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| Saturday, 17 May 2008 |
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Saudis See No Reason to Raise Oil Production Now |
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I don't know about you, but I find it very disheartening to see an American President like a Junkie whimpering for a taste begging our dealer for just a little more. Addiction makes individuals and nations do things which good sense ought to tell them are wrong choices. We must, with this election regain our dignity by choosing to develop green alternatives. |
| JENNIFER LOVEN, Writer - The Associated Press |
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RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Saudi Arabia's leaders made clear Friday they see no reason to increase oil production until customers demand it, apparently rebuffing President Bush amid soaring U.S. gasoline prices. It was Bush's second personal appeal this year to King Abdullah, head of the monarchy that rules this desert kingdom that is a longtime prime U.S. ally and home to the world's largest oil reserves. But Saudi officials stuck to their position that they will only pump more oil into the system when asked to by buyers, something they say is not happening now, the president's national security adviser told reporters. "Saudi Arabia does not have customers that are making requests for oil that they are not able to satisfy," Stephen Hadley said on a day when oil prices rose above $127 a barrel, a record high. "What the Saudis wanted to tell us was we're doing ... |
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Fed's Direct Loans to Banks Climb to Record Level |
| CHRISTOPHER ANSTEY and STEVE MATTHEWS - Bloomberg |
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The Federal Reserve's direct loans of cash to commercial banks climbed to the highest level on record in the past week as money-losing lenders increasingly turn to the central bank for funds. Funds provided through the so-called discount window for banks rose by $2.8 billion to a daily average of $14.4 billion in the week to May 14, the central bank said today in Washington. Separately, the Fed's loans to Wall Street bond dealers rose by $75 million to $16.6 billion. Policy makers have increased the attractiveness of direct loans as they seek to alleviate the impact of the credit crunch. Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said two days ago that while markets have improved, they remain ``far from normal,'' adding that the central bank is prepared to increase its twice monthly auctions of funds to banks. "The Fed is providing an extraordinary amount of liquidity through ... |
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FAO Sees Energy, Biofuel Keeping World Food Costly |
| RANDALL PALMER - Reuters |
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OTTAWA -- World food prices should stay high because of rising energy costs and the use of biofuels, but they may ease after stocks are replenished, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Thursday. Senior officials from the U.N. agency, testifying by video link to a Canadian Senate committee, cautioned lawmakers to consider the effects on world markets of any attempt to require a minimum content of biofuels in gasoline and diesel. "Our message is, 'Please be aware'," said the chief of the FAO's trade and markets division, Ali Gurkan. "The actions that you take might have spillover effects outside your borders." FAO commodities economist Abdolreza Abbassian said price rises for major grains in the past year have had less to do with food being diverted to biofuels than with below-average yields and drought. But for the current growing season, he said corn prices will likely ... |
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| Friday, 16 May 2008 |
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Warming Climate is Changing Life on Global Scale, Says New Study |
| Goddard Institute for Space Studies/EuerkaAlert |
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A vast array of physical and biological systems across the earth are being affected by warming temperatures caused by humans, says a new analysis of information not previously assembled all in one spot. The effects on living things include earlier leafing of trees and plants over many regions; movements of species to higher latitudes and altitudes in the northern hemisphere; changes in bird migrations in Europe, North America and Australia; and shifting of the oceans' plankton and fish from cold- to warm-adapted communities. The study appears in the May 15 issue of the leading scientific journal Nature. 'Humans are influencing climate through increasing greenhouse gas emissions, and the warming world is causing impacts on physical and biological systems attributable at the global scale,' said lead author Cynthia Rosenzweig, a scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the Columbia Center for Climate Systems Research. Both are affiliates ... |
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'Heat Island' Tokyo Is in Global Warming's Vanguard |
| JAMES BROOKE - The New York Times |
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With the temperature 96 degrees in the shade, veterans of this concrete jungle braced themselves recently as they opened a door to an apartment building roof. But instead of confronting a wall of dry heat, they felt their faces cooled by moist air, carrying a light scent of soil and fresh grass. Tile by tile, workers were laying a new form of ultralight and ultracheap roof garden. With a low-maintenance variety of grass growing in four inches of vermiculite, a mineral substance often used in gardening, this carpet of cooling green weighed only 16 pounds per square foot. ''If a roof is rated to take people, which most are, it can easily take a roof garden,'' Takaharu Yoshioka, environmental director of Greenich Garden, a landscape design company, said stepping onto the emerald lawn. ''Last year we did only 50 roof gardens. So far this year we have already ... |
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L.A. Prepares Massive Water-conservation Plan |
| RICH CONNELL, Staff Writer - Los Angeles Times |
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With vital and often-distant water sources shrinking, Los Angeles officials today will revive a controversial proposal to recycle wastewater as part of a plan to curb usage and move the city toward greater water independence. The aggressive, multiyear proposal could do much to catch the city up to other Southern California communities that have launched advanced recycling programs. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's effort could cost up to $2 billion and affect a wide range of daily activities. For example, residents would be urged to change their clothes' washers, and new restrictions would be placed on how and when they could water lawns and clean cars. Financial incentives and building code changes would be used to incorporate high-tech conservation equipment in homes and businesses. Builders would be pushed to install waterless urinals, weather-sensitive sprinkler systems and porous parking lot paving that allows rain to percolate into groundwater supplies. |
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L.A. Measure To Penalize Hospitals for 'Patient Dumping' Advances |
| Although this is good news about a horrifying situation, it is important to note also that America is the only industrialized nation on earth in which these events could or would occur. |
| California HealthLine |
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On Wednesday, the Los Angeles City Council voted 12-1 to grant preliminarily approval to an ordinance aimed at deterring hospitals from discharging homeless patients to the streets, the Los Angeles Times reports. The measure would permit hospitals to be fined up to $25,000 and charged with misdemeanors for discharging patients anywhere other than their residence without written consent. If the measure receives majority approval from the council next week, it will go before the mayor for final approval. Background Since 2005, the city attorney's office has investigated more than 50 cases of patient dumping, in which patients are dropped off by a taxi or ambulance, oftentimes on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles. City officials said the ordinance was necessary because their efforts to create a state law failed in October 2007, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) vetoed a bill that would have prohibited patient ... |
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| Thursday, 15 May 2008 |
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US Lists Polar Bear as Threatened |
| Some good news about some bad news. |
| BBC News (U.K.) |
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The United States has listed the polar bear as a threatened species, because its Arctic sea ice habitat is melting due to climate change. US government scientists predict that two-thirds of the polar bear population of 25,000 could disappear by 2050. However, the government stressed the listing would not lead to measures to prevent global warming. Environmentalists have expressed disappointment that more will not be done to protect the bear's habitat. US Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said the government had made the decision on the advice of scientists, but he suggested the impact of the move would be limited. "While the legal standards under the Endangered Species Act compel me to list the polar bear as threatened," he said, "I want to make clear that this listing will not stop global climate change or prevent any sea ice from melting." He said that ... |
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F.D.A. Chief Writes Congress for Money |
| Possibly some more good news. |
| GARDINER HARRIS - The New York Times |
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WASHINGTON - After being pummeled for weeks on Capitol Hill over the president's budget, Food and Drug Commissioner Andrew C. von Eschenbach has written Congress that the agency needs an immediate infusion of $275 million to ensure that imported foods, drugs and medical devices are safe. The request was made in a letter to Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, that offers a detailed spending plan for such things as opening new foreign offices, increasing inspections and constructing new databases to track drug hazards. Presidential appointees rarely diverge so forcefully from the president's own spending plans, or at least avoid doing so in writing. Dr. von Eschenbach's action surprised agency observers and was taken as perhaps a sign of the president's waning influence in the closing months of his presidency. 'In 30 years at the agency, I never saw anything like this happen before,' said William Hubbard, ... |
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Floating an Old Idea: Zeppelins Return |
| LAMONT WOOD - LiveScience |
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Like swallows returning to San Juan Capistrano - except with a longer interval (73 years in this case) - the zeppelins are returning to California. Operating out of Moffett Field, near Mountain View at the southern end of San Francisco Bay, Airship Ventures has announced that it has inked a deal with Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik GmbH of Germany (the successor of the same firm who made the Hindenburg and the zeppelins that bombed London in World War I) to acquire a modern, 12-passenger zeppelin. The $8 million airship will be sent to California in September, where it will be used mostly for sightseeing excursions. Being much smaller than the passenger zeppelins of the 1920s and 1930s, it will have to cross the Atlantic on the deck of a ship. New zeppelins The airship will be the fourth of the Zeppelin NT line produced by the German firm, ... |
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New Disaster-housing Design Wins Applause |
| It has only taken several years, but here is some more good news. |
| BRITNEY MALONEY - McClatchy Newspapers |
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WASHINGTON -- Post-Katrina trailers got awful reviews, but the manufactured replacement housing that's going up in Mississippi now is drawing raves. Called the Mississippi Cottage, it's energy-efficient, safe, able to withstand 150 mph winds and designed to meet local building codes for permanent housing. "An absolutely superb line of housing," crowed Henry Kelly, president of the Federation of American Scientists, at a show-and-tell session Wednesday afternoon in Washington. The federation, which helped engineer the cottages, wants the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development to write a new model building code that applies the cottages' energy conservation and other high-performance standards to new construction nationwide. On Mississippi's Gulf Coast, the shotgun-style cottage is so popular and fits in so well with traditional architecture that even people who don't need help with their housing are building their own versions based on the Mississippi Cottage design. Marty ... |
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