Things done changed

Remember back in the days, when niggaz had waves
Gazelle shades, and corn braids
Pitchin pennies, honies had the high top jellies
Shootin skelly, motherfuckers was all friendly

I watched the State of the Union address last night. The President said the following:

Let us fund new technologies that can generate coal power while capturing carbon emissions. Let us increase the use of renewable power and emissions-free nuclear power. Let us continue investing in advanced battery technology and renewable fuels to power the cars and trucks of the future. Let us create a new international clean technology fund, which will help developing nations like India and China make greater use of clean energy sources. And let us complete an international agreement that has the potential to slow, stop, and eventually reverse the growth of greenhouse gases....The United States is committed to strengthening our energy security and confronting global climate change.

Full text of speech here

Granted, there is a huge gulf between this type of rhetoric and actual policy on this issue- the United States has failed to participate in many international collective actions designed to reduce emissions, stalling and wasting precious time- almost a decade of lateral policy movement. Frankly, I don't have the time or energy to even get into it.

However, this stands in marked contrast to Dick Cheney's remarks (and the stance of the administration and Republican party) in 2001 when he rolled out the utterly absurd "National Energy Policy." He said "conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy."

Granted, the President's speech was that of an extremely lame duck. He spoke in oblique generalities and trumpeted easily cheered ideas. The speech was designed to keep Bush from hurting his party any worse than he already has. It was really nice to finally see over the mountain to a country without such a man who would roll out an energy policy characterized by Cheney's quote above, not to mention any number of the administrations absurd affronts to good environmental policy.

But one thing about highly conservative politicians, is that when they've finally changed their tune, you know that the winds of opinion have already changed. Apparently, it's political suicide for them to speculate in the oilmen's camp, at least publicly. Finally, they've acknowledged what people who have been paying attention have known with some certainty for quite a long time.

Climate Change has gone from political issue to political fact.

Eyes closed

So here's a weird one- Nike claims that the New Air Jordans (the XX3 for you sneaker heads) will be the first shoe made entirely with "sustainable materials." What that means, I have no fucking clue. Leather from a low impact animal like a buffalo? Recycled plastic bags? Locally grown produce? What? Does the shoe just last a long-assed time?

And what is the motivation for doing this? Is this kind of a bogus "organic as marketing gimmick" thing like you see with the big food companies? Does this mark a shift in the way multi-national corporations are thinking about their business practices or just their marketing? Was Pitchman-of-the-Century Michael Jordan involved in this? Is sustainability his new steez?

No, seriously, I want to know.

Also, does this mean that this particular Nike shoe is not made in a sweatshop somewhere in Southeast Asia? Frankly, I have too little information to do anything other than ask a long series of rhetorical questions.

If I can get some of these answered, then maybe I can finally get the lil' lady outfitted in some sustainable streetwear for her sustainable lifestyle.

[TMZ]: The New Air Jordan is finna be a green-assed shoe (with Photo)

Edit: Ask and you shall receive. I've been directed by a good semaritan to this page, which has the following specificiations:

Glue: Employs only water-based cements, reducing the amount of toxic solvents and wastes in the manufacturing process.

Red stitching: New "3-D" stitching fuses the midsole to the upper and an inner sock, reducing the need for glue while preserving comfort.

Side-panel stitching: Attaches outside leather layer to three internal layers, also reducing glue use.

Outsole: Rubber contains a more biodegradable additive and some recycled waste left over from the manufacturing of other footwear.

Inner bootie: Made partly of recycled polyester, reducing use of oil-based synthetics.

Chassis: Made from thermal plastic urethane, a recyclable plastic.

Manufacturing: Nike said it revamped its process of manufacturing the Air Jordan to reduce waste.

Apparently they've tried this before but the costs were about 25% higher than normal, so they incorporated these improvements into the Jordan, for which the consumer appeal is so high that price is almost irrelevant.

I'm not a player I just crush a lot

Andrew C. Revkin, science writer for the New York Times and (reportedly) former ghostwriter for Ma$e and Puffy Combs is now writing a blog over there at the Times called Dot Earth. Here's his description of the blog:

By 2050 or so, the world population is expected to reach nine billion, essentially adding two Chinas to the number of people alive today. Those billions will be seeking food, water and other resources on a planet where, scientists say, humans are already shaping climate and the web of life. In Dot Earth, reporter Andrew C. Revkin examines efforts to balance human affairs with the planet’s limits. Supported in part by a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, Mr. Revkin tracks relevant news from suburbia to Siberia, and conducts an interactive exploration of trends and ideas with readers and experts.

Good blog, sharp dude. Turns out he also looks like a really nerdy version of NFL commentator and former Bengals wideout Chris Collinsworth. I've added it to the sidebar here and I have subscribed to the RSS feed, and I suggest you do the same.

Rappers are in danger

There is a lot that can be said about the catastrophic wildfires that burnt Southern California up like a dry spliff of Mexican shwag. For a long time, fire-control policies were geared towards the management of wild areas. There was constant friction amongst the logging-related interests, conservationists and preservationists. Fire is an absolutely necessary and inevitable component of terrestrial ecosystems. Some systems have evolved to incorporate fire as an integral element of life cycle processes of key species. Many conifers require fire to germinate, for example. However, there is general disagreement on how to manage systems with regard to fire. If untended or unburnt, some systems build up huge fuel loads and explode into catastrophic fires. But this debate has become increasingly complicated due to the huge expansion in the urban/suburban-wildland interface.

A few years ago I had the pleasure of a seminar and talk with Michael Dombeck, former head of the US Forest Service and former Acting Director of the Bureau of Land Managment. This is an excerpt from his speech:

In the wake of sprawl and fragmentation comes concern about fire, especially at what is termed today the “urban-wildland interface,” a fancy term that tells us people are living in places that are half-wild, half-Wal-Mart.

Fire has long been on our minds. The Smokey Bear campaign was perhaps the most successful public education campaign in our history. In 1968, more people in America knew who Smokey was than could name the President. Smokey was the second most popular character in the United States. Santa Claus was number one.

Some consider it heresy to say this, but the challenge today is to help people understand that while fire is always dangerous, all fire is not bad. Like wind and water, fire is one of nature’s cleansing agents.

Unhealthy forests today are due to a combination of past timber management practices, exotic and off-site species and the cumulative effects of 100 years of fire suppression. We are good at fighting fire. We have the best firefighters in the world. During several of the past few years, we have spent over one billion dollars fighting fire.

Contrary to media reports, Oregon’s half-million acre Biscuit Fire did not “destroy” the entire landscape. The fire burned at various intensities, leaving some patches of forest scorched but other areas completely untouched. The result was a classic mosaic pattern of burning on the landscape, which benefits many ecosystem functions and restores habitat diversity. According to Forest Service estimates, approximately 16% of the area burned at high severity, 23% at moderate, 41% at low severity, and 20% was unburned. The costs of such massive firefighting efforts are tremendous, over $40 million on this fire in just one day. In the long run, fire will occur one way or another. How fire returns to fire-adapted ecosystems is the question.

The challenge is to put fire back on the land. And do it in a way that doesn’t harm people. Forests evolved with fire and are adapted to withstand fire. If they weren’t, there would be no forests. Our houses and communities adjacent to the forests are the new additions. The development and sprawl are occurring all over the country, and are especially problematic in high fire frequency areas.

The urban-wildland interface is now spread over millions of acres. The millions of dollars that we pour into wildland fire fighting may not save your house. Structural firefighting requires very different skills than fighting forest fires. The most important things you can do to prevent your house from burning as a result of a forest fire are within 200 feet of your house: clear away flammable fuels that carry fire close to your buildings, keep stacks of firewood well away from structures, use fire-resistant roofing and siding materials, and maintain a perimeter of non-flammable material around the house to serve as a firebreak.

I hope the Bush Administration’s ‘Healthy Forests Initiative’ is as intent on implementing an ecologically-balanced fire management plan as it is on rolling back mining regulations, water quality standards and roadless policies. If the wildland fire plan turns into little more than accelerated commercial logging program, it will quickly become a controversial “black hat” program, just like the infamous “salvage rider” did after the bad 1994 fire season when it was dubbed “logging without laws”.

The full text of this speech, given in Bryn Mawr, PA in November, 2004, can be found here. More on Mike Dombeck at his website.

Don't call it a comeback, I been here for years

The big news today was that Al Gore and the IPCC won the Nobel Peace Prize for their work on global climate change. I find Al Gore to be a really facsinating bol, and maybe this Nobel will bring some awareness to the media age devaluation of politics which Gore has come to represent. In a nutshell, Gore, after being millimeters away from the presidency, said "fuck it" and decided that he could make more impact free of the restraints and ethical compromises inherant in politics. Many have understood that politics isn't the sole arena of power in this country, but few have been able to speak from outside the political realm with the authority that Gore can, only because of his former position of power. I still haven't formulated any real statement as to the nature and effectiveness, generally speaking, of this "insider-outsider" thing he's been doing, but no matter what the circumstances, he'll be bustin' at y'all daily for some time to come.

Bong bong bong your head went rung rung rung

If you're up for some (relatively) heavy reading, take a look at Scientific American's analysis of the potential problems and solutions inherent in the task of creating a carbon market.

But what that article really reminded me of was Kool Keith alter-ego Sinister 6000.

Age: 7999
Birthplace: Iceland
Likes: Warm, Cuddly Woman
Dislikes: Democracy, Carbon
Quote: "Sinster 6000 / new styles I be housing."

Not destroyed, merely melted

Sorry about the protracted hiatus- I've been really busy with making music and writing about non-sciency things.

While I get my shit together so's I can conjure some of the irreverantly nerdy informationalizing that makes this blog so damn special, here are some things to keep you busy:

-Economists are stunned (for the millionth time) as blind altruism and trust of strangers often trumps the selfishness of homo economicus. This shouldn't come as much of a surprise, because cooperation (e.g. the sublimation of selfishness for group goals) has long been understood as the foundation of complex society. It's ironic, I deal in ecology because I think people are such assholes, but somehow I have more faith in the goodness of the human race than economists, who are the oracles of the market age. [Scientific American]

-Holler at this bad-ass vulture who can take in oxygen at 23,000 feet. It's endangered, so holler at it gently. [Endangered Ugly Things]

-Ian Hart of the The Pacific Institute's Integrity of Science blog has made his last post. Go and read over some of his work so you can practice up for spotting bullshit in the press. [Integrity of Science]