Thanks to Fred Stanback for this article. As Mr. Stanback says, there has never been a solar spill.
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Next to Milton Friedman, Pee Wee the landscaper is the most persuasive teacher of energy economics I have ever encountered.

Pee Wee had the cheapest lawn service in the neighborhood but we never knew why.

Then the city inspector showed up and told us: Pee Wee was dumping his trash in an empty lot a few blocks away.

Pee Wee’s service was not so cheap after all: It just seemed that way because other people were paying for it.

For full article, visit:
http://m.citizentimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2010100507032

Thanks to Fred Stanback for this article.
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A new study has found that wood-burning power plants using trees and other “biomass” from New England forests releases more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than coal over time.

The six-month study, commissioned by Massachusetts state environmental officials, found biomass-fired electricity would result in a 3 percent increase in carbon emissions compared to coal-fired electricity by 2050.

Coal is considered one of the chief culprits of greenhouse gas emissions.

For full article, visit:
http://www.google.com/hostednews

PMC is featured this month on the Healthcare Technology News blog.

Healthcare Technology News reports on relevant events and examines their broader strategic context with a focus on healthcare technology, revenue cycle management, value, policy, economics and health care reform.

Many thanks to Joyce Tarnow for this article from The Nation.
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Slide Show: The Wrong Kind of Green
A look at the most questionable ‘green’ organizations that are busy shoveling up hard cash from the world’s worst polluters .

The Wrong Kind of Green

Why did America’s leading environmental groups jet to Copenhagen and lobby for policies that will lead to the faster death of the rainforests–and runaway global warming? Why are their lobbyists on Capitol Hill dismissing the only real solutions to climate change as “unworkable” and “unrealistic,” as though they were just another sooty tentacle of Big Coal?
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Peter Goodchild

One often hears of the need for “sustainability,” and of plans to re-engineer human society in some manner that will enable the production of goods, and the consumption of resources, to extend more or less eternally into the future. Civilization will thereby, we are told, become both more pleasant and more equitable, and the planet itself – land, sea, and sky – will no longer be traumatized by the presence of humans. But those who believe in such sustainability might wish to consider whether such an ideal state is possible.

It is a well-known fact that the human race is in big trouble with overpopulation and with excessive consumption of resources. These two problems reinforce one another; they are synergistic. The message has been around for several years. In 1970, for example, Paul and Anne Ehrlich published Population Resources Environment. In 1972, Donella H. Meadows et al. published a book entitled The Limits to Growth (and there is later edition called Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update).
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Thanks to Peter Goodchild for this article.
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There is a close relationship between peak oil and population. Since the 1950s there have been many estimates of the rise and fall of global oil production, but it was perhaps inevitable that the shift has been from optimistic to realistic. After all, it is better for one’s reputation to make errors on the side of caution than to look like foolish by announcing a catastrophe that does not occur. With increasing studies, however, and with increasing proximity to the critical events, realism at last takes over.

We begin with two basic facts. The first is that the world’s present annual consumption of oil is nearly 30 billion barrels. The second is that the world’s present population is nearly 7 billion. From there we can add some reasonable estimates of both oil decline and population decline.

For full article, visit:
http://www.countercurrents.org/goodchild070710.htm

Thanks to Joel Marx for alerting me to Newsweek’s article by Robert J. Samuelson, called The Parent Trap, urging the U.S. to make it easier for Americans to have more babies.
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Among the government’s most interesting reports is one that estimates what parents spend on their children. Not surprisingly, the costs are steep. For a middle-class, husband-and-wife family (average pretax income in 2009: $76,250), spending per child is about $12,000 a year. Assuming modest annual inflation (2.8 percent), the report estimates that the family’s spending on a child born in 2009 would total $286,050 by age 17. A two-child family would cost about $600,000. All these estimates may be understated, because they don’t include college costs.

These dry statistics ought to inform the deficit debate, because a budget is not just a catalog of programs and taxes. It reflects a society’s priorities and values. Our society does not-despite rhetoric to the contrary-put much value on raising children. Present budget policies punish parents, who are taxed heavily to support the elderly. Meanwhile, tax breaks for children are modest. If deficit reduction aggravates these biases, more Americans may choose not to have children or to have fewer children. Down that path lies economic decline.

For full article, visit:
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/09/the-parent-trap.html

From the Global Health Council. See http://www.globalhealth.org/sources/view.php3?id=1755&type=newsletter. You can get a copy of the guide at http://www.fhi.org/en/RH/Programs/RtoP/FP_Research_Guide/index.htm

Quick Reference Guide to Family Planning Research

The Research Utilization team at FHI announces the completion of the 2010 Quick Reference Guide (QRG) to Family Planning Research. The QRG, a snapshot of the most-up-to-date findings on a range of family planning topics, is part of FHI’s efforts to incorporate research and programmatic findings more widely into policies and programs in order to improve family planning and reproductive health services.
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The Food and Drug Administration approved a controversial new form of emergency contraception Friday that can prevent a pregnancy as many as five days after sex.

The decision to allow the sale of the pill, which will be marketed under the brand name “ella,” was welcomed by family-planning proponents as a crucial new option to prevent unwanted pregnancies. But critics condemned the decision, arguing that it was misleading to approve ella as a contraceptive because the drug could also be used to induce an abortion.

Ella can cut the chances of becoming pregnant by about two-thirds for at least 120 hours after a contraceptive failure or unprotected sex, studies have shown. The only other emergency contraceptive on the market, the so-called morning-after pill sold as Plan B, is significantly less effective, becomes less effectual with each passing day and will not work after 72 hours.

For full article, visit:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn

Thanks to Tim Murray for this article.
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The Missing Ingredient in the Tamil Refugee Debate
490 good reasons are advanced to challenge the acceptance of Tamil boat-people but not one of them is ecological

Have you noticed? As could be predicated, the vast subterranean disgust and frustration with Canada’s dysfunctional refugee determination system has hatched out. Even the mainstream media failed in its mission to suppress popular anger and quarantine dissent to the margins. My goodness, even CBC Pravda had to acknowledge that not all is well in the Republic of PC Trendydom. As they discovered before with previous waves of “boat people”, it is difficult to keep a lid on a volcano of discontent. But what is disappointing is that none of the objections to the entry of Tamil refugees has been framed from an environmental perspective. Continue Reading »