Autumn 2007

By accepting a donation of about $130,000 in carbon offsets from the publicity-starved – and San Francisco based! – Planktos International, the Vatican this summer became the world’s first “carbon neutral” nation. The offsets will go toward planting trees in Hungary and will no doubt have a beneficial, but tiny and temporary, impact on the area’s economy. Hmmm… Not wholly unlike the effort’s impact upon climate change which, as we’ve recently been told, is unavoidable and will be, by any measure, catastrophic. However, as tempting as it is to… • deprecate Planktos’ flagrant PR-mongering • dismiss their primary business model...

The California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) today released its Proposed Decision on Issues Relating to Future Savings Goals and Program Planning for 2009-2011 Energy Efficiency and Beyond. The Decision lays out recommendations (many of which will likely turn into rules) on how to move into the future with California's already effective Demand-Side Management and End-Use Energy Efficiency programs. California has been in the energy efficiency game longer than most governments, and in the past 30 years California policy has severely curtailed per-capita energy demand growth. The state's efforts serve as a models for other states and nations implementing their own...

On a gorgeous Saturday afternoon at Clark Kerr Stadium, first year super-squad Sparkle Motion rallied to defeat second year all-star team Shadow Pricing 9-5 in a game which many analysts have described as "a passing of the torch." It was an important victory for Sparkle Motion, who got embarrassed by Shadow Pricing last term. Shadow Pricing led for much of the game, playing solid defense, getting timely hits, and looking great doing it. Pitchers-by-committee Adam Lang and Keith Lucas kept Sparkle Motion relatively quiet until the 7th, when left-handed monster and team captain Tony "Chicken Toes" Chicotel mashed a solo...

Is there a more charged American event in the past 50 years than September 11th? Probably not... Yet we have surprisingly little to say about it. Other than an excellent book by Ken Kalfus, there has not been much by way of a national expression of what September 11 meant to us (unless you consider Jonathan Safron Foer and Adam Sandler cultural barometers... and god help you if you do). Perhaps that's because we haven't quite healed; or maybe it's because we're not yet quite sure what really happened. Regardless, from this vacuum of dialog has emerged a panoply of...

A 2003 study from Germany's Landau University may provide some clues to the mystery behind our nation's disappearing honeybee population. Landau's Jochen Kuhn placed the receivers to cellular phones within honeybee hives, exposing the bees to the radiation that the phones give off. Kuhn found that as many as 70% of the bees would refuse to come back to the hive, speculating that it somehow effected the waggle dance which bees use to communicate foraging information with one another. Researchers studying Colony Collapse Disorder, now familiar with Kuhn's work, believe this same radiation may effect a honeybee's natural navigation, which...

Assuming that we’re sexually active, 80% of us will be infected with one or more strain of human papillomavirus (HPV) at some point in our lives. HPV does not have negative health impacts for men; but 10 of the 30 detectable genital HPV strains (there are dozens of undetectable strains) can, in rare cases, lead to cervical cancer in women. Regular visits to the gynecologist and pap smears are the best defense against HPV’s cancer risk, and Merck is now offering a vaccine. HIV/AIDS affects an estimated 1,000,000 Americans. It is a horrible disease which impacts all corners of society...

The Supreme Court today handed down its judgment on Massachusetts v EPA, the first case the Court has heard regarding climate change. At issue in the case is the EPA's role in monitoring and regulating automobile emissions. Section 202(a)(1) of the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. § 7521(a)(1), requires the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA ") to set emission standards or "any air pollutant" from motor vehicles or motor vehicle engines "which in his judgment cause[s], or contribute[s] to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare." The EPA and the Bush Administration,...

An alarming, potentially disastrous agricultural mystery has unfolded quietly over the past few months. Honeybees – the United States chief pollinator – have been leaving their hives in droves, never to return. Beekeepers across the country have declared up to 70% losses in their colonies, and there is currently no clear answer as to why. Honeybees – a rare example of a non-native species which has proven itself useful – account for up to 100% of the pollination of some crops. Almonds, for example, are pollinated entirely by honeybees – and California, where the vast majority of the US almond...

The last three years have seen a notable spike in homicide and gun violence in the Bay Area. In 2005, San Francisco’s homicide rate was the highest it had been in more than 10 years, and Oakland’s first-half 2006 murder rates were 78% higher than first-half 2005 (the most recent reliable statistics). The past week has seen 5 different shootings in San Francisco’s highly integrated Western Addition, and several more in the primarily lower-class neighborhoods of Bayview and Hunters Point. While the San Francisco Police Department vociferously defends its arrest rate for violent crimes (one of the worst in the...

Certain objects of public dialogue – such as “supply-side” economics, or whether or not human overpopulation will have catastrophic results – rise and fall cyclically, coming and going and coming back once more, as if they had never been discussed in the first place. Another of these is the wisdom of the United States’ “all-volunteer” military.

The past few months have ushered in a rising din of calls to reinstitute the draft. New York Democratic Congressman Charlie Rangel in 2005 introduced House Bill 2723 – the Universal National Service Act – and then again broached the subject in 2006 after his party took control of Congress. In recent weeks, news media outlets have latched onto and aired this issue. Interestingly, most of the coverage is coming out of small, rural media markets such as Sheboygan Wisconsin, Bradenton Florida, and Lexington Kentucky, where the burden of the all-volunteer military is felt most keenly.

Five international interests working to protect and more stringently regulate the world’s Bluefin Tuna stocks [meet this week] in Kobe, Japan to agree on strategies which they hope will lead to more sustainable fishing practices. Blue Fin Tuna has long been popular in Japan as an ingredient in sushi and sashimi, and consumption of the fish has risen of late in the United States and Europe as “healthy diet” habits have become more prevalent.

A North Dakota farmer serving in the North Dakota state legislature as a Republican has submitted the paperwork needed to make himself the nation's first industrial hemp producer. Rep. David Monson (R-Osnabrock) filed an application with the state's Agriculture Department to cultivate about 10 acres of the crop. Included in his application were his fingerprints, and $37 to cover the cost of a criminal background check.

Advocates of industrial hemp production laud the crop for its wide-ranging industrial applicability - which ranges from nutrition to paper products to textiles - as well as the relatively low environmental impact