Earlier today I posted the announcement that a phone call will be happening with the EPA and BP announcing the first round of toxicity data from the oil dipersants in the gulf. Here are the notes from the phone call that the EPA had with the press today.

WASHINGTON —The US Environmental Protection Agency today released peer reviewed results from the first round of its own independent toxicity testing on eight oil dispersants. EPA conducted testing to ensure that decisions about ongoing dispersant use in the Gulf of Mexico continue to be grounded in the best available science.

EPA’s results indicated that none of the eight dispersants tested, including the product in use in the Gulf, displayed biologically significant endocrine disrupting activity. While the dispersant products alone – not mixed with oil – have roughly the same impact on aquatic life, JD-2000 and Corexit 9500 were generally less toxic to small fish and JD-2000 and SAF-RON GOLD were least toxic to mysid shrimp.  While this is important information to have, additional testing is needed to further inform the use of dispersants.

“EPA is performing independent tests to determine the potential impacts of various dispersants. We will continue to conduct additional research before providing a final recommendation, ” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson.  “We want to ensure that every tool is available to mitigate the impact of the BP spill and protect our fragile wetlands.  But we continue to direct BP to use dispersants responsibly and in as limited an amount as possible.”

EPA continues to carefully monitor BP’s use of dispersant in the Gulf. Dispersants are generally less toxic than oil and can prevent some oil from impacting sensitive areas along the Gulf Coast. EPA believes BP should use as little dispersant as necessary and, on May 23, Administrator Jackson and then-Federal On-Scene Coordinator Rear Admiral Mary Landry directed BP to reduce dispersant usage by 75 percent from peak usage. EPA and the Coast Guard formalized that order in a directive to BP on May 26. Over the next month BP reduced dispersant use 68 percent from that peak.

Before directing BP to ramp down dispersant use, EPA directed BP to analyze potential alternative dispersants for toxicity and effectiveness. BP reported to EPA that they were unable to find a dispersant that is less toxic than Corexit 9500, the product currently in use. Following that, EPA began its own scientific testing of eight dispersant products on the National Contingency Plan Product Schedule (NCP-PS). Those dispersant products are: Dispersit SPC 1000, Nokomis 3-F4, Nokomis 3-AA, ZI-400, SAF-RON Gold, Sea Brat #4, Corexit 9500 A and JD 2000. Today’s results represent the first stage of that effort.

EPA tested these eight products for endocrine disrupting activity and potential impacts on small fish and mysid shrimp. The testing found:

·         None of the eight dispersants tested displayed biologically significant endocrine disrupting activity.
·         While all eight dispersants alone – not mixed with oil – showed roughly the same effects, JD-2000 and Corexit 9500 proved to be the least toxic to small fish, and JD-2000 and SAF-RON GOLD were the least toxic to the mysid shrimp.

The next phase of EPA’s testing will assess the acute toxicity of multiple concentrations of Louisiana Sweet Crude Oil alone and combinations of Louisiana Sweet Crude Oil with each of the eight dispersants for two test species.

To view the first round of test results please visit: http://www.epa.gov/bpspill/dispersants

Environmentalist are well known for pointing their fingers at eco-wrongdoers however they usually take criticism very poorly themselves. In fact, given the nature of their work, environmentalists might even be more susceptible to erring than others.  The “environment” in “environmentalism” is that surpassingly messy and mutable information field known as the real world.  The real world is a wonderful place — that’s why we’re all dedicated to protecting it — but it is, to put it mildly, exceptionally complex.  Within it, controlled experiments are nearly impossible, genuine signals compete with generalized noise, false alarms masquerade as true, and the left field (that inconvenient source of surprise, disorientation, and disconfirmation) lurks everywhere.  The work of environmentalists is to make sense of that messy situation, predict its future, and encourage appropriate action in light of those predictions.

Kathryn Schulz just released a new book about being wrong. Even though the book isn’t directly about environmentalist being wrong she is an editor at Grist.org and talks about how she was inspired to write this book from questions that she received from the community asking her to write about environmentalist being wrong about specific topics.

To err is human. Yet most of us go through life assuming (and sometimes insisting) that we are right about nearly everything, from the origins of the universe to how to load the dishwasher. If being wrong is so natural, why are we all so bad at imagining that our beliefs could be mistaken, and why do we react to our errors with surprise, denial, defensiveness, and shame?

In Being Wrong, journalist Kathryn Schulz explores why we find it so gratifying to be right and so maddening to be mistaken, and how this attitude toward error corrodes relationships — whether between family members, colleagues, neighbors, or nations. Along the way, she takes us on a fascinating tour of human fallibility, from wrongful convictions to no-fault divorce; medical mistakes to misadventures at sea; failed prophecies to false memories; I told you so to Mistakes were made. Drawing on thinkers as varied as Augustine, Darwin, Freud, Gertrude Stein, Alan Greenspan, and Groucho Marx, she proposes a new way of looking at wrongness. In this view, error is both a given and a gift — one that can transform our worldviews, our relationships, and, most profoundly, ourselves.

In the end, Being Wrong is not just an account of human error but a tribute to human creativity — the way we generate and revise our beliefs about ourselves and the world. At a moment when economic, political, and religious dogmatism increasingly divide us, Schulz explores with uncommon humor and eloquence the seduction of certainty and the crises occasioned by error. A brilliant debut from a new voice in nonfiction, this book calls on us to ask one of life’s most challenging questions: what if I’m wrong?

If you’re a local Seattlite meet up with Kathryn.

When it comes to the green revolution this is the biggest battle that is being faced; arm chair activist and people who think the environmental problems that we’re encountering will work out by themselves. Is the real problem for renewable energy, sustainable living, and reducing our dependency on oil from the lack of scientific evidence or the promoted outlook on life that is becoming standardized with American citizens?

Note: Barbara makes a really interesting note on individual power and collective power in the last minute of the video.

With the catastrofy of the gulf the UK is opening the largest area since 1964 for drilling in the North Sea

“The North Sea remains an important hub for investment and will continue to be at the heart of the UK’s energy security for years to come.”
Charles Hendry, Energy Minister

The vital role of North Sea oil and gas in securing the UK’s future energy supplies was underlined today in Aberdeen by Energy Minister Charles Hendry, as he approved the development of a new oil and gas field. Charles Hendry also announced record levels of interest in new developments in the North Sea as 356 blocks have been applied for in the latest licensing round. The largest number of blocks applied for since the first licensing round was launched in 1964. Hendry approved the development of Apache’s Bacchus oil field, as he visited Aberdeen and ExxonMobil’s Beryl oil platform in the North Sea.

Energy Minister Charles Hendry said:

“The North Sea remains an important hub for investment and will continue to be at the heart of the UK’s energy security for years to come.

“This approval is in accordance with the UK’s stringent safety and environmental regimes in the North Sea, and shows that there are still plenty of opportunities for developments in UK waters.”

Energy Minister Charles Hendry at ExxonMobil’s Beryl Alpha oil platform in the North Sea.
Courtesy of KTImages and Exxon Mobil.
28 June 2010  (DECC’s Flickr Channel)

Apache North Sea Managing Director James L. House said:

“We are pleased that the minister has approved Apache’s plan to develop the Bacchus discovery. Bacchus, along with our Maule discovery, are examples of fields that can be developed economically, utilizing existing infrastructure at Apache’s Forties Field. These projects also demonstrate that the government’s incentives are encouraging development of smaller fields in the UK sector of the North Sea.”

The Bacchus oil field, located in the Central North Sea, has estimated reserves of 18 million barrels of oil equivalent .

It’s interesting to see what kind of precautions they take for this off shore drilling after the wake of the gulf oil spill, or if they do make any modifications to safety protocol. Do you think the Gulf Oil Spill has really changed anything?

Notes -
The Bacchus field is operated by Apache with 70%, partnered by Shell UK with 20% and Endeavour Energy with 10% equity.

The UK oil and gas industry supports around 350,000 jobs directly and indirectly and attracts about £12 billion in annual expenditure a year.

As the oil spill continues to flood the Gulf of Mexico some people are taking action to document and show what’s happening in the area. Below is a 5 min video that was sent to me by Greenpeace that will give you snapshot of some of the damage that is happening to the coastline. If you’re inspired by this video or would like to take some kind of action you can go to Greenpeace and fill out a template to send your thoughts to the President.

I’m sure you’ve heard the terms Cap and Trade in the news and probably most recently as saving energy has become even more important. Cap and Trade will be affecting us all and is a subject that you’ll need to be educated on because you’ll see it coming through your legislation in the near future. Cap and Trade is actually quite complex but the following video by Planet 100 does a great job condensing this crucial environmental topic down to the nuts and bolts.

Where Cap and Trade Legislation Is Heading

Current legislation has been in battle for an all encompassing Cap and Trade system and has now been narrowed down to a utility only bill. The logic behind narrowing an all encompassing cap and trade bill down to a utility bill is simple due to the fact that electricity is the biggest emitter for carbon.

U.S. Energy Information Administration

For another, most of the lowest-cost carbon reductions are expected to come from electricity. Here’s how the EIA projects an economy-wide cap-and-trade system would affect various sectors:

via Ezra Klein via Harvard’s Robert Stavins

As you can see, about half the total carbon reduction under an economy-wide cap-and-trade system is expected to come from the utility sector. By contrast, transportation is scarcely affected. The reason for this is simple: It takes an extremely high price on carbon to substantially raise the price of gasoline.

Under the American Power Act, the ceiling on the price of a ton of carbon in 2013 is $25. Even in the unlikely event that the price hits the ceiling, that will boost the price of a gas by just under a quarter per gallon. Given that gas has swung around over a $2-3 range just in the last few years, a quarter isn’t much more than noise. A recent study at Harvard found that in order to reduce carbon emissions in the transportation sector 14 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, gas will need to rise to $7 a gallon by then. Getting there from today’s $4 gas would require a carbon price of well over $300 a ton, and that, in turn, would completely upend the utility sector. So it won’t happen.

In sum: Cap-and-trade was always mostly about the utility sector, so if it becomes explicitly about the utility sector, it’s not a total loss, if a few conditions are met. Read more at Grist

Leave a comment if you have any additional questions or would like some more resources for your own research.

Solar, wind, and hydropower is on the lips of every environmentalist shouting it to the masses since the Gulf Oil Spill, but what about nuclear? Nuclear energy is starting to gain momentum as government officials look for new sources of energy. Now as you can see in this debate between Stewart Brand and Mark Jacobson, nuclear now has even die-hard environmentalists reconsidering it. In this first-ever TED debate, Stewart Brand and Mark Z. Jacobson square off over the pros and cons. A discussion that’ll make you think — and might even change your mind

Speakers –

Stewart Brand: Futurist

Founder of the Whole Earth Catalog, cofounder of the Well and the Long Now Foundation, writer, editor and game designer, Stewart Brand has helped to define the collaborative, data-sharing, forward-thinking world we live in now. 

Since the 1960s, he has maintained that — given access to the information we need — humanity can make the world a better place. One of his early accomplishments: helping to persuade NASA to release the first photo of the Earth from space. The iconic Big Blue Marble became the cover for his Whole Earth Catalog, a massive compendium of resources and facts he thought people might like to know. And we did: the 1972 edition sold 1.5 million copies. In 1987, he wrote The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at MIT; in 1994, How Buildings Learn. Currently Brand is working with computer scientist Danny Hillis to build the Clock of the Long Now, a 10,000-year timepiece; his Long Now Foundation also runs a number of spinoff projects, including the Rosetta Project, cataloguing the world’s languages, and the Long Bets website. He’s also busy with the Global Business Network (part of the Monitor Group), helping businesses plan for the near and way-far future.

His newest book is

Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto.

“…between 1968 and 1972, two communities began to mingle within blocks of the Whole Earth Catalog offices in Menlo Park. One, centered around the Stanford Research Institute and composed primarily of engineers, was devoted to the ongoing pursuit of increased human-computer integration. The other, clustered around the Catalog and the countercultural communities it served, focused on the pursuit of individual and collective transformation in a New Communalist vein. Stewart Brand positioned himself between these worlds and, in a variety of ways, brokered their encounter.”

From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism, by Fre

Mark Z. Jacobson: Civil and environmental engineer

Mark Z. Jacobson’s research looks at the causes and effects of vastly complex processes — the physics and chemistry of our atmosphere. He and his team at Stanford have pioneered new atmospheric research and analysis techniques that give a picture of the current state of our atmosphere, show what pollution from aerosols, ethanol, agriculture, and ultraviolet radiation are doing to it, and predict how these might affect the climate.

Jacobson developed the first interactive model showing the combined effects of gas, aerosols and radiative air-pollution on weather systems. He also discovered that black carbon — the main component of soot particles — may be the second-leading cause of global warming after carbon dioxide.

Jacobson’s group developed the world’s first wind map based on data at the height of modern wind turbines — serving as the scientific justification for major wind farm proposals in recent years.

“A large-scale wind, water and solar energy system can reliably supply the world’s needs, significantly benefiting climate, air quality, water quality, ecology and energy security … [T]he obstacles are primarily political, not technical.”

Mark Z. Jacobson and Mark A. Delucchi, in Scientific American

After reading an article on how a small Japanese village recycles everything under the kitchen sink to reach 2020 zero waste goals I started to look around unique ways people can start reducing their waist in cleaner way. Smells, aesthetic appeal, and time it takes to create your own compost bin can be deterring for many people including myself. However I cam across this KinetiCompost at Quirky a company that helps take creative ideas to market.

The KinetiCompost is the fastest, simplest, most eco-friendly way to create nutrient-rich compost for your garden. All you have to do is put your compostable materials in KinetiCompost’s rotomolded barrel, pop on the lid, and let mother nature do what she would normally do – only about 10X faster! KinetiCompost is made of durable, 100% recycled plastic and steel so you don’t have to worry about harming the environment!

These types of green products need to be more saturated in our market. I feel that a lot of people want to do the right thing however they don’t want to give up their lifestyle or appearance. These types of products make it easy for people to make a change in their lives which we all know change is one of the hardest things for a human being to do.

After four trips to visit the gulf stat affected by the BP disaster President Oboma plans to give his first-ever Oval Office speech to the nation on Tuesday evening.This manmade calamity threatens the nation’s economy, health, and environment. This is also a crucial moment in the BP catastrophe, which threatens to swamp his domestic agenda. But it also provides an opportunity for President Obama to demonstrate leadership by tackling all the aspects of this crisis, including taking charge of the clean up, getting more help from BP, providing long-term public health and economic recovery, and adopting an oil-use and pollution-reduction reform agenda to minimize the likelihood of another catastrophe.

Moreover this is an even a bigger opportunity for community members in our state to start understanding what is going on in our own local area. To give you a quick update here’s a letter that I received from our state’s senator Patty Murray. I’d like to ask you a few questions to keep at top of mind when reading through this letter from our senator.

1. Do you think we’re doing enough collectively in our city?
2. What other political or grass root movements are happening that you think deserves some light on their efforts?
3. What tools do you need to make a difference?

Dear Mr. Lemenager:

Thank you for contacting me regarding energy and climate change legislation currently being considered in Congress.  I appreciate hearing from you regarding this important issue.

As you know, our nation is faced with a growing global demand for energy, a heavy reliance on fossil fuels, high energy prices, and environmental concerns regarding energy use.  Washington state families are struggling with energy costs in these tough economic times, and we all want a more diversified national energy policy that increases our national security by cutting our demand for foreign oil.

The Pacific Northwest has much to lose from climate change, including increasingly severe storms and rising sea levels.  Climate change will negatively impact forests, coastal and salmon habitats, and economically important farmland.  These resources define Washington state’s quality of life and help sustain the region’s economic competitiveness.  I believe American innovation will lead to real solutions to these issues, and will be an economic engine that creates millions of clean technology jobs.  Congress must adopt a comprehensive policy that promotes research and development to keep America at the cutting edge of the clean technology economy.

As you may know, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, on June 26, 2009.  There are several energy and climate change proposals under consideration by the Senate.  Senator Bingaman (D-NM) has an energy only bill.  Senator Cantwell (D-WA) introduced a “cap and dividend” bill.  Most recently, Senators Kerry (D-MA) and Lieberman (I-CT) have unveiled a draft comprehensive climate and energy proposal that prices carbon.  I am working with my colleagues to continue to push for a comprehensive climate change and clean energy bill.

Throughout my tenure in the United States Senate, I have supported energy and climate policies that benefit consumers, encourage diversification of our nation’s energy sources and protect our fragile environment. As a member of both the Senate Budget and Appropriation Committees, I have fought for increased funding for important alternative energy research and development programs in Washington State and across the nation. In order to encourage private sector development of new forms of energy technology, I have consistently supported higher fuel economy standards for vehicles and federal tax incentives to help spur investment in wind, solar, biomass, and other renewable energy sources. I believe it is vital that Congress works to increase energy independence without sacrificing environmental protections or hurting the economy or consumers.

Energy use and climate change are two of the most critical issues facing our nation. Please be assured I will keep your views in mind as related legislation comes before the Senate for consideration. If you would like to know more about my work in the Senate, please feel free to sign up for my updates at http://murray.senate.gov/updates. Thank you again for writing, and please keep in touch.

I hope all is well in Issaquah.

Sincerely,

Patty Murray
United States Senator

Greenopolis makes a very simple – yet powerful – promise to their users:

• Help you to recycle easily
• Help to save our natural resources for our children’s children
• Track conservation through recycling and re-use
• Educate and reward conservation

Through both the On-Line site of Greenopolis and their physical, On-Street presence of Greenopolis Recycling Kiosks, they allow customers to do actual, “trackable” good for the planet. They also try to make your everyday life better by offering rewards for helping the world and changing the way we handle natural resource and recyclables.

Take some time create an account and contribute some of your thoughts to their cause.