2008 Woodie Awards
Check out the new documentary that is coming out highlighting the dangers of a warming Earth. Politicians can never really be trusted to successfully educate the public on this issue. There should be more films like this one, and more scientifically oriented movies like The Day After Tomorrow.
Just a minor crime against humanity.
Many of you are probably familiar with the popular (or some might say “notorious”) “Meatrix” video that spoofed the Matrix with a pro-vegetarian agenda.
The same communications design company has created another short film titled “Store Wars: The Organic Rebellion,” which addresses the harms of genetically engineered foods (which in the video are analogous to the dark side).
Genetically Modified (GM) food continues to spur controversy on account of the various economic, health, and environmental effects it could have. But compared to other countries, the US is rather silent on the matter. Differences in attitudes have led some places (most notably the European Union and Japan) to enact labeling and traceability requirements for GM foods but in the US, such products are widely accepted with or without markers.
However, attitudes in the US may be shifting given the increasing popularity of stores like Whole Foods Market and Trader Joes. Their profitability seems to indicate that a growing segment of the population is actively seeking out organic foods (and as such, would likely be receptive to the popular media/marketing techniques used in the video spoofs).
Will “Store Wars” resonate with the American public to a level comparable to that of “The Meatrix”? Only time will tell.
If you have ever taken a walk down to Carnegie Lake (the man-made lake south of Princeton’s campus) at dusk, chances are good that you encountered a family of deer grazing in the nearby fields. An article in this month’s Smithsonian describes the population explosion phenomenon and discusses a particular means to stop it – contraceptives. But the situation isn’t as straightforward as it sounds. I’d like to see more studies on the effects of these drugs on the animals. It’s fine if they work to hinder fertility but what if they impair the animal’s locomotive or neurological capacities? The Food and Drug Administration considers the drug experimental and as such, female employees are not to administer the drugs to the deer, or otherwise handle them due to risk of sterility. However, it does seem as though injecting deer with the drugs is the most effective way to help them. Putting contraceptives in their food source (a method some think should be explored) sounds like it has far greater potential to go awry should the food fail to be contained within their habitats.
No, not the Alfred Hitchcock film – I’m talking about the campaign underway to rescue approximately 10,000 migrating birds as they attempt to make their way through the maze of New York City skyscrapers. Lights Out New York is a program that exhorts owners of tall buildings to turn off the lights of the top stories so that birds won’t crash into the windows at night.
It’s not exactly the type of thing most of us would ever think to identify as a problem, but 10,000 birds is nothing to scoff at. For the most part, we all recognize that man’s progress has, at times, conflicted with the habitats of other species in some form or another. But when painting a mental image of this conflict, we tend to conceive of bulldozers plowing through fields or pollutants contaminating water. It’s refreshing to see that people are coming up with novel solutions to address environmental concerns on multiple fronts. Naturally (no pun intended), my first thought upon hearing this initiative was of the astronomical amount of energy that could potentially be saved. It did not immediately register that animals’ lives were at stake as well because it’s an issue I scarcely knew about. Could this yield new common ground between corner-office executives and animal rights activists? That may be a bit of a stretch, but every small improvement helps.
I hope you’ll consider donating whatever you can to relief efforts.
In the NYTimes today:
A White House official who once led the oil industry’s fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents.
In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved.
For example,
a sentence in an October 2002 draft of a regularly published summary of government climate research, “Our Changing Planet,” originally read: “Many scientific observations indicate that the Earth is undergoing a period of relatively rapid change….”
Mr. Cooney’s neat, compact notes modified the sentence to read: “Many scientific observations point to the conclusion that the Earth may be undergoing a period of relatively rapid change….”
In places where uncertainties in climate research were described, Mr. Cooney added qualifiers like “significant” and “fundamental.”
Mr. Cooney is chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality. What a great choice.
The past is a good guide for the future in this case because it isn’t the first time where Bush tries to leave no lobbysits behind. In Bush’s failed Clear Skies Act that was to replace the landmark Clean Air Act, lobbysits actually wrote important parts of the bill. Lobbyists with a clear conflict of interest were appointed. I’m not against lobbyists, nor am I a radical environmentalist tree hugger, but what happened to common sense?
The New York Times has an interesting article about the future of coal for America, coal gasification, which really ought to go into any respectable energy plan passed by Congress or the President.
As many may know, what oil is to Saudi Arabia is what coal is to the US, accounting for about 50% of electricity production domestically. But being one of America’s most plentiful natural resources, though hidden underground, coal also releases many harmful greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and heavy metals such as mercury when burned. Coal gasification is one tremendously more efficient and effective solution than what we currently have installed in power plants at fighting smog, mercury in fish, and most importantly, global warming. The scary thing is, even though the technology fully exists close to no one wants to use it.
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