LickMyGreenBalls

Today's coverage includes three solution-oriented programs, with varying greenwash. This installment made possible partly by hugg.commers.

1. Amusing (bicycle power)
2. Ho-hum (Las Vegas changes some bulbs)
3. Dementedly evil: more corporate-driven greenwash (hazards of biofuels).
3.5 Pretending to be healthy: Taco Bell, McDonald's, Monsanto

MIT Students Use Pedal Power to Run Computers

"MIT student cyclists are using pedal power to run laptops and supercomputers in two different challenges."

Ah, and you thought the Matrix didn't exist!

From CyberPunkReview.com:

"The Matrix is the Machine City’s power plant. It is not the focus of the machine’s existence, it is merely their source of their energy. My guess would be that most sentient machines and programs care little more about the Matrix than you do about your local electric company. Only the power plant manager – the Architect – and those working for him are truly obsessed with the running of the Matrix."

Esca-llent. Now where are my out of control Marin County Zen masters?

Full view of George Hull's Matrix Human Power Plant and Fetus Fields: click here. Source: ghull.com

* * *

Ho hum, Vegas changes a few bulbs (except in the Venetian--still incandescent 60 watters!)

Las Vegas has a Green Building boom? Well, well!

Rocky Mountain Institute's Allison Rutter, a built environment team analyst, thinks through what it means for Las Vegas to even begin to think about "going green" -- and there is definitely a HUGE oppty here!! To me LV is the most extreme version of the concept of "America" and manifest destiny: wastefulness being the golden rule. From her post:

"So is serious conservation possible? Clearly a city with an economy founded on escape and extravagance can't deny its visitors the luxurious experience they're all seeking or its growing number of residents the basic services they require.
"Well, maybe they don't have to.
"One of our informal mottos at RMI is 'cold beer and hot showers.' People don't care how their beers stay cold or what heats the water, as long as in the end their beers are cold and their showers are hot."

In contrast to Las Vegas' water usage, I read that Dallas is even more profligrate with water, at 360 gallons per capita per day (GPCD) which is higher than Las vegas at 230 GPCD, though these both are HUGE compared to New Mexico and Arizona cities which are aiming for that xeriscaped 75GCPD figure. (For more data see Water Efficiency magazine)

To imagine what is possible in Las Vegas, let's look at another climate extreme: Rocky Mountain Institute's snowmass village in the Colorado Rockies. RMI has a greenhouse-contained banana tree that grew so successfully it went through the roof and needed replanting! So yes, apparent miracles are possible. At some point though, conservation spoils even the best attempt at "bare luxury."

I walked the Strip recently and it is still 100% car-driven fully-lit and fossil-fueled. Examples of conservation did pop out at me though, like a squid and its ink: the tiniest CFL twisty bulbs you'd ever find, made into those ubiquitous circulular bulbs that line building nameplates and other signs. Surprise!

Green building is best when you almost can't even identify it... so that it's not in your face! Some Las Vegas cops also ride bicycles--with bumper-to-bumper (and no action) traffic it really helps their efforts.

Other than green building, Vegas air quality would greatly improve from the construction of an electrified high-speed train streaking to and from the Los Angeles metro. Lastly, remove those awful wastes of space from the 10-lane strips! Add more sidewalk room for us oversized obese Americans to waddle around.

What about dust storms that make breathing a chore? No way around it, unless developers build below-ground.

* * *

The biggest green lie: ethanol biofuels: Feeding CARS instead of PEOPLE. Biofuels destroy whatever is worth saving.

Hugg.dotcommer chemrat puked up a night out drinking's worth of greenwash biofuel stories today. Add these to the yellow stream of stories exiting the United Nations ("Crime against humanity"); National Geographic; Earth Policy Institute; éléments; Time and other pubs; the evidence is 80% negative and damning. In the words of Kunstler, we cannot succeed in any sense of the word to "keep the motoring utopia running by any means possible."

Gristmill: Ethanol the biggest greenwash ever

"Can anyone think of a bigger, more successful, or more insidious greenwash in history than corn-based ethanol? How are we going to stop this runaway train?"

Bioethanol fuel 'as big a health risk as gasoline'

"The use of ethanol as a gasoline substitute for motor vehicles may not be the environmental panacea that its proponents would have us believe, according to a US atmospheric scientist...

"Mark Jacobson of Stanford University is calling into question the environmental credentials of fuels consisting mainly of bioethanol. Jacobson ran computer models of the impacts on atmospheric pollution and human health of vehicles running exclusively on an ethanol mixture and concluded that the number of respiratory-related deaths and illness would increase.

"'Our results show that a high blend of ethanol poses an equal or greater risk to public health than gasoline,' Jacobson said."

The Dark Side of Biofuels: Horror in the 'Brazilian California'

"Brazil is staking its claim as a great emerging power thanks to the leadership it maintains in biofuel production. The price of this ambition is paid by the environment and by the cane cutters, who are the invisible characters in this story.

"'When the airplane passed, pouring out that bath of poison, my father was soaked. He fell ill because of the toxins that are sprayed over the cane. This is the end for many young people here,' says a female cane cutter from the region of Ribeirao Preto, in São Paulo state.

"'The people work and they give them a slip of paper to shop with in the supermarket. The people don't see money, just the bill of what they owe,' confirms a worker from the same region, where seven of every 10 cane cutters did not finish primary school."

So it's not just GMO soybeans to feed your McDonald's chickens and beef anymore that's tearing up the Amazon oxygen-producing carbon-eating rain forest. Now it's sugarcane auto fuel for export to the US! Will the good news ever stop!

At least in San Francisco the city public utilities commission, led by lots of pushing from local activists, has it right. They collect ONLY waste kitchen grease for recycling into use for the city fleet, including the MUNI bus system. (recycled grease for public transit) You cannot get much more sound than that, except to avoid motorized transport. (And then how would we get our $100 WholeFoods?)

Top photo source:
Artwork by Tim Moerman, http://www.elements.nb.ca/Theme/energy07/tim/Tim.htm

* * *

Pretending to be Healthy

Fast Food and Ag Industry Giants Pretend to Be Healthy

"Are we really supposed to believe Taco Bell, McDonald's and Monsanto are advocates for health?"

"For three days early this fall, the Pennsylvania Convention Center was home to corporate entities such as PepsiCo, Hershey's, Taco Bell, Crisco and McDonald's. They weren't there to count calories but to rub bellies with members of the American Dietetic Association, who had gathered in Philadelphia for the annual Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo..."

Read more at Alternet

--end--