Doug Hamlin's Brain » environment

Eating sustainable fish

Doug — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 02:49:40 +0000

I think I was like a lot of kids in the fact that I never really cared for eating fish. Catching fish I loved (though I seldom did), but eating them? No thank you!

My tastes, of course, changed as I got older. Sure I love a good dry-aged ribeye or slow-cooked pork loin, but now my favorite proteins come from the sea (and lakes). A new film, The End of the Line, contemplates a world without fish, which is a reality closer than you probably think unless we change our habits.

Bittman writes today about these modern perils of buying fish and reveals an interesting insight about people’s fish-buying habits in his blog.

Eating sustainable fish

Full life-cycle emissions of train worse than plane

Doug — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 04:13:21 +0000

A study from UC Berkeley compared the emissions of 11 different transportation modes starting from their manufacture. The study found, among other things, that trains can emit more greenhouse gases than planes, which I’m sure will piss off all those who think a network of rail lines that go slower than the ones in Europe over longer distances will somehow solve all our problems. (The same people who assume locally grown food must have less of an impact on the environment.)

Full life-cycle emissions of train worse than plane

Waxman-Markey

Doug — Sun, 24 May 2009 22:38:48 +0000

The Economist this week leads its United States section with an overview of the cap and trade bill working its way through the House. It’s called Waxman-Markey and it’s not as great as you might think.

On May 15th Henry Waxman and Edward Markey, the Democratic point-men on climate change in the House of Representatives, unveiled a bill that would give away 85% of carbon permits for nothing, with only 15% being auctioned. The bill’s supporters say this colossal compromise was necessary to win the support of firms that generate dirty energy or use a lot of it, and to satisfy congressmen from states that mine coal or roll steel.

That’s opposed to President Obama’s plan, which would have raised hundreds of billions of dollars, “most of which Mr Obama planned to give back to voters.”

Overall, ordinary Americans will endure price hikes just as severe as they would have under Mr Obama’s plan, while receiving far less compensation. [American Enterprise Institute analyst Alan Vaird] likens giving permits to polluters to handing the proceeds of a tobacco tax to the shareholders of Philip Morris.

Is this climate change we can believe in?

Waxman-Markey