Beetle Battle

Coming soon, to a pine tree near you! He’s a tiny little feller, about the size of a grain of rice, but boy is he hungry. The Mountain Pine Beetle Dendroctonus ponderosae is a Rocky Mountain native and we had learned to live with occasional outbreaks. We are now in the middle of a full blown epidemic of beetles. Lots of the northwestern part of our state has so far been spared the catastrophic outbreaks of beetles seen in British Columbia and Colorado, or around Helena, but it doesn’t look like that will hold for much longer. Beetle infestation signs have begun to show up on the slopes around Missoula.

Amy Gannon says many trees on the Mount Jumbo saddle have pitch polka-dotting their trunks — a sign that they were trying to flush out the tiny beetles that bore into the tree. The trees still have green needles for now, but next year they’ll likely be covered with red needles and dead.

Driven by the climate change that some like to say is a hoax, beetle infestations have hit 22 million acres in British Columbia, “The pine beetle infestation is the first major climate change crisis in Canada,” Doug McArthur, a professor of public policy at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, told IPS. There are estimates that B.C. could loose 25% of it’s forests and that 80% of those dead trees won’t even be salvagable in ten years. In Colorado, beetle infestations have hit about 2 million acres of forest, doubling the amount of affected acreage in two years. Colorado is projecting that they will lose every lodgepole pine in the state in the next few years.

Those millions of acres of dead and dying pines are driving fire behavior that experts have never seen, even in Montana.

“We’re seeing fire behavior that surprised us,” said Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest Supervisor Dave Meyers. “We’re having more severe burning fires, they’re larger, they start sooner, and they go longer. We usually don’t see crown fires in late September.”

We can expect to see a more than 200% increase in the acreage burned each year due to climate change and this simple little pest. All we need to stop the infestation is a simple, normal winter. Temperatures of -30 for several days, or -40 for about twelve hours is all it takes to kill the beetles in the trees. We used to get a good cold spell along about the end of December or early January and that kept the little devils mostly in check. But, that is no longer the case. NOAA is predicting a drier and warmer winter driven by a Pacific El Nino again this year, so Missoula can expect to begin to see the slopes of Mt. Jumbo turning a pretty shade of red-brown by early summer next year.

And here’s one that hadn’t occurred to me. Large-scale power outages can be expected in the next few years due to the beetle epidemic. The nation’s power grid is also under indirect attack by itsy bitsy pine beetles. The largest power outage in American history, in 2003, left 50 million people without electricity for two days and cost 11 lives. The outage was due to untrimmed trees coming into contact with power lines in Ohio. A whole bunch of major western power lines now run through dead and dying forests in the West.

“Most of the major transmission lines for the Front Range cross the Continental Divide,” said Cal Wettstein, commander of the U.S. Forest Service’s Bark Beetle Incident Management Team. “There are three or four big, main lines and the majority of them go through some kind of beetle kill, so that’s the big concern.”

Emergency plans are now underway to allow power companies to clear large swaths of national forest land to avert failures due to beetle-killed trees. Just when you think you have this whole global warming thing figured out, nature throws you a curve ball.

Denny the Dodger

Back in July, Denny Rehberg signed the Let Freedom Ring, “Responsible Healthcare Reform Pledge“. He pledged to not vote to enact any health care reform legislation that he has not read personally in it’s entirity and that has not been available on the internet for at least 72 hours. The good news is, that Denny has read the entire 1,990 page House health care bill that was released on Thursday. Since he left Washington almost immediately for an “emergency meeting” in Billings yesterday, we can only assume that he read the bill on the plane.

We know that he has read the entire bill, because he released a line-by-line critique to the folks at the Billings meeting. He could not, of course, have such a depth of knowledge of the bill unless he had read the whole thing. The fact that his bullet points almost exactly match those of Rush Limbaugh was surely just a coincidence.

Yes, this is the same Denny Rehberg whose brilliant legislative career includes sponsoring 25 bills, zero of which have made it into law ranking him 37th out of 440 members according to OpenCongress. Three of the 118 bills that he co-sponsored have made it into law and he votes 90% of the time with Republicans. I can’t imagine where the other 10% goes. He still wants to take a 30-day vacation before even thinking about health care. I guess it gives him a headache.

I drilled a bit deeper at the OnTheIssues website. Here’s where your Congressman stands;

• Rated 0% by NARAL, indicating a pro-life voting record. (Dec 2003)
• Rated 100% by the NRLC, indicating a pro-life stance. (Dec 2006)
• Rated 21% by the ACLU, indicating an anti-civil rights voting record. (Dec 2002)
• Rated 0% by the HRC, indicating an anti-gay-rights stance. (Dec 2006)
• Rated 31% by the NAACP, indicating an anti-affirmative-action stance. (Dec 2006)
• Rated 25% by the NEA, indicating anti-public education votes. (Dec 2003)
• Rated 0% by the CAF, indicating opposition to energy independence. (Dec 2006)
• Rated 0% by the LCV, indicating anti-environment votes. (Dec 2003)
• Rated 11% by APHA, indicating a anti-public health voting record. (Dec 2003)
• Rated 7% by the AFL-CIO, indicating an anti-union voting record. (Dec 2003)
• Rated 10% by the ARA, indicating an anti-senior voting record. (Dec 2003)
• Rated 0% by the AU, indicating opposition to church-state separation. (Dec 2006)

That’s pretty much Denny in a nutshell. We report, you vote.

Temperature tantrum

I see that it was snowing in Colorado and Wyoming yesterday. Imagine that, snow in October. So, there you have it, global warming is a fake. That’s about as deep into the data as the folks who denounce climate change like to go.

One of the favorite ploys of climate change deniers is to claim that the world has actually been cooling since 1998 and therefore global warming is a worldwide conspiratorial hoax by nearly every prominent science organization. Maybe the Associated Press had a slow day, but they decided to check out the cooling claim. They presented global temperature data to four respected statisticians and asked them to look for trends in the data. The statisticians were not told what the data represented.

The scientists found that, contrary to claims by skeptics, there really is no cooling going on. In fact, the opposite is still true. NOAA said that “The last 10 years are the warmest 10-year period of the modern record.” “Of the 10 hottest years recorded by NOAA, eight have occurred since 2000,” So, where does the cooling myth come from? Well, it seems that it depends on which data set you use and what period you choose to analyze. 1998 was one of the hottest years on record. If you choose 1998 as your starting year, the data can be cherry-picked to give the impression of a decade of cooling. If however, you choose to start in 1997, or 1999, the trend disappears. The “apparent cooling” is all part of the normal ups and downs of the climatic cycle. The modern data, running back as far as 1880 show continuing warming. Other studies by respected scientists have come to the same conclusion. The fairy story of global cooling is just a lame attempt by corporate-sponsored hacks to throw a wrench in the upcoming Copenhagen climate conference. It doesn’t represent real science in any responsible way.

Last month, the AP reported that the world’s oceans are also setting temperature records. In July, the waters off the U.S. east coast were the warmest that has been recorded in the 130 years of record keeping. Believe what you want to believe, but be sure that if you are going to make up your own science, you have the data to back it up. That should be be the end of the shivering decade saga, but I think we all know that ain’t going to happen. Kooks don’t need real data or accurate science to back up their claims. The rest of us do.

NUMBY Californians

Here’s another reason why carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is not really such a good idea. The basic idea is that we will just capture all the CO2 produced by coal-fired power plants, pump it under high pressure across the country and shove it thousands of feet underground where it will stay for infinity and not bother nobody. The concept sounds cool, but it has actually never been proven on an industrial scale and even if it does prove out, it will be decades before the technology begins to ramp up.

In California, a consortium of government agencies and energy companies funded by the DOE to study sequestration called the West Coast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (WESTCARB) has been looking for a good test site in which to park a few thousand tons of CO2 for some time. So far, not much luck. A good article in the latest Mother Jones, Not Under My Backyard, points out that Californians haven’t exactly been flocking to the idea. In the small town of Thornton, the mayor said “Even though they said there was no potential danger, I don’t think the community believed that 100 percent.” An advocate for the Union of Concerned Scientists talked about the possibility that the CO2 may not stay exactly where it is put and there is a possibility of groundwater pollution. “It’s tricky to know what conduits exist underground,” she says. “Those could be a potential pathway for the CO₂ or the other minerals to leach out.” Thornton said, No Thanks.

It seems that so far, WESTCARB isn’t having a lot of luck convincing California residents that they are being told the entire story about CCS. In their latest foray at Birds Landing, an unincorporated community of 130 in Solano County, a nearby city councilman told WESTCARB, “You are telling me about how this might benefit WESTCARB, but you aren’t telling me anything about how this might harm anyone living in the area.“

Due to the immense amount of time that the carbon will have to stay exactly where it is put, there is no way to assure residents that there won’t be problems sometime in the future. And that, rightly, has the people who have to live on top of the toxic reservoir a bit worried. About 25 possible sequestration sites have been identified nationwide. A DOE study found that 11 of 19 possible sites “reported significant legal obstacles“. I know it sounds awfully narrow minded to be against having a high-pressure poison pumped or trucked through your community and stored underneath your house, but it amounts to just one more in a long list of reasons why the concept of Clean Coal and CCS in particular, is a really dumb idea.

Coal ash conundrum

Last week, the Bugle published an article concerning a recent National Research Council study on the hidden health and environmental consequences of power production in the U.S. The study found that we pay, as a nation, about $120 billion per year, mostly in increased health problems and early deaths for our reliance on fossil fuels.

Along the same lines, a new report by EPA discusses how we also pay a price for the many toxic pollutants produced by coal-fired power plants. Following the massive spill of coal ash in Tennessee, the new report shows that many of the toxins are much less obvious, but can accumulate in our environment for many years causing a wide range of problems for humans and aquatic life. “EPA found the interaction of coal combustion wastewaters with the environment has caused a wide range of environmental effects to aquatic life.“

Burning coal is the most filthy way we have yet found to produce electricity. Pollutants leach from raw coal as it is piled up to burn. Ash from burning coal contains many pollutants that have to be disposed of. Toxins are scrubbed from smokestacks and they all have to go somewhere. For the most part, the pollution still goes is into our waterways, groundwaters and drinking water.

Numerous studies have shown that the pollutants found in wastewater associated with coal combustion wastes can impact aquatic organisms and wildlife, and can result in lasting environmental impacts on local habitats and ecosystems. Many of these impacts may not be realized for years due to the persistent and bioaccumulative nature of the pollutants released. The total amount of toxic pollutants currently being released in wastewater discharges from coal-fired power plants is estimated to be significant and raises concerns regarding the long-term impacts to aquatic organisms, wildlife, and human health that are exposed to these pollutants.

Exposure to coal combustion wastewater has been associated with fish kills, reductions in the growth and survival of aquatic organisms, behavioral and physiological effects in wildlife and aquatic organisms, potential impacts to human health (i.e., drinking water contamination), and changes to the local habitat. The bioaccumulative properties of several coal combustion wastewater pollutants and long recovery times associated with many of the ecological impacts emphasize the potential threat these wastes present to the local environment. Research published in the scientific literature demonstrates that coal combustion wastewater is not a benign waste and further study is needed to fully understand how these chemically complex waste streams interact with the environment.

Pollutants found in coal ash wastewaters such as selenium, mercury and arsenic have been tied to fish kills and reproductive and organ failures in fish, reptiles and birds. They are also known to cause environmental harm and are health risks to humans. High nutrient loads from coal waste can lead to eutrophication in the receiving waters. Pollutants released in relatively small amounts into the environment accumulate over time until they reach toxic levels. They can also accumulate in fish and human tissue and the high levels can be passed to offspring.

Even though opposed by the coal industry, EPA is to be commended for at least beginning to take seriously the toxic nature of waste produced from burning coal. EPA has said that it will decide by the end of the year whether or not to regulate coal ash as a hazardous waste.

There ain’t no free lunch

It is imperative for the health of the planet that we move away from extractive, carbon-based energy and toward more environmentally friendly alternatives. However, an article in the New York Times this morning reminds us that there are always going to be consequences to the planet no matter how we get our electrical power. Two proposed solar energy projects in California would consume more than a billion gallons of water a year while a total of 35 big solar farms have been proposed for arid parts of California alone.

In a rural valley of Nevada, a German developer announced plans last year to build two large solar farms to generate electricity for the California market. It sounded like a good idea to drought-parched Nevadans. The development would bring hundreds of new jobs and economic development to an area hard hit by the recession. Then they found out the cost. The plants would use over a billion gallons of the valley’s water, more than 20 percent of the available supply.

“I’m worried about my well and the wells of my neighbors,” George Tucker, a retired chemical engineer, said on a blazing afternoon.

Solar power will of course be one of the solutions as we move away from burning carbon fuels. But, “clean energy” does not come free. In a 2006 Sandia Labs report for the government they noted that coal-fired power plants use 100 to 300 gallons of water to produce one megawatt hour of electricity. A nuclear power plant uses between 500 and 1100 gallons of water for cooling for each MWh and a wet-cooled solar parabolic trough plant uses between 760 and 920 gallons per MWh for cooling. The rub, of course, is that solar power is most often generated in the hottest, most arid parts of the country, where water is often in short supply. Water supply for solar plants has often come at the expense of agricultural interests. BLM reports that they have received 130 applications for large-scale solar plants on over 1 million acres of public land. The proposed plants could produce enough electricity to power 20 million homes.

With all our technological progress in the last century, our means of producing electricity still relies almost entirely on steam power. Water is heated to produce steam to drive turbines. The steam can be created by burning coal, oil or gas, or using nuclear fission or, in the case of solar plants, by focusing large mirrors on a bucket of water. Once the steam and electricity has been produced, there is a need to cool the steam/water back down for re-use. Currently the means of doing that is to use large cooling towers and millions of  gallons of cooling water. Estimates are that “consumption of water for electrical energy production could more than double by 2030 from 3.3 billion gallons per day in 1995 to 7.3 billion gallons per day“. “Unfortunately, freshwater withdrawals already exceed precipitation in many areas across the country…“

One solution to the excessive water use is the use of “dry cooling” for solar plants. Dry cooling is done by essentially building super-large radiator and fan systems to cool the steam water. But, dry cooling is expensive and reduces plant efficiency by as much as 10%. Dry cooling can only reduce water temperatures down to the ambient air temperature as opposed to the dew point temperature of water cooling. As cooling temperature increases, plant efficiency declines and, as mentioned before, it’s nearly always very hot in areas where we produce solar power.

It’s not as if we have to sacrifice our water to have electricity, but we need to be reminded that whatever we do, we will have impacts on the planet. Earlier this month, the Bugle posted an article on the price we pay in clean water to have cleaner coal power. Also, mining coal consumes 2.6 million gallons of water per day. Carbon-based power plants withdraw 136 billion gallons of water per day in our country and consume more than 3 billion gallons. Biofuel production is very water-intensive due mainly to the use of corn and soy products grown on irrigated lands. Alternative fuels such as methane or synfuels from coal are three times more water-intensive than traditional fossil fuels. Even the much needed improvements in our transmission system will require a sacrifice of our land and water.

We just need to keep in mind as we move forward that coal is not necessary to sustain life, but water is. Trade offs will have to be made. As they often say of fossil fuels, “They ain’t making any new water“.

People are stupid

That may be a bit harsh. Maybe a better word would be “uninformed“. As we come down to the line on passing some kind of clean energy legislation through the Congress, it has come to my attention that most people don’t have a clue what the hell we are talking about, but are never the less willing to render an opinion. Most folks are familiar by now with the Pew Research Center poll that showed a 14% drop between 2008 and 2009 in number of folks who believe that the earth is warming due to human activity and that number now stands at 57%. That’s only the tip of the iceberg. In a June poll, also by Pew, only 49% of the public believed that the earth was getting warmer due to human activity. I guess that’s not bad when the same poll found that 68% of the public did not believe that humans and other living things have evolved due to natural processes. Among those who believe that science contributes to the well-being of society, 78% believe in evolution. And, only 46% of the public knew that electrons were smaller than atoms.

As disheartening as that all sounds, it can have real world consequences for climate change legislation. Even though 57% believe that there is solid evidence for global warming, that number drops to 44% if you live in the Mountain West. Last week, the Bugle ran an article on effects of global warming on western waters. The evidence is all around us and yet we don’t believe. The October Pew study found that only 23% of the public know that the term “Cap and Trade” deals with energy legislation, while 67% believe that science conflicts with their religious belief.

The polls also revealed that Republicans are better at getting their message out than Democrats. 20% of Republicans say they have heard “a lot” about cap and trade. Among Democrats, only 8% claim to have heard “a lot”. And, we know what the Republicans are hearing, don’t we? Republicans who favor carbon emission limits stands at 36% and Democrats favoring emission limits is 58%. In the Mountain West, 42% of the public favors carbon limits, which mostly says a lot about where Republicans live. “About three-fourths (74%) of those who think the earth is warming and it is mostly caused by human activity favor cap and trade legislation. By comparison, 41% of those who say warming is due to natural patterns in the earth’s environment favor limiting carbon emissions. But even 31% of those who say there is no solid evidence of rising temperatures favor cap and trade.“

I blame myself for this drop in scientific knowledge. The Bugle has been too caught up of late in the Health Care thing and we have neglected the duty to educate our readers on the finer points of reality. Hopefully the health care debate will begin to wind down and you will see more articles and evidence on the actuality of climate change and what we need to do as Americans to begin to address the problem. After all, it’s only stupidity, it’s not a terminal condition. 65% know that CO2 is a gas linked to rising temperatures so, I think we can turn this thing around.

Just for fun, if you want to take the Pew Science Knowledge test, it’s kinda fun. It’s only twelve questions on some pretty basic science stuff. Don’t mean to blow my own Bugle, but I got all 12 correct. But then, I’m kind of a geek and like I said, the questions are pretty elemental. We do have an advantage over the general public since we do live in Montana, and we all know that means we are smarter than normal folks.

Snowe Job

It’s come down to this. Democrats can’t stop two of their own from actively signing on to the Republican agenda so, we once again are willing to pay the price of letting more people die so a single Republican, Olympia Snowe, will play nice. President Obama is now actively courting Snowe by pushing her “trigger” idea for the public option. 4&20 Blackbirds did an excellent job this morning of skewering the trigger idea, but I would like to expand a bit on the numbers.

Last month, the Bugle expounded on the trigger option with several reasons why it is a bad idea and probably won’t work. The basic idea of the Snowe trigger option is that when 95% of a state’s residents can’t get decent health insurance coverage at an affordable rate, a public option plan would be triggered on a state-by-state basis. That’s not 95% of insured people, it’s “95% of state residents.” In Montana, that means that just over 900,000 Montanans could get screwed by their insurance providers before a public option would be triggered. If insurance rates reach the 95% plateau, the first thing that happens is that insurance companies get the opportunity to lower the screwing rate to 94.99% to avoid the option.What do you reckon they will do?

Affordability is determined based on a sliding scale from 3% to 300% of the Federal Poverty Level, reaching 13% of your income at the 300% of FPL. Using 2006 Census data, median household income for Montana is $43,531. Using the affordability criteria, that family could pay $5,660 annually or about $472 per month for health insurance at the 13% threshold. jhwygirl correctly says that most Montanans are paying less than that currently. The Snowe amendment determines your income “after deducting any available tax credit or employer subsidy from the cost of such premium“. You may get a tax credit and you probably receive an employer subsidy, but let’s look at that a bit closer. An “employer subsidy” is the amount if money that is being deducted from your pay so that your employer can pay part of your health insurance. If insurance rates declined, presumably you would get a pay increase. A tax credit is only a percentage of what you paid out.

With a trigger option, insurance companies would know exactly the maximum premium they could charge. If a trigger level is actually reached in Montana, the insurance companies are first given the opportunity to lower rates ever so slightly. To meet the threshold, they could lower rates on one sector, such as young, healthy people and leave the elderly and poor paying higher rates. If they can’t do that, a state-level public option is instituted. It has to compete with Blue Cross, which now controls 75% of the Montana market. The whole idea of a robust public option is that you would have a pool of millions of people who could negotiate rates with health care providers. Montana is a very small market and providers would not be willing to negotiate significantly lower rates for such a small pool. Insurance companies would be able to charge more in one part of Montana and less somewhere else and still meet the trigger threshold while many people continue to pay exorbitant rates.

The trigger idea is bad on so many levels I could go on forever. The only viable answer is a strong, robust public insurance option on a national level to actually force insurance companies to compete. Holding Americans hostage to the vote of one or two Republicans or Democrats is just out and out wrong. Take a vote. We need to see if Ben Nelson or Blanche Lincoln, or other Democrats will actively sign on to the Republican agenda to bring down the most important advancement in American health in decades. If they do, they will pay the consequences, but they should not be allowed to hold the life of every American hostage to corporate lobbyists.

Failure to launch

I love this! Jonathan Karl at ABC News reported yesterday that

Democratic sources tell me that Reid – after a series of meetings with Democratic moderates – has concluded he can pass a bill with a public option.

That’s certainly good news. It’s possible that this is really just a trial balloon to see if they can get moderates on board, but there seems to be somewhat of a groundswell.  jhwygirl over at 4&20 Blackbirds is reporting on a new CNN poll that shows support for a public health insurance option at 61% and growing.

What was so great about the ABC reporting was this quote;

I am told that Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) – who worked for months to get Olympia Snowe’s support for the bill and has consistently said a public option cannot pass the Senate – was apoplectic when Reid told him he wanted to include the public option.  “Baucus went to DEFCON 1,” said a source familiar with the negotiations, referring to the alert level the military uses for an imminent attack on the homeland.

Har! Oh, to be a fly on the wall. I can just picture Max climbing the curtains. After all the work he did to placate his corporate overlords. He gave the insurance industry everything they wanted and they hit back with phony data and reports. Now this, which would be the final insult. In an update this morning, Max tried to make nice,

“From the moment he recommended a public option in his white paper nearly a year ago, Senator Baucus has made clear he would support a public option or any other mechanism to ensure choice, competition and get the 60 votes needed to pass the Senate,” said Baucus spokesman Scott Mulhauser.

Yeah, right! I’m sure that Max will follow the leadership on this one, he usually does, but you might want to console him and send him a polite note to let him know that Montanans will support his belated vote on a public option. Let’s get Max back down to code yellow.

Max Baucus  contact page or phone toll free 800-332-6106 or fax 202-228-1493

It’s Health CARE

Christina Turner was drugged and brutally raped. Fearing that she may have been exposed to HIV, her doctor recommended that she undergo treatment with anti-AIDS drugs. Fortunately, she never developed HIV. Months later, she lost her health insurance and discovered that the preventative treatment had morphed into a pre-existing condition and she could not get health coverage.

Peggy Robertson was in perfect health. When she applied for health insurance she found that she was not qualified because she had previously given birth by Caesarean section. She was told that had she been sterilized, she might possibly have qualified.

Bill Caudle lost his job and along with it his health insurance coverage. His wife Michelle was undergoing treatment for ovarian cancer, a pre-existing condition, that precluded getting any insurance coverage. Bill’s solution was to join the Army at the age of 39 in order to get health insurance and to care for his family.

We’ve heard these stories daily for months now and there never seems to be a shortage. If your baby is too large, you can’t have health insurance. If your baby is too small, you can’t get coverage. How do you get access to the health care system in this nation if you are denied? Going on the NBC “Today Show” worked for the Bates family. Their beautiful baby girl will now get health care. Bernie Lange is a news anchor on a small market TV station. He was able to use his journalistic contacts to point out the utter senselesness of denying care to his baby. Baby Alex was able to beat the system. Unfortunately, that is not the case for the vast majority of those who are denied the care that they need to stay alive. If you are not allowed to participate, you will have a 40% higher chance of early death. You may be forced to join the 45,000 of your friends and neighbors who die each year not because they are denied care, but because they are denied access to care. If you are healthy, you are allowed to join the club. If you are sick, that is if you NEED health care, you are asked to go bankrupt and die quietly.

How did we come to a point where we can ignore the second word in the phrase “Health Care“? Just when did we allow the gatekeepers, who we allow to be immune to federal regulation, to decide that only those who don’t need care will be allowed to participate in our health care system? Why do we no longer care? Republicans think it is about corporate profits. Max Baucus thinks it’s about 60 votes. It’s about your friends and neighbors, who are dying because we, the American people, won’t allow them to participate.

I want everyone who thinks this system is broken to raise your right hand. Thank you. Now the rest of you can just sit down and shut up! We will fix this insane system without your help and we’ll let you know when we are finished.