Blogs & Ecology

Don Blankenship of Massey Energy meets the Press

Don Blankenship, mover of mountains and CEO of Massey Energy, doesn't think much of environmentalists ("The greeniacs are taking over the world") or cutting back on CO2, but then he runs a coal company so what else is he going to say. What is really interesting are his thoughts on what happens when you turn down your thermostat:

I will be almost sorry if Michele Bachmann loses tomorrow, she is so entertaining. In this video she takes credit for the fall in oil prices.

"We saw gas at $2.04 today. That was my goal, when I started this year I wanted to get gas below two dollars a gallon and we are almost there..."

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Caption on German Ad: "Be careful when transporting fragile goods." Consumerist

A comment from Rick to our post The Bicycle Helmet Debate is Over. Really. deserves special notice:

Let me first say that I didn't start wearing a helmet regularly until AFTER I WOKE UP FROM THE COMA. Before I fractured my skull and bled an epidural hematoma the size of a navel orange, I used some of the inane arguments I have read above.

We have written previously about the massive recall of meat in Canada in the face of a fatal outbreak of Listeria. Maple Leaf Foods President Michael McCain has accepted blame; Now Magazine writer Wayne Roberts says that it isn't the company, it is the system that has become too centralized, and where the equipment runs too fast.

Source

Arrol Gellner is an architect and syndicated columnist writing about design and planning. He notes that our planning and design is now based on the needs of the automobile, but that things can (and probably will) change..

Willis Carrier with his first air conditioner

We have written often how electricity-sucking air conditioners caused the massive post-war transfer of people and votes to the sunbelt; Edward McClelland of Salon thinks that air conditioners make people vote Republican.

Thoreau's cabin at Walden Pond- Stephen Erat at TalkingTree

"Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! We are happy in proportion to the things we can do without."

-via Megan Prusynski, who lists seven things one should think about before making a purchase at ::PlanetSave

More cute little cabins on TreeHugger
Clara Cabin by Bryan Meyer and Anne Ryan

Leslie Scrivener writes in the Star about the problem of rampant bike theft, and the proper way to protect your bike, including painting it pink, using two expensive and heavy locks, or riding a junker. A commenter pointed out (what appears to be a cliche but new to me):

"All bicycles weigh fifty pounds. A thirty-pound bicycle needs a twenty-pound lock. A forty-pound bicycle needs a ten-pound lock. A fifty-pound bicycle doesn't need a lock at all."

TreeHugger on how to prevent bike theft:
How to Prevent Bike Theft

Tom Friedman battles Michele Bachmann in the Quote of the Day Olympics with a tirade against McCain for missing all eight votes on the renewable energy tax credit extensions (and Obama too, for missing the last vote). Without this bill's passage, most investment in solar and wind in the US will grind to a halt.

Our favorite Member of Congress from the State of Minnesota is now in the lead with the most quotes of the day of anyone on TreeHugger, with her latest complaint about Nancy Pelosi and the fight against climate change:

""[Pelosi] is committed to her global warming fanaticism to the point where she has said that she's just trying to save the planet. We all know that someone did that over 2,000 years ago, they saved the planet -- we didn't need Nancy Pelosi to do that." ::Think Progress

All Michele Bachmann a...