USA

3 Trillion Dollar Spending Spree

- Adam Clare

Here, have $3,000,000,000,000 and spend it!

What appears to be an art project (or is it marketing?) is critiquing the cost of the USA invading and occupying Iraq. That’s right, it will cost $3 trillion to fight for oil, er, freedom. The website linked above is a challenge to see how well you can spend the same amount of money for the world that you want. It’s obviously aimed at Americans. Take a look at my shopping cart here.

$3 TRILLION isn’t just how much the Iraq War will cost our government, it’s how much it will cost our sputtering economy. When the Bush administration launched this war, they claimed Americans would not have to make sacrifices. They even cut taxes with the help of a Republican-led Congress, rather than raising them as had been done historically in times of war. According to Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard professor Linda Bilmes in their book The Three Trillion Dollar War, we’re fighting an unnecessary war on borrowed money. The war has caused our skyrocketing national debt. And more than anything else, the war has caused our recession.
Here’s how $3 trillion breaks down:

$526 billion — borrowed money poured into Iraq so far
$615 billion — total interest costs for taxpayers
$280 billion — to rebuild our military
$590 billion — disability benefits and health care for Iraq veterans
$1.5 trillion — estimated costs through 2017

Whale Songs to Warn Mariners of Their Presence

- Adam Clare

A system of buoys that will warn boats of the presence of whales has been put in place along a part of the east coast of the USA. The network of buoys listen for sounds that whales make and then the network will relay messages to boaters in the area to stay clear of the undersea creatures.

They have developed a cutting-edge underwater listening system to protect the creatures from their number one killer: ships. The Massachusetts Bay network can track right whales by their signature call – and in as little as 20 minutes warn mariners to slow if they’re too close.

The devices are also giving scientists unprecedented insight into how the creatures change behavior to respond to the cacophony of man-made noises in the bay.

“We need to listen to these whales” to save them, said Christopher W. Clark, director of Cornell University’s Bioacoustics Research Program, which developed the technology with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Clarks said an increasing number of pipelines, cruise ships, tankers, and construction projects are drowning out the whales’ soft calls, making it difficult for them to connect. Clark has evidence that the whales simply don’t “whoop” when the bay gets too noisy.

“In the world of right whales, we know it’s a noisy place to live,” Clark said in an e-mail. “Underwater [is] not much different than living on the tarmac at Logan.”

Bike Sharing Starts in the USA

- Adam Clare

Bicycle sharing has been around in most of the world for quite some time, now it is hitting the land of the automobile. The program is going to start in Washington DC. The symbolism here cannot be ignored.

A new public-private venture called SmartBike DC will make 120 bicycles available at 10 spots in central locations in the city. The automated program, which district officials say is the first of its kind in the nation, will operate in a similar fashion to car-sharing programs like Zipcar.

The district has teamed up with an advertiser, Clear Channel Outdoor, to put the bikes on the streets.

“There’s a lot of stress on our transit systems currently,” said Jim Sebastian, who manages bicycle and pedestrian programs for Washington’s Transportation Department. Offering another option, Mr. Sebastian said, “will help us reduce congestion and pollution,” as well as parking problems.

Change Buildings, Save the World

- Adam Clare

A study has been released (2mb PDF) by Commission for Environmental Cooperation; and Celsias has put up a nice summery for us. They note that a simple way for us to lower our impact on the environment is to change how we construct buildings in North America.

Existing building techniques can be used to improve efficiency of our buildings.

In Canada, buildings are responsible for:

  • 33 % of all energy used;
  • 50 % of natural resources consumed;
  • 12 % of non-industrial water used;
  • 25 % of landfill waste generated;
  • 10 % of airborne particulates produced; and
  • 35 % of greenhouse gases emitted.

In Mexico, buildings are responsible for:

  • 17 % of all energy used;
  • 25 % of all electricity used;
  • 20 % of all carbon dioxide emissions;
  • 5 % of potable water consumption; and
  • 20 % of the waste generated.

Environmentalists Sue Harper, Bali Begins

- Adam Clare

I’ve never been shy about my dislike of Canada’s current Prime Minister and today won’t be any different. Regular readers of Things Are Good may have noticed that other countries get mentioned often here because their national government take positive action. Three nations, though, get mentioned not because of federal efforts but because of local ones. Those nations are Australia, Canada, and the USA. I’m confident that there is a connection between the lack of good news coming from those national governments and how popular their leaders are. Howard just lost his election and Bush is at an all time low. (EDIT: Australia ratifies Kyoto Protocol! Way to go Rudd!)

The conservatives in Canada are now being sued by an environmental group. I’m sure that the timing of the lawsuit is to draw attention to the potential that Canada has for being a leader in fighting global warming at the UN’s climate change conference in Bali, which started today.

Major policies will be shaped by the countries listed above (among others) over the course of the next two weeks. Stay tuned for the good news that will come from the UN conference.

While in Canada, the environmentalist will continue to fight up north:

The group, Friends of the Earth, alleges that Environment Minister John Baird has broken the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, by ignoring a recent requirement of the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act.

The act was passed by Parliament in June 2007.

The lawsuit contends that Ottawa was legally required to publish draft regulations by Oct. 20, 2007, which would have enabled Canada to follow its Kyoto commitments, but failed to do so.

“This new application, while relevant to climate change, is all about holding the government of Canada accountable under Canadian law,” said lawyer Chris Paliare, who filed the legal challenge on behalf of the group.

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