fiddle to town. Trilogy is a collaboration among Celtic harpist Laura Zaerr, vocalist Laura Berryhill and fiddler Laurie Goren.

Inspired by respect for tradition and tempered with an enthusiasm for new horizons, the group draws from Scottish and Irish sources, presenting innovative arrangements with innate graciousness and integrity. Audiences are encouraged to arrive on time for the 2:30 p.m. concerts. Late-comers will only be seated between pieces.

Admission is free and open to the public. The series is supported by a grant from the Salem Foundation and contributions from patrons. More information is available at the Camerata Musica website, www.cameratamusica.org, or by phone from George Struble, 503-364-3929.

ADDENDUM: Boy, it's feast or famine isn't it? That's the same day that Cherryholmes plays at the Elsinore. Bluegrass is an offshoot of the Scots-Irish tradition, so some of the music might well sound familiar at either show.

The Carbon Footprint of War (The Progressive, Oct. 2009)

A war fought for oil is going to make oil impossibly high-priced, in a world where simply living will become harder for billions of people. Image via Wikipedia

. . . The U.S. armed forces consume about 14 million gallons of oil per day, half of it in jet fuel. Humvees average 4 miles per gallon, while an Apache helicopter gets half a mile per gallon. The Iraq War, which George W. Bush launched in part to protect vital oil supplies, consumed oil at a phenomenal rate. . . .

U.S. forces in Iraq during 2007 consumed 40,000 barrels of oil a day, all of which was transported into the war zone from other countries. The U.S. Air Force uses 2.6 billion gallons of jet fuel a year, 10 percent of the U.S. domestic market.

By the end of 2007, according to a report from Oil Change International by Nikki Reisch and Steve Kretzmann, the Iraq War had put at least 141 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent into the air, as much as adding twenty-five million cars to the roads. The Iraq War by itself added more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than 60 percent of the world's nations. . . .

The mechanization of the military provided many more opportunities to increase carbon dioxide production during the world wars of the early twentieth century. World War II's Sherman tank, for example, got 0.8 miles per gallon. Seventy-five years later, tank mileage had not improved: the 68-ton Abrams Tank got 0.5 miles per gallon. Fighter jets' typical subsonic fuel consumption is 300 to 400 gallons per hour at full thrust (or 100 gallons per hour at cruising speed) during hundreds of hours' training, or combat missions. Blasting to supersonic speed on its afterburners, an F-15 Fighter can burn as much as four gallons of fuel per second.

During the 1950s and 1960s, U.S. B-52s were in the air at all times, on the theory that an airborne fleet would prevent the Soviet Union from obliterating the entire U.S. nuclear armed armada on the ground. Each of these B-52s burned hundreds of gallons of fossil fuel per hour while aloft. The B-52 Stratocruiser, with eight jet engines, consumes 500 gallons of jet fuel per minute, or 3,000 per hour. In a few minutes, a B-52 consumes what an average automobile driver uses in a year.

What I'd like to know is, how many years of riding a bike to work would it take for me to offset one F-15 flying for an hour? Assuming that my bike replaces a car that gets 25 miles per gallon, my daily commute of five miles would use a gallon a week. That's nearly seven years to fuel a fighter jet at top thrust for one hour.

We don't have that kind of time. Thermal inertia delivers the results of atmospheric change roughly a half century after our burning of fossil fuels provokes them. The weather today is reacting to greenhouse gas emissions from about 1960. Since then, the world's emissions have risen roughly 400 percent. The Cold War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Iraq War, and the Afghanistan War have all played their part. But we haven't even felt their full environmental effects yet. . . .

Global warming has already accelerated beyond even the predictions of pessimistic scientists. The polar ice caps are dissolving and the permafrost is melting, injecting more carbon dioxide and methane into the air. And as the ice caps melt, the sun reflects off the dark water instead of the white snow, and the atmosphere heats all the faster. This summer, large swaths of tundra have been burning, adding still more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Before the hot wind blows in our face, we need to recognize the environmental insanity of war.

The Pentagon wants to go "green," though—and not only with its light bulbs. It is also using solar energy at some of its bases, and is even trying to manufacture a synthetic fuel for the B-1 bomber. But we don't need a "green" military with high-mileage tanks, or bombers flying on biofuel. Anyway, war, for the foreseeable future, will depend largely on fossil fuels. As the Pentagon now tells us, we have no national security without climate security. War has become the ultimate environmental oxymoron.

Instead, we need to address the reasons countries and groups go to war: nationalism, religious fanaticism, tribalism, poverty—and scarcity of resources, like oil. And we can't do that by consuming that oil in spasms of nationalism.

Peacemakers are often assumed to be naive dreamers. Given the environmental circumstances, however, a timely end to war is not naive, but necessary. The Earth can no longer afford war.

A fun, important idea

Death Match: Wind Turbines vs Climate Disruption as Cause of Species Mortality

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Overstated headline at original post -- wind turbines do get a few birds (and some bats as well, even more disturbingly and much more importantly) but the gist is right -- compared to the broad species decline that rapid climate disruption is already causing, wind turbines aren't even on the same scale.

AMENDATION:

By far, the largest causes of mortality among birds include loss of habitat due to human infringement, environmental despoliation, and collisions with man-made objects. Since wind turbines fall into the last category, it is worthwhile to examine other human causes of avian deaths and compare these to mortality from wind turbines.

Avian Deaths caused by….

Utility transmission and distribution lines, the backbone of our electrical power system, are responsible for 130 to 174 million bird deaths a year in the U.S.1 Many of the affected birds are those with large wingspans, including raptors and waterfowl. While attempting to land on power lines and poles, birds are sometimes electrocuted when their wings span between two hot wires. Many other birds are killed as their flight paths intersect the power lines strung between poles and towers. One report states that: "for some types of birds, power line collisions appear to be a significant source of mortality."2

Collisions with automobiles and trucks result in the deaths of between 60 and 80 million birds annually in the U.S.3 As more vehicles share the roadway, and our automotive society becomes more pervasive, these numbers will only increase. Our dependence on oil has taken its toll on birds too. Even the relatively high incidence of bird kills at Altamont Pass (about 92 per year) pales in comparison to the number of birds killed from the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. In fact, according to author Paul Gipe, the Altamont Pass wind farm would have to operate for 500 to 1000 years to "achieve" the same mortality level as the Exxon Valdez event in 1989.

Tall building and residential house windows also claim their share of birds. Some of the five million tall buildings in U.S. cities have been documented as being a chronic mortality problem for migrating birds. There are more than 100 million houses in the U.S. House windows are more of a problem for birds in rural areas than in cities or towns. While there are no required ongoing studies of bird mortality due to buildings or house windows, the best estimates put the toll due collisions with these structures at between 100 million and a staggering 1 billion deaths annually.4

Lighted communication towers turn out to be one of the more serious problems for birds, especially for migratory species that fly at night. One study began its conclusion with, "It is apparent from the analysis of the data that significant numbers of birds are dying in collisions with communications towers, their guy wires, and related structures."5 Another report states, "The main environmental problem we are watching out for with telecommunication towers are the deaths of birds and bats."6

This is not news, as bird collisions with lighted television and radio towers have been documented for over 50 years. Some towers are responsible for very high episodic fatalities. One television transmitter tower in Eau Claire, WI, was responsible for the deaths of over 1,000 birds on each of 24 consecutive nights. A "record 30,000 birds were estimated killed on one night" at this same tower.7 In Kansas, 10,000 birds were killed in one night by a telecommunications tower.8 Numerous large bird kills, while not as dramatic as the examples cited above, continue to occur across the country at telecommunication tower sites.

The number of telecommunication towers in the U.S. currently exceeds 77,000, and this number could easily double by 2010. The rush to construction is being driven mainly by our use of cell phones, and to a lesser extent by the impending switch to digital television and radio. Current mortality estimates due to telecommunication towers are 40 to 50 million birds per year.9 The proliferation of these towers in the near future will only exacerbate this situation.

Agricultural pesticides are "conservatively estimated" to directly kill 67 million birds per year.10 These numbers do not account for avian mortality associated with other pesticide applications, such as on golf courses. Nor do they take into consideration secondary losses due to pesticide use as these toxic chemicals travel up the food chain. This includes poisoning due to birds ingesting sprayed insects, the intended target of the pesticides.

Cats, both feral and housecats, also take their toll on birds. A Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) report states that, "recent research suggests that rural free-ranging domestic cats in Wisconsin may be killing between 8 and 217 million birds each year. The most reasonable estimates indicate that 39 million birds are killed in the state each year."11

There are other studies on the impacts of jet engines, smoke stacks, bridges, and any number of other human structures and activities that threaten birds on a daily basis. Together, human infrastructure and industrial activities are responsible for one to four million bird deaths per day! . . .

The National Wind Coordinating Committee (NWCC) completed a comparison of wind farm avian mortality with bird mortality caused by other man-made structures in the U.S.

The NWCC did not conduct its own study, but analyzed all of the research done to date on various causes of avian mortality, including commercial wind farm turbines. They report that "data collected outside California indicate an average of 1.83 avian fatalities per turbine (for all species combined), and 0.006 raptor fatalities per turbine per year. Based on current projections of 3,500 operational wind turbines in the US by the end of 2001, excluding California, the total annual mortality was estimated at approximately 6,400 bird fatalities per year for all species combined."13

This report states that its intent is to "put avian mortality associated with windpower development into perspective with other significant sources of avian collision mortality across the United States."14 The NWCC reports that: "Based on current estimates, windplant related avian collision fatalities probably represent from 0.01% to 0.02% (i.e., 1 out of every 5,000 to 10,000) of the annual avian collision fatalities in the United States."15 That is, commercial wind turbines cause the direct deaths of only 0.01% to 0.02% of all of the birds killed by collisions with man-made structures and activities in the U.S.

(Footnotes from original.)

Oregon's filthy secret is Salem's too

Note that the head of Salem's Willamette University, M. Lee Pelton, sits on PGE's board and supports continuing and increasing the use of coal even as his university touts its sustainability initiatives, never mentioning that 40% of the electricity powering the campus is from coal, the methamphetamine of the energy world.

Despite Green Dreams, Oregon Is Fueled by 40 Percent Dirty Coal

WHILE PORTLAND'S high-profile green innovations are helping the city's image become synonymous with sustainability (see: condo developers topping their downtown towers with wind turbines) the city runs on a dirty secret. Forty percent of [SALEM'S] energy comes from a very un-green source: coal. . . .

The Boardman coal plant in Eastern Oregon releases tens of thousands of tons of toxic chemicals into the air annually, including five million tons of carbon dioxide (as much as nearly one million cars). The Sierra Club is part of a coalition that's currently suing the plant in federal court for allegedly violating the Clean Air Act.

With the background noise of bongos and tribal chanting filling Pioneer Courthouse Square on Saturday, PGE representatives hyped the company's clean wind and biomass energy programs. But altogether those earth-friendly energy sources make up only four percent of PGE's power. In a draft of the company's new two-year plan released last month, PGE promotes energy efficiency—but also says it will increase its reliance on coal. . . .

PGE spokesman Steve Corson says if the company switched from coal, it would need to rely more on natural gas. "That would leave us vulnerable to natural gas price hikes," says Corson, explaining that power rates might increase. PGE is currently planning to keep Boardman open until at least 2040 after installing the environmental upgrades. Critics say the threat of a rate increase is off base when PGE's departing CEO Peggy Fowler got a $4.5 million severance package last year.

Don't be in the dark on bike safety (via Recumbent Blog)

This is a person greatly increasing the risk of being killed or crippled by a car -- no lights and no helmet, a deadly duo. Image by ItzaFineDay via Flickr

This quote from WashCycle makes you stop and think…

"While only three percent of bike rides happen at night, over half of all cyclists killed are hit while riding at night without lights. . . .