esrosedotblog

The Trumps are heading for a confrontation on the environment and we are ready.

California, other states and cities set to be part of resistance against Trump climate policies

People should know now that our Jerry Brown is one tough bastard. He has been through the wars. And what is more, he is Jesuit trained!

He and his gang are getting ready to resist any rollback in environmental laws.

Happy warriors.

In our case, treading would get him a rattlesnake bite. Mean and permanent.

The court cases will last long past the political life or endurance of these bastards.

Did I write that I would wait to jump this guy until he is in office?

No way.

Labels: California, environment, Trump Administration

Every now and then I watch a muckraking movie just to keep my perspective balanced.

Today's film features many of my old corporate clients. Only this time it is all about what a bunch of deceitful bastards they are.

Merchants of Doubt (2015)

If you think that industries under fire for bad things try to defend themselves then you are right. Why not?

But sometimes they use unethical means to do their work. This is sort of the message of this film.

It is the "sort of" part that is hard to decipher.

I have no doubt that the people who make fire retardant materials try to deflect criticism over their use. But then, what?

We live in a complex society and so the consumer always has to watch his or her ass.

Buyer beware.

Then there are bigger issues what affect us communally. The environment, warming. All that.

There is a lot of soap box in this film and not many suggestions on an alternative to just being a better, wiser consumer. Or something.

Some of us belly up to the bar and buy this shit anyway.

I am not too disturbed by any of it. I worry about long term affects. But I do not know what else I can do except to vote for people who might be good at turning these barbarians back at the gates.

A 3 out of Netflix5.

A little more fire in the belly please. Too sedate.

Labels: environment, films

We got a lot of rain yesterday.

It was gentle and persistent and lasted all day. Just the kind that is needed to end the drought.

I am sure we need a lot more but, for now, there is a nice damp earth smell and the grass, such as it is, has brightened up.

There is, incidentally, a lot of second thought work about eliminating grass.

Like a lot of simplistic solutions, this creates some side issues.

Grass moderates temperature and provides balance for the CO2 levels that are around.

Sand or gravel take on a great deal more heat and will cause environmental problems of another kind.

Not to mention that without grass, no worms for birds to grab. No place for dogs to pee pee outside.

Grass is good.

Sometimes I think that folks must be ready to pick up and move off the land here and back to the big cities. Or, probably closer to the truth, to get rid of everyone else who has come to be where the nice weather and green are. There is a lot of "not me but you" in all this.

Labels: environment, grass

Another thing to be proud of as a long (and only) time member of the Apple corps.

Apple Building Solar Farm to Power California Operations

Money where mouth is located.

I would never have called Steve Jobs a socially responsible guy but he was actually always including the environment in his obsessions and dedication. Same now.

Some cynics will say that it is just a publicity ploy or something. But where was/is IBM on stuff like this. Dell? Who?

And what's wrong with a little publicity to sell the things that a company believes in? The belief system can be as important as the product itself. They are intertwined. The beliefs are the product.

As has been the case from the very beginning.

Labels: apple, environment

Closing down dirty air doesn't seem to have a penalty at all.

As usual, the wing nuts dire predictions turn out to be flimsy.

The "aginners", the ones who are against anything Obama wants to do, whine and writhe over stuff just for the sake of whining and writhing.

Here we go again.

In Some States, Emissions Cuts Defy Skeptics

And this is just a few states where the states themselves have put on the clamps. Wait until the big ones come on line.

I am not a big thumper for the environment, really. But I can smell a special interest when it comes on the scene and tells blatant lies in its own interest. Then, the when the lie belies the reality, I can see that these people know they are fucking it up and are trying to go around the end to save some money. At my expense. Cough cough.

We don't have much pollution here. Nature does the worst of it with the occasional sand storm or silica cloud. It is "natural dust" that is settling in my lungs these days.

Not much we can do about this stuff. But to pour more in? No. Bad enough with the cars from the 10 and local travel from time to time when the air "inverts".

There is no doubt that the air is "thicker" now than it was when we moved here 16 years ago. But we are doing it to ourselves. Somehow that seems more intimately dangerous, closer to home at least.

Labels: air pollution, environment

EARTH DAY

Things like Earth Day, Sunday, are just some more pious bullshit that feels good but doesn't do one fucking thing for the environment.

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE BLOG

Things I Pledge to Do for Mother Earth

Sunday is the 42nd Earth Day, a worldwide event we celebrate every year to remind ourselves that we're the biggest parasites on the third rock from the sun. To mark the occasion, this year I pledge to…

Change the channel any time one of those dishonest oil company commercials claiming environmental responsibility comes on.
Save water in my house by doing laundry at my neighbors' house while they're at work.

Rent a chopper and drop thousands of large plastic bins over the city to remind people that Portland recycles.

Fart only on odd-numbered days. (This one'll be tough. I may need to attend support group meetings.)

Retrofit the car with hybrid technology so it only runs on gas when the team of kittens gets too tired to pull it.

Use only the sun and a magnifying glass to light up my bong. Er…uh…"water pipe."

Restrict my use of "fracking" to its handiness as an adjective paired with the word "idiots" to describe people who displease me.

Contribute to healthy forests by teaching tea partiers that watering trees with the blood of tyrants actually kills them. Fracking idiots.

Help save the whales by hiding as many as I can in the basement washtub.

Close down tar sands sites by making spooky noises so the owners think they're haunted and run away.

Embrace chamberpot technology.

Dispose of my spent fuel rods properly instead of selling them as glowsticks at raves.

Start a coral reef in my bathtub for eventual relocation off the Florida coast.

Labels: bullshit, environment, holidays

I AM WITH THE TEA BAGGERS ON THIS ONE

Give Up Familiar Light Bulb? Not Without Fight, Some Say

Even a blind pig will find an acorn once in a while. Stopped clocks tell the correct time twice a day. And every so often the tea bags find an issue I can agree with.

I am down with repealing the incandescent light bulb law which is really a performance requirement law which most incandescent 100 W bulbs can't meet.

I will not use the mercury loaded curly cue bulbs that are made outside the US.

Look at this if you doubt their safety. Un-fucking-believable.

Cleaning Up a Broken CFL

Air the room. Get kids and pets outside! Keerist!

When we bought the condo they had some of the CFLs in place. They have been removed. I just bought a bunch of 100W incandescents. I might stockpile some more.

It is probably too late. GE just closed their last US plant for the grand old bulb.

We shall see what we shall see.

Here is another set of ten steps. You don't have to clear the room for this one, I guess.

Labels: environment, tea party, technology

THE WRECKAGE OF AMERICA

I can't tell you how pathetic I think that this all is.

Ten Favorite iPhone Apps

Don't take this personally if you have as many "apps" or are as coy and insufferable as David Pogue. You can't help it. You have been seduced and reduced to bits.

I really do think that this is the funeral pyre of American, hence World, culture. I mean it!

What a harvest of time wasters. Fake calls. As if the real ones aren't bad enough.

I know. I carry on about this on a fairly regular basis but no one is listening. Probably because they are all blowing into their microphone and playing "an instrument" on four holes.

Get your fucking kid a real instrument. Get them out in the park to play. Rip the phone out of their hands and put it on the shelf for a few days.

I have given up on the adults.

Think of the waste of engineering and scientific talent on this kind of shit. How about if it were applied to some of the world's real problems.

OK. I give up. For this time.

Labels: computer, cults, culture, engineering, environment

WINTER!!!

There is snow!

On the top of San Gorgonio out to the northwest. This photo is the other side seen from Joshua Tree National Park.

It is a lovely mountain and is the first and last with the snowcap.

This week was very rainy and, up there, cold. So it has left winter's traces.

There is a find dusting all down the slope that is visible in the early light but that will be gone soon.

The cap, all things considered, will probably be there until May.

No sign of snow on the other big one, San Jacinto, (both near two miles high) but it's probably on the side away from us.

We went climbing San Jacinto one year, in late May, and the snow was 6-8 feet deep in drifts. You could crawl up and slide down. A lot easier than rock scrambling.

It is a nice crumbly snow. Probably the longest lasting of any we have ever seen. It has been there for 6 months. This snow is different. Crystallized with the, near daily, small melt on the surface from the sun, refrozen at night.

It is not drifty or wet like snowball snow. The crystals are big and won't compact.

This snow capping will probably be the only white stuffd we will see this winter. It may come down to about a thousand feet above the desert floor but that will be the limit.

I saw a wet and foggy snow for a few hours five or six years ago. It was a mess but pretty nonetheless.

Labels: environment, weather

METHODOLOGY

A month or so ago, I bitched on here about the cleaning materials that I was using. Getting gassed in the shower stall with 409 and choking with the toilet cleaners with bleach.

Penny sent a comment about the products of

Method Home Cleaning Products

which are all natural based ingredients and which have a nice smell.

I tried the tub and tile cleaner and it worked great.

So I got the all purpose cleaner (no scent) and that worked well too.

So I went whole hog and now have the toilet cleaner, floor cleaner dish soap and sink scouring powder.

Today was the first day I used them all and the house smells great.

And, everything is clean!

By smell, I mean that, well, you have to have an odor for some of this. But they have contrived to have their's be pleasant somehow.

The Eucalyptus Mint smells a lot like a cleanser that my mother used. I bet this is not an accident.

All of these products are biodegradable so I am doing good outside the home when they get flushed while, at the same time, I am not killing myself with toxic fumes.

The containers are innovative as well. The toilet cleaner which is not shown here is a more convenient tear drop shape.

A great discovery. Or suggestion. Thanks.

Labels: environment, housekeeping

IT DIDN'T PAN OUT

Where Dams Once Stood, Prospectors Spur Anger

This is a western issue.

When we came to California over a decade ago, we drove and across the country and tried to stay off the interstates as much as we could.

A frequent sight were, usually, individual people down in a gorge, along a creek, with pans in their hands, working through the water. Panning for gold.

I had never seen this.

There were more panners than fisherman and, of course, that is the point of this article. Where there is panning there are probably no fish.

And so on.

I guess some of the panning gets pretty elaborate. We didn't really see that.

Of course, it doesn't happen here. No streams to pan and when there is water, it is going by so fast you wouldn't get to hold a pan in the torrent.

Panning. Get rich quick. Maybe this is also a hard-times thing. But probably not. Times weren't hard when we drove here.

Labels: environment, nature

BIGGER BUT NOT BETTER

A decade of growth for the Coachella Valley.

But I am not complaining.

We are doing OK where we live. Palm Springs has 5000 more people. They are not in my neighborhood.

Coachella leads valley growth

As usual, a stupid headline from the local paper but nevermind. Coachella is a "city" at the other end of the valley. Not the point of the article at all.

The cities here have encouraged growth to the Valley's detriment in my opinion.

More traffic, lower quality of life in general. That kind of thing.

I know.

I am one of those who came here and now don't want anyone else to.

The natural evolution into a crabby old bastard who doesn't want change.

In some ways, I suppose, the increase is good. The tax base is needed because the city fathers signed our income away to entitlements for police and fire a long time ago.

Without the dough we would be struggling. Well, we are struggling. Make that "struggling more".

There isn't a whole lot to say. Until we stop worshiping the gods of development, this will continue.

And, eventually, the whole population explosion will inundate the world. We will be stacking them up here in the desert.

Unstoppable.

We had half a chance just after WWII and no one could bring it off. The Church opposed it and no politician would stand up for birth control except in China. Or somewhere like that. Now, all bets are off there too.

Labels: environment, life

UNDER WATER

I got our water bill yesterday.

It compares usage with a year ago. We are down to a third of the water we were using.

And this has been the case for three or four months.

What happened?

Well, for one thing, I began to really watch the amount used by the sprinklers. When it got cold, I turned them down. Less often, less time.

Right now they are off, off. It has been raining. We don't need to water.

In the house, we have made a major effort to cut down water use.

Part of this is to keep the water flow to the septic system low.

We don't wash dishes or clothes until there is a full load. Surprisingly, we do not have to wash dishes once a day. More like every day and a half and sometimes less often than that.

I figure we are using half the water for laundry. Well, at least running the washer half the time. More water for bigger washes but not that much.

And flushes of course.

This has all added up.

This month it saved us 16.00. In the summer it would be a lot more as they escalate the rates.

We are using less power too. I have cut the pool pump times according to the temperatures.

There are a lot of places that you can save. I am, frankly, more interested in the dollar saving than the ecological impact. But I will take the green part of it too.

Labels: economy, environment

NO BRAINER

We have this. A new foam (the real thick built up foam) and understructure got painted with white reflective plastic. We had immediate savings of AC and Heating cost but it is hard to know how much to allot to the paint directly.

White Roofs Catch on as Energy Cost Cutters

You can do it on any roof. Our neighbor has a built up tar roof and he got it sprayed white. He is under the hill and has shade and has the air off much of the time. He is also an old desert rat. We are getting there.

The other thing we do is keep the house about 80 which is very high for this area. The result is that we are accustomed to it and, at times, I will tweak it up a degree or two because it is "too cold".

Labels: environment, rehab

LIGHTS OUT

We got an email the other day from a friend spreading the word that there would be a lights out tonight in Palm Springs. Official. The City Council.

I wish I still had it.

The last line of it said that "of course, necessary lights would remain on".

LOL

Here is the big deal.

Earth Hour.

You can even sign a petition. That will make you feel better.

Then, at the end of the hour, go turn on all your extra lights and go about your business as usual. That'll fix the shit.

This is the kind of thing that I, illiberally, oppose on the face of it.

Ceremonial little actions that mean nothing. One hour a year. Feel good about your greenity and then go on with your wasteful little life.

I will be asleep so my lights will be off. Except those that are necessary of course.

This is like the marches for AIDS and the dances for breast cancer and all the rest of the silly diversions from true altruism or selflessness. I walk, therefore I am. Or something.

I have tried it, incidentally, and I have to report only that I felt cheap and incomplete and, sadly, little of it ever added to my sensitivity or greater contribution.

Organized self satisfaction. The ceremonial smug.

While I am at it, let's here it for the end of the incandescent bulb. We are all to switch to CFLs.

A progress report.

Do New Bulbs Save Energy If They Don't Work?

Another boondoggle. I have written about our own experience with these things. Limited but still.

No conversion here.

The light is poor and the cost is high and, from the reports of friends, they don't last. Period.

I know. I am resisting the inevitable. But sometimes the inevitable is worth resisting.

Labels: environment

WILTED

Just the other day, I told John that I miss the New England Flower Show.

This was prompted by seeing some trees (growing wild) that looked to be acacias. The Flower Show made a big deal of placing acacias along the walkway into the Show each year.

No more.

Economic Crisis Takes a Toll on Flower Shows

(The acacias are mentioned in the second paragraph)

They will have to come out here to see their acacias.

Now, to be honest, I have to say that I did not really enjoy the Flower Show that much. It was just something that we had to do every year. Like it or not.

You can miss something you don't particularly like especially if you did it over and over again.

We would get up early and go stand on line to get in before the big crowd. That was the main thing. I hate crowds.

Right after the crowds, I hate standing in line.

Nevertheless, we stood and then went in and moved as swiftly as possible to the exhibits, mostly man-made tableaus (I have used this word two times now in the last three days) of various settings.

The main point was the flowers of course. The smell. The warmth and humidity. The pure fug of dense flora, artificially assembled or not.

We would ooh and ahhh and then go to the arrangement competitions. Dead boring. And then the sales area where we would always buy something that we did not need and, as it turned out, that we were not able to use.

Altogether a negative experience all around. But we kept going every year.

Now, for now, it is over.

I put an article in the blog yesterday about economic dislocations. This is probably one of them.

The Flower Show had long since transitioned from an activity of the Horticultural Society for its members. It had morphed into an exhibition for the garden and landscape industry.

This is not one of those industries that I would want to be in right now. The idea of high artifice is likely to disappear from many of our activities.

So, nostalgia or not, another time honored tradition falls to the wrecking ball.

Maybe it will come back in a form that is more humble and less extravagantic. Perhaps "do it yourself" gardeners will again prevail. Maybe we will begin to let nature be nature and that will guide us around larger environmental issues.

For one, I am taking another look at growing grass and petunias in the desert. We are 90% there already. Maybe we will go the last ten.

Labels: environment, flowers, horticulture, nostalgia

HARDER IS BETTER

I don't suppose you want a lot of details about our recycled paper toilet tissue test.

It would appear that we have been living in an illusion for many years. The idea that "soft" is best has fallen.

"Soft", mostly leads to needing more tissue per sit. Wow. What a surprise. The companies not only knock down trees for "soft" but they get a larger per use wad of paper used.

I wondered how Europe has been able to struggle along all these years with the "hard" stuff (not necessarily recyled). Now I know. It works better.

And it is not really "hard". It isn't that sandpaper stuff I used to see in public toilets.

The recycled paper towels are a bit more complicated in their results.

They don't absorb the same amount of water but they do raise the question of whether you should be using a paper towel to sop stuff up in the first place.

We have a lot of cloth towels here. Old ones. They dry out. Easy to use. Just put them close to the wet places so you can grab them when needed.

I am actually curious to see if we need a paper towel at all! There are some messes that they are very good for. Thick stuff that gets on the counter. Like peanut butter or mayonnaise.

I looked yesterday for recycled facial tissue. "Facial"? I guess they mean the nose part that runs.

There was none on the shelf. It exists though. I will keep looking. I can always buy on line but that is hell on the environment too. Sort of.

Incidentally, take a look at the photo. How do you hang your toilet paper? Over the top or under the roll? We are under the roll people. We have a stand in house cleaner from time to time who puts all the rolls back to the over the top position and also folds the end in little triangular points.

Labels: environment, life

CFL-OOEY

We have not converted to CFL bulbs.

Here is one of the reasons.

The Future of CFLs

They are expensive and have a bad reputation.

They do not fit many "standard" situations.

We bought two new extension lights to read by (old eyes) and they came equipped with them. They are OK so far. No flickering or anything.

The problem is that we have a lot of floodlight fixtures. The inset kind. No reflector. No CFL. At least not that I want to look at up in there.

And that is the trouble. If there is a visible bulb, they look like shit.

This house is filled with special bulbs. I can count 5 kinds from the ones that line the bathroom mirrors right on to the special Sylvania spotlights in the living and dining room.

And we have dimmers all over. CFLs don't dim. Where is the saving in that?

The other thing is the usual flourescent disposal problem. They have mercury in them so you have to go to the place where they take special dumps. We have a whole GI can full of that kind of stuff and we have still not taken it in to the ABOP place.

You have to limit the dump to 50 pounds and also have to sign something. How hard can they make this stuff?

Back to the lights, I have suddenly been having trouble finding the floods though. Is this some kind of sign for the future?

Two just burned out and I had to buy 60 watt replacements because the 100W wasn't available.

I am not going to be able to do some of this good citizen shit. The green footprint thing. Or is it the carbon footprint. Living green. Have a small carbon footprint. Even that is hard to remember.

I don't have any conclusion. Talk is cheap, I say. Try looking at these ugly fuckers that cost 10-12 bucks each and be happy about having a smaller carbon footprint at the same time.

It ain't easy.

Labels: environment

GASSED UP

I paid 4.57 a gallon for gas this morning.

I don't like it, personally, but I am all for it publicly.

We have been getting a free ride folks.

My friends in France and the UK pay twice what we do and look at our situation with great glee.

After all, we are finally joining the great world market.

And market forces are doing this.

Supply and demand.

We use more and more each year. The Hummer society.

Now we are paying for it.

In the end, it is my opinion that only 7-8 dollar gas will have us face reality and cut down on wasteful use of petroleum. We will ride buses and trains. This is already happening in LA.

It is the only thing that will work.

Nothing in any politician's energy policy will save us, and the world, from asphyxiation. Only the market itself.

Of course there are some alternatives but not for cars.

The plug in vehicle plugs in to an oil based generation system. Maybe wind will do it. Or nukes. But probably not.

This is the first symptom of global warming that is eco-regulating.

The world is taking action where we will not.

Yeh, I know that's a stretch. But if we won't quit burning fuel, the world will just stop us from taking the fuel out of the ground.

I really do not mind paying the right amount for gas. I am not entitled to a fixed price.

Neither are you.

Labels: ecology, environment, global warming

GREEN

Boston Has High Hopes Now That The Dig is Done

We left just about the time that the Big Dig was getting started.

I am not sorry to say that we missed all the fun.

But I have to admit to a bit of nostalgia when I see the clear air between the North End and the rest of the City.

It is nice to see that the siege is over and that there will be a bit of a reward for all the pain.

It is hard for me to compute that saving 15 minutes in going through the City was worth it though.

The biggest project ever. I almost typed boondoggle. But all's well that ends well I suppose.

Oh. That is the model in the photo.

The Rose Kennedy Fitzgerald Greenbelt is so new that it doesn't appear on Google Earth or, for that matter, in the Google images.

Labels: environment, nostalgia