The Beef With Beef: Global Warming and Cancer

What you eat impacts not only your own health but the health of the entire planet. It's important to keep that in mind. It's important to keep the science in mind. Then, it's about personal choice.

From a January article in Scientific American:

Most of us are aware that our cars, our coal-generated electric power and even our cement factories adversely affect the environment. Until recently, however, the foods we eat had gotten a pass in the discussion. Yet according to a 2006 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), our diets and, specifically, the meat in them cause more greenhouse gases carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, nitrous oxide, and the like to spew into the atmosphere than either transportation or industry.

More specifically:

In 1999 Susan Subak, an ecological economist then at the University of East Anglia in England, found that, depending on the production method, cows emit between 2.5 and 4.7 ounces of methane for each pound of beef they produce. Because methane has roughly 23 times the global-warming potential of CO2, those emissions are the equivalent of releasing between 3.6 and 6.8 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere for each pound of beef produced.

Raising animals also requires a large amount of feed per unit of body weight. In 2003 Lucas Reijnders of the University of Amsterdam and Sam Soret of Loma Linda University estimated that producing a pound of beef protein for the table requires more than 10 pounds of plant protein with all the emissions of greenhouse gases that grain farming entails. Finally, farms for raising animals produce numerous wastes that give rise to greenhouse gases.

In February, Science News added this:

On The Road

I’m on the road in a few hours for a family wedding and the national holiday, so I will be even more scarce than usual for the next week.

Please have a wonderful Fourth of July, everyone. I’ll check in when I can.

Open Thread

Sarah Palin continues to know she is destined to save America. Even after the recent stories show that the McCain team realized how profoundly bad she was as a VP candidate, she still knows that God has picked her for higher office. Here's her recent comments to Runner's World about her aspirations.

"Alaska would be hard to give up because it is such a part of who I am. So much of my life revolves around the great outdoors that that would be kind of tough," Palin said. "But on the other hand, I think of being in D.C. and in a position to promote physical fitness and the benefits of making good decisions health-wise and being an example to others, and I know that could do some good for our country."

It's hard to argue with that, right?

Failed States

Liberals have noted with a fair degree of distress since January that the election results have yielded very few liberal policy implementations—the continuing wars abroad and on drugs, high defense spending, tax cuts, finance, environmental and national security stances, none of these are remotely liberal. Why not?

An answer from the most excellent Mahablog is not an inability of the Executive to perform, but the inherent intended structure of Congress allowing a minority to obstruct. A better answer from the excellent O’Brien is not the current Republican ability to obstruct real progress, but that Congress itself is busted.

Open Thread

Evidently God said "Thanks, but no thanks" to Joe the Plumber in regards to running for public office. But that's okay. He will continue to preach the sanctity of tea parties. After all, he does have a mission to fill.

A Beautiful Day

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Firmly in Place

Scrolling idly through my Facebook feed this morning word came in from Pam Spaulding that the odious Pentagon policy toward gays in the military—DADT—will stay completely in place, despite Obama promises from the campaign to the contrary.

The news itself was bad enough in many elements with the predictably atrocious journalism from the Washington Post, but most of all I grieved for Pam and hope she’s all right (her blog still hums along this morning). I don’t know her personally, of course, but this issue is obviously extremely personal to her and the knife of betrayal hurts for her in a way I can’t understand, and it will take a long time to heal.

Open Thread

One of the natural phenomenon that scientists think could be tied to disruptive climate change (once known as global warming) is the increased acidification of the oceans demonstrated by the increased jellyfish blooms that are more commonly found throughout the world's oceans these days.

As this National Science Foundation report shows, jellyfish swarms can be quite disruptive. In fact, in 1999 a jellyfish swarm shut down a nuclear power plant in the Philippines by clogging the intake pipes.

You can track jellyfish blooms in the United States by using a data feed provided by the US government.

Minnesota Supreme Court: Franken Wins!

The only thing surprising about today's Minnesota Supreme Court decision was the amount of time it took them to reach a verdict. In a 5-0 ruling, they found that Al Franken won the Minnesota U.S. Senate race. The ruling is basically 32 pages of rejecting all of Coleman's arguments. The conclusion is:

For all the foregoing reasons, we affirm the decision of the trial court that Al Franken received the highest number of votes legally cast and is entitled under Minn. Stat. 204C.40 (2008) to receive the certificate of election as United States Senator from Minnesota.

The ruling does not appear to specifically order the governor to sign the election certificate, but hopefully there won't be any more drama. Congratulations, Senator Franken!

UPDATE: Coleman will hold a press conference at 3:00 Central, Franken will have one at 4:15.
UPDATE 2: Coleman concedes!

How’s That New Politics Going?

Whenever I needed a light moment in last year’s interminable campaign it was to contemplate the “new” politics of a possible President Obama going forward by a “new” Democrat, disdainful of ugly boomer cultural fights and political spats. Political science has been studied well for hundreds of years with some luminous names like Burke, Hobbes and Machiavelli in the mix, and if this Harvard Law Review freshman Senator really thought his young American hands could mold something truly new with names like McConnell, Cheney and Ensign around the attempt was going to be very interesting to watch.

My amused disdain was never in the sincere attempt at something “new” by Obama, it was in the ancient political knowledge that opposition parties will…not…let…you pull it off, it seals their fate to oblivion. When Obama proclaims a new way forward free of all the old rancor of the past he’s telling the Republicans: come with me, brothers, as I build one of the greatest Presidency’s of all time that buries you politically for two generations.

Open Thread

A Matt Taibbi title for the ages: Suck on our Yachts. Matt is not happy with Goldman Sachs and their plan to bilk the world. (h/t Susie Madrak)

Sotomayor: Another Right Wing Argument Shot Down

Gasbag critics of the president's nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court have been typically desperate in their attempts to find a rationale for their knee-jerk gasbaggery. One of the very few has been Sotomayor's ruling in the Ricci case, which those gasbag critics say proves her outside the judicial mainstream. The Supreme Court's decision, today, overturning Sotomayor's Appeals Court ruling, should give that criticism new life, right? Well, maybe not. As explained by Glenn Greenwald, in terms simple enough that even those gasbag critics ought to be able to understand:

In light of today's ruling, it's a bit difficult -- actually, impossible -- for a rational person to argue that Sotomayor's Ricci decision places her outside the judicial mainstream when: (a) she was affirming the decision of the federal district court judge; (b) she was joined in her decision by the two other Second Circuit judges who, along with her, comprised a unanimous panel; (c) a majority of Second Circuit judges refused to reverse that panel's ruling; and now: (d) four out of the nine Supreme Court Justices -- including the ones she is to replace -- agree with her.

Put another way, 11 out of the 21 federal judges to rule on Ricci ruled as Sotomayor did.  It's perfectly reasonable to argue that she ruled erroneously, but it's definitively unreasonable to claim that her Ricci ruling places her on some sort of judicial fringe.

As for counteracting the ramifications of today's ruling, Big Tent Democrat says the Obama Administration can play a very valuable role.

Honduras: US-Trained Coup Leader? (UPDATED)

With the Secretary General of the United Nations, the Organization of American States, the Obama Administration, and the European Union all condemning the coup in Honduras, it's worth drawing attention to a couple of serious issues of which all should be aware. The first important point is that while, as LithiumCola has pointed out, President Obama's condemnation of the Honduran coup represents a paradigmatic change in U.S. policy towards the overthrow of a left wing Latin American government, the U.S. does appear to bear responsibility for having trained the leader of the coup. According to School of The Americas Watch:

General Romeo Vasquez, the head of the armed forces who led the military coup against the democratically elected president Zelaya, is a graduate of the notorious School of the Americas (SOA).

What is the SOA?

As explained by this site, jointly operated by the Center for International Policy, the Latin American Working Group, and the Washington Office on Latin America:

The School of the Americas had been questioned for years, as it trained many military personnel before and during the years of the "national security doctrine" -- the dirty war years in the Southern Cone and the civil war years in Central America -- in which Latin American militaries ruled or had disproportionate government influence and committed serious human rights violations. Training manuals used at the SOA and elsewhere from the early 1980s through 1991 promoted techniques that violated human rights and democratic standards. SOA graduates continue to surface in news reports regarding both current human rights cases and new reports on past cases.

And according to Global Security:

Critics have labeled the School of the Americas a "school for dictators." The ten former Latin American heads of state who attended the School of the Americas include General Manuel Antonio Noriega of Panama, military ruler from 1983 until his ouster from power by U.S. forces in December 1989. In 1992, Noriega was convicted and sentenced in a U.S. Federal court to 40 years in prison on drug trafficking charges, while subsequently he was sentenced in Panama for the 1985 murder of a Panamanian opposition leader and for the October 1989 murder of a Panamanian military officer who led an unsuccessful coup against him. Another Panamanian leader who attended the School of the Americas is General Omar Torrijos who emerged as Panama's de facto political leader after the National Guard overthrew the elected civilian government of Arnulfo Arias in 1968, and ruled either as official head of government or de facto political leader until his death in a plane crash in 1981. While many observers would label Torrijos a populist leader, others criticize the general for his repression of opposition sectors.

Two additional School alumni who overthrew elected civilian governments are Major General Guillermo Rodriguez (1972-76), who overthrew Ecuadorian President Jose Maria Velasco Ibarra, and Major General Juan Velasco Alvarado (1968-1975), who overthrew Peruvian President Fernando Belaunde Terry. Breaking with the pattern of previous military leaders in these two countries, Rodriguez and Alvarado initiated extensive periods of direct military rule, seven years in Ecuador and twelve years in Peru.

The six remaining Latin American military rulers who attended the School of the Americas consist of two each from Argentina, Bolivia, and Honduras, all of whom succeeded military rulers.

Open Thread

One of the largest sources of CO2 emissions today is all the concrete that we use. But today, I heard a program on sustainability that provided an interesting report on that very problem: what if we could create cement that not only didn't emit CO2, but could be used to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere? Colera cement is created by a process that is designed to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere, essentially capturing the CO2 pollution off a plant and it can used anywhere Portland cement which emits CO2 can be used.

I've posted the relevant section of the transcript from the sustainability program below the fold.

See also this analysis which provides some of the pluses and minuses for the process.

"Even Richard Nixon Has Got Soul"

The Mark Sanford story has two parts. The part that matters, and the part that doesn't. This is my opinion. I understand that not everyone shares that opinion.

The part of the story that matters is that he's another mendacious right wing hypocrite. He wants to tell us how we can lead our personal lives, all the while leading a personal life that contradicts everything for which he claims to stand. Did the fact that gay people can marry in some states fuck up his own marriage? Does he really care about the lives of children when he has subjected his own to such painful public scrutiny? He's an asshole. His life and his career are going down in flames, and he deserves every little bit of it. Not only is he a liar, he's a liar about caring about people's lies.

It matters even more that he abused his office. He may have abused taxpayer funds. He certainly went AWOL from a very important and public responsibility. His staff lied about it. Or he lied to them about it. Or both. Did I mention that he deserves his career's current death spiral? On a human level, I hope he grows up and has some sort of profound awakening, and gets his personal life back together. As Neil Young once wrote, even Richard Nixon has got (had) soul. Most people are redeemable. Even Mark Sanford. Maybe the loss of his career and the possible loss of his family will be the kick in the ass he so obviously needs and deserves. Maybe not. But that gets to the part that doesn't matter.

I don't care about Mark Sanford's personal foibles. I don't care about his girlfriend or their emails. It's none of my fucking business. I didn't read the Starr Report. It disgusted me that its most intimate details were splayed all over television, radio and the print media. Two wrongs do not make a right. By gloating over every sordid detail of Mark Sanford's personal life, we give a tacit okay to the right wing lunatics who most certainly will do the same, the next time a prominent Democrat has her or his personal life come crashing down. Which will happen. Because we're all human. We all make mistakes. And the mistakes of public figures are very public. And I feel particularly sorry for those future Democrats, because all those on the left who now are reveling in Mark Sanford's attempts at being romantic will have no credibility when defending said Democrats from similar gutter-sniping.

I care that Mark Sanford has once again revealed the rot at the core of Republican "values." I care that he abused his office. I care that the career of another right wing asshole is over. All of it is good. But I don't care about the details of his most private moments. Even Mark Sanford deserves his right to privacy. Even Richard Nixon had soul.

Open Thread

Humans love to experiment and basically wonder, "If this happens, then what will be the reaction over there?" But sometimes our experiments have greater consequences than we understand when undertaking them. And because there are times where the results of the experiments take decades show up, most people believe that the experiment showed everything was just fine. But as we learn more, the naive belief that we really understand enough to play poker with nature keeps coming up.

Tonight's example covers how easy it is to run an experiment on ourselves without understanding the real consequences. Not too long ago it once seemed like such a good idea to "Control Nature" by using a generous application of pesticides and fertilizers in order to overcome nature's pests and limits. Yet it is this gamble that is the subject of NY Times' Nicholas Kristof's concern that perhaps we are playing a losing hand.

The Greeks believed the gods were playing with humans to amuse themselves. Perhaps one of their cosmic jokes is to let humans learn just enough to set off dangerous experiments on ourselves and our environment, and then only later let us learn enough more to understand the terrible consequences of our bold battle with nature for ourselves.

Unholster The Class Warfare Argument In CA

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Senate GOP caucus are about to drive the State of California over a fiscal cliff next week, simply because they can't get everyone else to cave in to their "cut it all - no taxes" demands. I think it's time to ratchet up the pressure on the Senate GOP caucus in a way that will provoke howls of outrage from them, but will resonate with the media and the advocates on our side. And please spare me the diatribe about the results of the special election being a true referendum against taxes and fees - we all know who the typical voter was in that 28% election last month.

Unlike the caution we get from the centrist Dems about waging class warfare, what's going on in California right now is an assault by better-off, mostly-white people against everyone not like them. Sure, there are exceptions, but when you look at the make-up of the Senate GOP caucus and see what they did this week after their peers in the Assembly worked with Democratic Speaker Karen Bass to push the ball down the field with spending cuts and other measures to improve the state's fiscal situation, they and the Guv have opted to screw the vulnerable and state workers, and for that matter small businesses and contractors who do business with the state, and endorse furloughs and IOUs.

And all just because the vulnerable weren't being hurt enough.

Which leads me to this: Has anyone on our side done a study of the average net worth of the Senate GOP caucus? I know some of them are ranchers and growers, and not all of them are financially comfortable or wealthy, but they are the ones happily endorsing the state's looming fiscal insolvency unless more pain and sacrifice is inflicted upon the poor and vulnerable. Most of the members of this caucus represent folks who don't think they need the state for any services and therefore don't care if the state shuts down. But this looming insolvency will affect small business owners, highway patrolmen, correctional officers, and the people who maintain the roads that the wealthy use just like the rest of us.

What I'm suggesting is that someone pull the financial disclosure forms on the Senate GOP caucus and put together a study on this. And then we blast the results throughout the media. This is not something that we need to keep secret, since I would love for word to get out that we're zeroing in on this and will be making hay over it by the end of next week when Arnie and the Senate GOP push us into IOU-land. It could be a wake up call to the other side that we will be making their detachment and insensitivity an issue.

Sure, initially they will howl about class warfare like they always do, and most of their constituents in their districts may not care. But each one of them has people in their districts who will be severely harmed by these cuts and budget delays, especially small business owners who do business with the state, who are already being battered by the recession. And here come the Senate GOP caucus members, who I'm willing to guess have an average net worth above that of the typical middle-class family in CA, who are willing to shut things down until those "other" people are hurt even more, all while protecting their big oil company and other corporate buddies from sharing equally in the sacrifice. I'm sure the members of the caucus enjoy their health care and paychecks while they send the state into the abyss.

I'm thinking it's time we signal to Mr. Hollywood and the Senate GOP caucus that we will make this about class warfare, and are prepared to go nuclear. There's one thing the GOP has taught us all these years: the ends justify the means.

Payback is a bitch.

Dr. James Lovelock

Corporate Knights recently hosted Dr. James Lovelock speaking on his latest book, The Vanishing Face of Gaia. Click here for the first segment of that talk.

Dr Lovelock begins by saying the IPCC document is by far the scariest document ever written because it isn't just what we are doing to the earth that is the problem, it is that the earth responds to our actions. And change is coming faster than even our models predicted.

[S]ea level is the one true reliable thermometer for the whole earth.

The green section is what our models predicted for how much sea level would rise. The line above is what is actually being measured.

Earth, we have a problem. And our biggest problem today are those climate change deniers who would watch the world burn for their profits. Clearly we are not doing enough fast enough to address this looming crisis.