“Is everything spinning out of control? Midwestern levees are bursting. Polar bears are adrift. Gas prices are skyrocketing. Home values are abysmal. Air fares, college tuition and health care border on unaffordable.... Horatio Alger, twist in your grave.”

Alan Fram and Eileen Putnam

Associated Press

June 22, 2008

With so many natural disasters occurring simultaneously, it can be quite tempting to lump them into a single nightmarish disaster. If we are to survive the growing frequency and ferocity of killer storms in this age of global warming, we must resist the temptation to wallow in helplessness. Humanity can and will learn from the Mississippi River levee failures of 2008 and adapt our disaster planning models where possible.

So, was the horrendous flooding of 2008, which caused multiple Mississippi River levees to fail, all that different from what happened along the American Gulf Coast in 2005 with Hurricane Katrina? The answer is yes and no but we can learn from both.

Katrina was at the time the largest and fastest hurricane on record. While much blame justifiably was passed from one government agency to another, from a mechanical perspective, the sea swells which Katrina sent hurtling toward New Orleans and the rest of that section of coastline were quite high but not unimaginably so.

There is no such thing as clean coal! Period!

In my first year as a Keyboard Culture Expert, I have mentioned my position on clean coal but never as affirmatively as right now. Why the change? Well, it’s not really a change so much as a tweak in my narrative style. It is precipitated by two events of historical significance.

Firstly, we have the nomination for President of the United States of Senator Barack Obama. No matter whether you follow politics passionately with an inclination toward one political party or away from another, or are lukewarm about all of it, you are or will become aware of the fact that Senator Obama’s nomination by the Democratic Party has caused a marked uptick in budget allocations for television advertising by fossil fuel companies, including mining interests.

In a word, fossilized conglomerates which have been embraced by many national politicians in recent years have become frightened. Whereas earlier in this decade they have spoken occasionally about clean coal technologies, now they can’t seem to refer to them often enough.

Since this is not a political blog, I will leave the matter there with a simple statement of fact. These companies are frightened.

Secondly, though, is the preceding event to Senator Obama’s nomination, the partnership between Environmental Defense, a standard bearer in the quest for a clean environment and a reversal of global warming, and one of the world’s largest investment firms, Kohlbert Kravis Roberts.

“We don’t want to spend taxpayer dollars on fuels that make global warming worse.”

– Hon. Kitty Piercy, Mayor

Eugene, Oregon

June 23, 2008

Last time, I gave you my position on clean coal technologies. They are a myth. However, since no reasonable environmentalist can expect the world to abandon coal overnight, the most important thing for us to do is disseminate the truth about clean coal technologies and drive consumers of coal toward clean, renewable resources.

One area where the environmental community can obtain the fastest results is in educating government bodies. NRDC, the Natural Resources Defense Council, is a very influential organization doing just that. The quote above came in part as a response to their work.

June was my anniversary month as a Keyboard Culture expert. My tenure has been a wild but highly rewarding ride. It’s also been historic. In a year’s time, I went from having just a handful of readers to more than 20,000 unique visitors per month! For that, the thanks go to you, dear reader, so, thank you!

June also was historic because NASA global warming authority Dr. James Hansen commemorated the twentieth anniversary of his congressional testimony by giving an update on Capitol Hill. Not surprisingly, his performance was exemplary. Since he first raised a billowing red flag over the Capitol building that human behavior was at the core of global warming causes and effects, Dr. James Hansen has done nothing but speak louder, more frequently and to growing audiences. This man knows his subject.

“Climate can reach points such that amplifying feedbacks spur large rapid changes. Arctic sea ice is a current example.... the Arctic soon will be ice-free in the summer [and] more ominous tipping points loom.”

- Dr. James Hansen

briefing before United States Congress

June 23, 2008

As America’s leading authority on global warming (and arguably the top mind on the subject living anywhere in the world today), Dr. James Hansen has a very difficult job. He wears many hats, many of them tilted to the side of a crusader. As the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, James Hansen is the top mind on the climate crisis on the payroll of the government of the United States.

“Our world, our old world that we have inhabited for the last 12,000 years, has ended, even if no newspaper in North America or Europe has yet printed its scientific obituary.”

- Professor Mike Davis

University of California at Irvine

Although science is at the heart of this blog, I am neither a scientist nor a science writer. I am an environmental journalist. However, science is at the heart of everything I write and advocate because without scientific laws, there is no existence.

Science has told us that we have poisoned our atmosphere and oceans but also that human landscape transformation now exceeds natural sediment production by an order of magnitude. In other words, the Earth really isn’t the Earth which humanity inherited.

There’s an old saying which some believe originated as a Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times. The new millennium certainly qualifies! It often seems that the weather has become our worst enemy. If I were a polar bear, I know that I’d feel that way.

Greenland photo credit: Kim Hansen

So far this month, I’ve been telling you about the significance of proclamations about global warming which have emerged from the scientific community this year. The news is not good. In fact, it’s horrible. All peer-reviewed predictions about the causes and effects of global warming are coming to fruition and it may well happen that next month, summertime melting of polar ice in the Northern Hemisphere will be complete. We could have an ice-free Arctic for the first time in the history of humankind.

That’s a very big deal. In fact, some of the more conservative estimates by very respected academic bodies gave us until 2050 before we’d see a completely ice-free Arctic, even in summer. They were way off. Why? Was there a flaw in their interpretation? Could it be that atmospheric carbon content is not the best measure of the doom we have leveled on ourselves?

The American system of mandating and measuring the fuel efficiency in automobiles is called the CAFE Standard, Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency. The United States Department of Transportation defines it as, “the sales weighted average fuel economy, expressed in miles per gallon (MPG), of a manufacturer’s fleet of passenger cars or light trucks with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of 8,500 lbs. or less, manufactured for sale in the United States, for any given model year.”

The program has existed since 1975, when it was instituted in response to the first gasoline crisis in the United States and has been tweaked very seldom since then. In fact, average fuel efficiency ratings of automobiles on American roads are lower now than when the mass-production automobile was invented a century ago!

How can this be?

Back in March, I told you about an amazingly green housing project in South Carolina, the Navy Yard at Noisette. The developers and everyone in the community can be very proud of the accomplishments but some of their fellow Carolinians took the Noisette project as a challenge to elevate the design of passive solar ranch homes to a whole new level.

Meet the Furman Cliffs Cottage. An impressive collaboration between Furman University, Johnston Design Group, Innocenti & Webel, Triangle Construction and others, the Furman Cliffs Cottage has set a new standard for passive solar ranch homes in a novel way.

"Okotoks can fairly call itself the greenest community in Canada, maybe the world."

– Stephen Harper

Prime Minister of Canada

The Drake Landing Solar Community, in Okotoks, Alberta has reached a highly commendable and very remarkable milestone in passive solar house design, blending geothermal heating in the summertime with year-round solar water heating. That may read like a mouthful but, in short, this 52-home solar community in Central Canada soaks up heat in the summer and uses it to keep families warm in the winter while using just the tiniest fraction of grid power and natural gas versus what it would through conventional design.

Now, we’re talking!

Last month, it was my great pleasure to present to you a full-length interview with Justin Sutton. Hundreds of people listened to it. As the buzz gathered force and other high-traffic blogs invited me to make guest appearances on their platforms to discuss such topics as the millions of environmental refugees who will be displaced by global warming, I came to realize that a follow-up is needed.

At first glance, the Triage Traveler mobile trauma center may appear to lack a global warming aspect. In truth, it has a very large one. During my first 13 months of posting content every Monday, Wednesday and Friday here at Keyboard Culture, the techniques and technologies which I have showcased for the most part mitigate or reverse the effects of global warming. While vital, they leave one aspect of the climate crisis more or less unaddressed.

NOTE: Audio for this post is accessible at the end

The benefits of the Triage Traveler mobile trauma center over conventional air and rail-based Medevac platforms are many. In the second part of my interview with Justin Sutton (available at the end of this thread), we focus on several. The largest difference has to do with the level of care which casualties and disaster victims will receive.

When I ponder the word triage, the meaning which comes to mind most often is: the sorting of patients according to the urgency of their need for care. The application of this in the field can be tricky because most modern diagnostic tools are unavailable.

That’s where the power of the Triage Traveler mobile trauma center enters the situation because it brings a full-function MRI facility right to the scene. Imagine the benefits! Even if the average hospital or Medevac provider could afford to equip a mobile trauma center with an MRI facility, the logistics of bringing it where it is needed within the golden hour of emergency medical response would be prohibitive in many cases.

Having the amazing power of an MRI in the field only is part of the solution, however. Since critical care is, by definition, critical, the diagnosis which emerges from a reading of MRI results often can point to emergency surgery. Even with the speed of helicopters, though, in some situations, patients can’t wait for a ride to the operating room. They need immediate attention from a surgical trauma team.

Hot Buttered Fun

As a movie buff, the title Battlefield Earth means only one thing: a middling John Travolta science fiction film from the year 2000. Here in the summer of 2008, it has taken on an entirely new meaning on the wonderful new cable television channel, Planet Green. It is a reality show.

I used to follow contemporary music as much as I do modern cinema but have drifted toward movies a bit in recent years. Nevertheless, Heavy Metal and Rap are two types of music which I enjoy thoroughly. Really! Since Aerosmith and Run DMC created the first melding of the two styles in the mid-1980’s, I have enjoyed them in equal quantities.

Sadly, though, neither Heavy Metal nor Rap music is known for promoting environmental messages such as the importance of recycling and sustainability. Now, according to Eileen O’Neill, Planet Green has. Good for them!

Luda the Polluta vs. Toxic Tommy