Quote of the Day -- On Living

With Mr. Trump soon to be in office, and the Republicans in control of Congress in Washington and 32 of the 50 statehouses, we'll have to lean heavily on the "hate tyrants" part.

Have a great day, y'all and keep warm.

Elevating economics above the biosphere... ourselves

New York City imitates Kansas City, for once

They now want to tear down their airport, too.

Final push to save landmark 'flying saucer’ terminal

Southwest Airlines---expands??

Yessiree, I read it just this afternoon on none other than our own Kansas City International Airport's Facebook page:

Southwest Airlines restarted service to Oakland and Seattle-Tacoma this week. Book your flight to the West coast soon!

Imagine that.  And we didn't even have to tear down a terminal to get it.

Link:  http://www.facebook.com/Southwest?fref=ts

"Hell to pay" in Kansas and the plains states

The New York Times ran an important article today (one more), this time on the Great Plains overall but Kansas, in specific, and how our water aquifers below ground are running dry:

Wells Dry, Fertile Plains Turn to Dust

Just a bit from the article:

HASKELL COUNTY, Kan. — Forty-nine years ago, Ashley Yost’s grandfather sank a well deep into a half-mile square of rich Kansas farmland. He struck an artery of water so prodigious that he could pump 1,600 gallons to the surface every minute.

Last year, Mr. Yost was coaxing just 300 gallons from the earth, and pumping up sand in order to do it. By harvest time, the grit had robbed him of $20,000 worth of pumps and any hope of returning to the bumper harvests of years past.

“That’s prime land,” he said not long ago, gesturing from his pickup at the stubby remains of last year’s crop. “I’ve raised 294 bushels of corn an acre there before, with water and the Lord’s help.” Now, he said, “it’s over.”

...Vast stretches of Texas farmland lying over the aquifer no longer support irrigation. In west-central Kansas, up to a fifth of the irrigated farmland along a 100-mile swath of the aquifer has already gone dry. In many other places, there no longer is enough water to supply farmers’ peak needs during Kansas’ scorching summers.

And when the groundwater runs out, it is gone for good. Refilling the aquifer would require hundreds, if not thousands, of years of rains.

This is in many ways a slow-motion crisis — decades in the making, imminent for some, years or decades away for others, hitting one farm but leaving an adjacent one untouched. But across the rolling plains and tarmac-flat farmland near the Kansas-Colorado border, the effects of depletion are evident everywhere. Highway bridges span arid stream beds. Most of the creeks and rivers that once veined the land have dried up as 60 years of pumping have pulled groundwater levels down by scores and even hundreds of feet.

On some farms, big center-pivot irrigators — the spindly rigs that create the emerald circles of cropland familiar to anyone flying over the region — now are watering only a half-circle. On others, they sit idle altogether.

Two years of extreme drought, during which farmers relied almost completely on groundwater, have brought the seriousness of the problem home. In 2011 and 2012, the Kansas Geological Survey reports, the average water level in the state’s portion of the aquifer dropped 4.25 feet — nearly a third of the total decline since 1996.

And that is merely the average. “I know my staff went out and re-measured a couple of wells because they couldn’t believe it,” said Lane Letourneau, a manager at the State Agriculture Department’s water resources division. “There was a 30-foot decline.”

And as it says above, we see this coming and we've seen it coming. There have been warnings. We can't go on like this forever. It isn't, it wasn't sustainable. We can't just take and take and take.

Something's got to change.

What has struck me most about our current situation, both about drought and the 2008 financial crisis, the worst in 80 years, since the Great Depression, is that it is, in those two ways--the financial crisis and drought--so very much like those years, the 30's. That is, people hurt by both the financial crisis and the drought.

In the case of the Depression, it was all man-made.

Turns out, really, it could be argued this one is, too.

As if that isn't enough, Robert Reich, writing from Europe today, posts the following on Facebook:

At a time when you'd expect nations to band together to gain bargaining power against global capital, the opposite is occurring: Xenophobia is breaking out all over. 

Here in Britain, the UK Independence Party -- which wants to get out of the European Union -- is rapidly gaining ground, becoming the third most popular party in the country, according to a new poll for The Independent on Sunday. Almost one in five people plan to vote for it in the next general election. Ukip's overall ratings have risen four points to 19 per cent in the past month, despite Prime Minister David Cameron's efforts to wrest back control of the crucial debate over Britain's relationship with the European Union. 

Right-wing nationalist parties are gaining ground elsewhere in Europe as well. In the U.S., not only are Republicans sounding more nationalistic of late (anti-immigrant, anti-trade), but they continue to push "states rights" -- as states increasingly battle against one another to give global companies ever larger tax breaks and subsidies. 

WWIII, anybody?

One last thing from Facebook today that wraps this all up:

Anyone care yet?

Additional link: 

When the Wells Go Dry in the Great Plains

How you can help Save KCI

We will have volunteers out this weekend at the Cosentinos and/or Price Chopper in Brookside collecting signatures if you would like to sign. 

If you would like to help and take a shift collecting signatures even better! 

To sign you must be a registered voter in Kansas City, MO. 

If you want to volunteer it doesn’t matter where you live, your help is needed and appreciated. 

To volunteer for this weekend or any other shift please contact friendsofkci@gmail.com and our volunteer coordinator will get back with you.

Another Star reader/writer gets it right about our airport

This was in the Kansas City Star in a letter to the Editor today:

Screwy KCI logic

The Kansas City Star editorial board has reached new heights (or plumbed new depths) of inanity (5-6, Editorial, “A KCI good for travelers, environment”). Editorial board members have become so used to echoing government talking points that they have stopped thinking about how foolish they sound.

They would have us believe that the solution to long lines at security checkpoints at Kansas City International Airport is to have longer lines.

Someone would benefit from building a new airport, probably the consultants, the contractors and the airlines, but certainly not the public.

William Nowack
Leawood

Thank you, Mr. Nowack.  You're so right. Link to original post: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/05/08/4224946/kci-logic-violence-president-obama.html

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/05/08/4224946/kci-logic-violence-president-obama.html#storylink=cpy

The latest Star article on a new airport

Yes, there's a new article in the Star on the Airport Authority's desire for a new airport:

Political turbulence rattles plans for a single-terminal KCI

What gets me, though, and I keep saying it, is why--why--is no one talking about or suggesting we update the existing facility?

Why?

I know "new' is sexy, especially in this land we call America but can we stop throwing away whole buildings?

Should we not, can we not update and innovate and not throw these things in the trash dumps? Can we not improve and in the meantime, save?

Doesn't that make sense?  In so many ways?

I find it extremely difficult to believe that any environmental study that's done on this new airport proposal could come to any conclusion but that updating and renovating and innovating the existing buildings is the absolute best way to go, and in a few different ways, not the least of which is cost.

On a new airport--this bears repeating

Thanks to a article in The Kansas City Star in an "As I See It" column and to our Missouri Representative Sam Graves, we got a bit of common sense and intelligence on the idea of a new airport:

KC's airport doesn't need 'fixing'

The City Council recently gave the go-ahead to study a proposed new airport.

As I have written in this paper before, I am a fan of the current three-terminal design, as are the majority of Kansas Citians.
  A recent poll found that 70 percent of local residents favor keeping KCI as is.

The fact of the matter is, it’s a convenient and accessible airport for visitors and residents alike and it has been ranked among the top five airports in the country on a consistent basis by J.D. Power and Associates, including as the highest-rated medium-size airport.

There are a number of reasons to maintain the current KCI, from the ease of use for customers to the effectiveness of the multi-checkpoint security screening.

But the biggest reason may be the price tag of building a new airport.

The current estimate, which may still rise, is $1.2 billion. In the last decade and a half, $250 million has already gone into renovating the current airport.

That investment — equal to more than one-fifth of the cost of building a new airport — will have gone to waste with a new terminal.

It appears the city is planning to pursue federal funding for part of the project, and that inevitably means some Washington bureaucrats who don’t appreciate how we feel about the convenience of the current layout will attach strings to that money. Federal funding would also only cover a fraction of the cost of constructing the new airport.

The remainder would likely come from bonds, which the public would need to approve.

Those proposing a new terminal suggest that taxpayers won’t be stuck with the bill for the portion that Washington doesn’t cover, and that citizens will be completely immune from debt associated with the project.

But the bonds would be paid back through ticket prices, higher fees, and taxing the food and drink you buy at the airport. So if you use KCI, you’ll be paying more anyway.

The Federal Aviation Administration requires airports to file a new master plan every 10 years, and as the result of legislation I got passed last year, they must take customer convenience into account when planning for the future.

We’re just five years away from a new master plan, and at that time we can assess how best to move forward.

Even if the one-terminal proposal were approved this year, it is highly unlikely the new airport would be up and running in that time frame anyway. Additionally, the city’s Aviation Department has already made clear its intention to close Terminal A later this year.

This will help the airport save costs, particularly on security and baggage handling.

It may also be the answer to improving KCI, rather than building an entirely new terminal.

Let’s see what the coming years bring before rushing to build a costly new facility that won’t guarantee the same comforts we enjoy now.

Washington is full of people willing to spend millions of dollars to fix something that isn’t broken or to dismantle something convenient and practical. We can’t let Kansas City join them.

The fact is, besides being expensive, at a minimum cost of $1.2 billion dollars, it would also be environmentally irresponsible, throwing away, as it would be, at least 3 buildings, in essence.

My big question is, why is no one proposing updating and innovating the existing group of buildings? It makes no sense not to. Clearly it's not falling down. None of the buildings are. Heck, they haven't been there that long.

Let's do updated, extremely efficient heating and cooling and modernize that so there are cost efficiencies and savings there. Let's add some solar energy possibly. The advancements with that technology lately has been great. We should at least look into it. It makes too much sense.

It seems the Airport Authority got this "jones" for a new airport and they want to shove it down our throats, as though it's the only option.

And as though it's either cheap, wise or someone else will pay for it.

I say and propose again, some architect or architects need to look into making the existing terminal B the main, unloading, security terminal and then having walkways out to terminals A and C, for our gates. Problems and issues likely solved, I think. Then we don't have to tear down the existing and still have plenty of gates.

Link to original article: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/04/16/4185642/kcs-airport-doesnt-need-fixing.html#storylink=cpy#storylink=cpy  

Other links:   http://www.savekci.com/congressman-sam-graves-adds-a-rational-voice-to-the-conversation/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SaveKCI+(SAVE+KCI+!)  

Join the cause here:   http://www.savekci.com

 https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/SaveKCI?fref=ts

Quote of the day

"It makes no sense to elevate economics above the biosphere."

--Dr. David Suzuki

Links: http://www.davidsuzuki.org/david/

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Suzuki

July heat records across the country

Fact: More than 4,300 daily high-temperature records were tied or broken across the United States in July.

Republicans and Libertarians: You really want to do away with the EPA?

For any Republican or Libertarian or anyone else in America who think it is or would be a great idea to do away with the Environmental Protection Agency--the EPA--or who think there's too much "red tape" from the EPA, I just have to ask if they want us to be like China.

The above situation, announced today and going on now in China, is just one more example of what a nation and an economy is like and would be like if we don't have protections from corporations, especially, so we have and keep cleaner water, air and soil.

A little from the article (link at bottom):

"Young and old residents of the Chinese metropolis of Wuhan were advised to stay indoors on Monday after a thick haze blanketed the city of nine million people, official media said.

Described by residents as opaque with yellowish and greenish tinges, the fug descended suddenly in the morning, prompting people to rush to put on face masks, witnesses told AFP."



"The official Xinhua news agency quoted the environmental protection department of Hubei province saying in a statement: "Children, the elderly and people with heart or respiratory diseases are advised to stay indoors."

Xinhua said straw burning was the cause and denied there had been any industrial accidents in or near Wuhan, after Internet rumours suggested there had been an explosion at a chemical complex northeast of the city."

In this case, the Chinese not only have this huge problem with their air quality, they don't even know what it is or what it's from.

And that's the kind of world we want to live in?

No, no thank you, very much. I'd like to keep an effective EPA, thank you.

It reminds me of the Native American quote: "When the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned, only then will we realize that one cannot eat money."

Link: http://news.yahoo.com/chinas-wuhan-city-covered-mysterious-haze-145340073.html

Quote of the day--on the planet

"We're in a giant car, heading towards a brick wall and everyone's arguing over where they're going to sit."
--David Suzuki, Canadian environmentalist, scientist and broadcaster, b. 1936

Reminds me of the people denying climate change---or global warming or whatever they want to call it--like how we live on this planet is sustainable.

Puh--leeze.

Learning and unlearning, again and again

PBS showed an archive film clip of the late, famous and renowned economist John Kenneth Galbraith from some time ago, on economies, of course, and on housing bubbles and bursts. What he had to say was interesting.

Mr. Galbraith pointed out that there were virtually always about 20 years apart, to paraphrase him, because we never seem to learn our lessons, permanently, anyway, on housing and costs and prices and markets.

Naturally, the obvious thing to point out is that this is so unfortunate, first, and that you would think we would learn.

Sure it’s true but that’s not where I’m going with this.

Where I want to go is to say that I hope that, with the environment and our air, land and waters, as to polluting and not polluting, hopefully we will know better and permanently learn this stuff, as a people, all over the planet.

With our environment, we can’t keep “learning and unlearning” this stuff.

We have to have clean air and clean soil and clean water all the time, naturally (no pun intended), as a matter of course.

We don’t get “do-overs” on clean air or water or soil.

In order to live, we have to have these things all the time.

And we know this.

Just ask the people in China who are trying to live with filthy air or waterways.

These things are not luxuries. To repeat, we must have them.

So, as a country and as a world, we can’t be going through cycles of caring for our world and then not, for a period of time. Even our own generations, let alone future ones, are far too dependent on all that is around us to make those mistakes.

We have to be good stewards, so to speak, at all times.

It’s as the old saying goes, we don’t inherit our world from our ancestors—we borrow it from our children.

A new, important 28th Amendment

When you're not focused on the 700 billion dollar bailout (for the wealthy, from the White House)

Here's another beauty from the pinheads in this administration:

The EPA "has declared there is no need to rid drinking water of a rocket fuel ingredient."

Wha??

WTF?

Rocket fuel ingredient?

In drinking water in the United States?

Yes, ladies and gentlemen. You read right. Read on:

"The EPA reached the conclusion in a draft regulatory document reviewed Monday by the Associated Press. The ingredient, perchlorate, has been found in at least 395 sites in 35 states at high enough levels that some scientists say could interfere with thyroid function and pose health risks."

Yow.

The United States.

395 sites.

35 states.

Well, I, for one, am just glad the United States government is here to protect us, aren't you?

Now that we're over either the sarcasm or the laughter, this brings up some terrific, serious questions.

Where are these sites? Where are they mostly located? Are they in--or near--major cities?

What companies would most likely be responsible for these exposures? And please don't tell us it can't be certain. There can't be THAT many organizations handling this stuff.

Boy, I hope we get our government back from the corporations one day.

And soon.

From Slate Magazine, yesterday, on Pres. "McSame" (God forbid)

Slick John McCain and the offshore oil ruse

The safety and economics of offshore drilling are distractions from the much larger challenges that humanity faces: Climate change and peak oil.
By Andrew Leonard

Jun. 25, 2008 | An example of leadership or reckless chutzpah? On Monday, John McCain visited Santa Barbara, the scene of one of the great environmental disasters in American history, and proceeded to downplay the potential consequences of lifting the federal moratorium on new offshore drilling. Modern drilling technology is environmentally safe, he told the audience. According to the Associated Press, McCain "cited the examples of Louisiana and Texas, noting they have allowed drilling and weathered two devastating hurricanes with minimal or no oil spills."

McCain exaggerated. A 2007 report by the U.S. Minerals Management Service unearthed by Outside the Beltway documented the damage caused in the Gulf of Mexico by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita: "124 spills were reported with a total volume of roughly 17,700 barrels of total petroleum products."

Now, 17,700 barrels of oil equals 743,400 gallons. Whether you consider that a lot or a little depends on your perspective. Compared with the 1.5 million barrels pumped out of the Gulf every day, it is a trivial amount. But it's also within shouting distance of the 3 million gallons of oil spilled in the Santa Barbara offshore oil disaster of 1969.

That spill is considered the "environmental shot heard 'round the world." The catastrophe crystallized the environmental movement into a potent political force, resulting in the quick passage of the National Environmental Protection Act later that year, the creation of the EPA in 1970 and, ultimately, the ban on new offshore drilling.

But the safety of offshore drilling is a distraction from what's really at issue in the current tussle over energy policy. An oil spill here or there is irrelevant to the much larger challenges that humanity faces: climate change and peak oil.

The truth is, we can probably make offshore drilling as safe as we reasonably want it to be. Norway, with its environmentally aware citizenry and tight coordination between a watchful government and a state-oil owned company, has been drilling for decades in the North Sea with reasonably good environmental results (notwithstanding the horrific explosion of the Piper Alpha offshore platform in 1988 or the spillage of 24,000 barrels of oil just last December). Then again, for an example of how it can all go terribly wrong, visit Nigeria, where lax environmental controls have resulted in a huge mess in the Niger Delta, and where rebel forces attacked an offshore oil platform just this week.

But drilling practices and technology have improved. With the appropriate government oversight and regulation, it may be possible to drill off the coasts of Florida and California without covering the beaches with sludge and killing thousands of seabirds. Provided we acknowledge, of course, that a few nasty hurricanes in Florida will make at least a little bit of mess, and an earthquake in the wrong spot in California could be a slight problem. And provided we are capable of following the example of Norway, where the government and the people tell the oil company what to do, rather than the example set by the current Bush administration, where the energy industry is in charge of policymaking.

But drilling for more oil in the United States will not lower the price of gas in the short term -- even McCain admitted as much when he said on Monday, "I don't see an immediate relief, [but] the fact that we are exploiting those reserves would have psychological impact that I think is beneficial." Bush's own Department of Energy concluded in 2004 that the long-term impact of lifting the moratorium on offshore drilling on oil prices would be "insignificant." The only way that expanded drilling, offshore and in ANWR, could make a difference at the pump is if global production of oil started significantly outpacing the growth of global demand. Which would probably require that Saudi Arabia crank open the spigot and China, India, and the rest of the world's rapidly emerging economies start to lose their enormous thirst.

In other words, not only is it unlikely, it is completely out of our hands.

For those who accept that burning fossil fuels is contributing to climate change and that there are finite limits to the amount of inexpensive oil that can be pumped out of the earth, a new offshore oil rush is a psychological and practical disaster. It would accelerate climate change and, in the unlikely scenario that new drilling even momentarily slowed down global oil price appreciation, would still postpone that inevitable day of reckoning with the even higher fossil fuel energy prices sure to arrive.

The longer we wait to deal with either problem, the more painful and expensive our options for coping with these challenges will become and the more constrained our maneuvering room will be. The sorry truth is that from the perspective of grappling with climate change, and encouraging investment into alternative energy technologies, expensive gas now is far preferable to even more expensive gas later.

Of course, there are plenty of people, mostly on the right-wing of the political spectrum in the United States, who do not accept that climate change is real or caused by human industrial activity, and who believe there are no real constraints to the global oil supply. They'd prefer to blame environmental activists, present-day descendants of the rabid left-wing commies who exploited the Santa Barbara spill to pursue their anti-business agenda, for today's "high" gas prices.

Such accusations are the stuff of daily grandstanding rhetoric from Congressional Republicans and constitute a major, longstanding front in the culture wars.

There's a large contingent of Americans who do acknowledge that global warming is real and that it would be smart to consume less oil. But the prospect of $5 gasoline tends to reduce their focus from the long term to the here-and-now. The oceans haven't flooded their homes just yet, but their pocketbooks are hurting today.

And there's an election campaign going on.

In Las Vegas on Tuesday, Barack Obama delivered a significant speech on energy issues. He criticized McCain's proposal for new offshore drilling and commented that McCain's reference to "psychological impact" is "Washington-speak for 'It polls well.'" No joke.

In Santa Barbara, McCain attempted to assuage Californian sensitivities by saying that his real position on the moratorium on offshore drilling is that it should fall under the rubric of "state's rights" -- meaning that if Californians want to keep their coastline pristine, they will have the power to do so under a McCain administration. But McCain knows he's not going to win California, so it doesn't matter what he says in Santa Barbara. The offshore oil ploy is a calculated gambit aimed at cashing in on the pain that economically stressed voters in swing states far from the coast (as well as Florida, where environmental sensitivities seem to be on less solid ground than in California) are feeling. In Ohio and Michigan, the ugliness of oil derricks blotting out the sunset isn't a number one problem on anyone's priority list.

McCain's goal is to marry the anti-environmentalist Republican base with the I-like-the-environment-but-am-economically-hurting moderates. Call it the coalition of the unwilling to pay high gas prices.

In his speech, Obama set forth a pretty straightforward platform of vastly increased investment in renewable energy, conservation and efficiency, and proposed to ease the pain of working-class Americans with an economic stimulus plan. One can question how he would end up paying for his proposals or whether he will succeed in steering them through Congress, but one thing that must be conceded is that his approach represents a clear difference from McCain.

Suppose that McCain's strategy works. Suppose voters in enough swing states decide that the pain of high gas prices is so great that they will go with the candidate who is promising them the easy way out -- the gas tax holiday and offshore drilling and a nuclear power plant in every pot. What will that tell us about the American ability to suck it up and face down the challenges of the future?

Easy. It will tell us that we've lost the battle before we've hardly begun to fight. It will tell us that the environment is toast. We will have established that we, the citizens of the richest and most powerful country on the earth, are unwilling to pay the price necessary for embarking on a long-term ecologically sustainable path for existence on the planet. If $4 gasoline is enough incentive to lift the moratorium on offshore drilling, then $10-a-gallon gasoline will inspire even more drastic consequences. We will drill for every drop of oil, we will dig up every ounce of coal, we will sacrifice every environmental regulation, because we just can't take the heat. And then we'll fry.

It will also tell us that the environmental movement that took so much power from the Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969 has failed. That sustainability and conservations were luxuries we decided we could not afford.

(The original link:
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2008/06/25/mccain_offshore_oil/print.html)