Techdiplomacy

Before he cast his vote on the Waxman-Markety bill in June 2009, Charlottesville, Virginia Representative, Tom Perriello, tried to determine what his constituents actually wanted his vote to be. He had coorespondance from thousands of voters. One letter he noticed was written by Creciendo Juntos, which is a nonprofit that works with the Hispanic community in Charlotteville VIrginia. He also had several notes from the Albemarle- Charlotteville Virginia branch of the NAACP. The gist of the letters was that these groups wanted the congressman to vote against the bill that was climate change legislation. None of the letters were authentic, they were all forgeries. Tim Freilich, who is an executive committee member of Creciedo Juntos said “they stole our name. They stole our logo. They created a position title and made up the name of someone to fill it. They forged a letter and sent it to our congressman without our authorization.” He stated, “it’s this type of activity that undermines Americans’ faith in democracy.” The person who sent the letter has not been identified, but he or she was employed by a Washington lobbying firm called Bonner Associates. It is unclear who hired Bonner & Associates. Nonetheless, it has cast suspicion over the lobby, as well as the lobbying industry at large. A report Wednesday by the Center for Responsive Politics revealed that oil and gas companies greatly increased their spending on lobbying between April and June, which analysts say were efforts to combat the legislation. During the second quarter of 2009, these companies spent $37.7 million on lobbying congress, representing a 30 percent increase over 2008. Perriello did vote in favor of the bill, which narrowly passed the House on June 26 in a 219 to 212 vote.

Obviously the coal industry is anxious to defeat any efforts to pass clean air legislation. This is sad on many levels. They are willing to sacrifice our children’s future in order to maintain the status quo, which means increased global warming. Many groups are calling for crimInal prosecution of all involved. How do you feel about all this? Leave a comment, see you around the galaxy.

One of the major reasons for increasing the use of biofuels is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The same can be said for switching to electric vehicles.

Recently in a study done by researchers at the University of California, Merced, an electric SUV was compared to a SUV using ethanol for fuel. The electric vehicle was powered by bioelectricity created with the same amount of switchgrass used to make the ethanol.

Well, the electric vehicle won, are you surprised? The SUV powered by bioelectricity could travel 14,000 miles on electricity created from an acre of switchgrass. The ethanol fueled internal combustion engine in the other SUV could travel 9,000 miles on the same amount of switchgrass. Eliot Campbell, one of the researchers explained, “the internal combustion engine just isn’t very efficient, especially when compared to electric vehicles.” “Even the best ethanol-producing technologies with hybrid vehicles aren’t enough to overcome this.” The researchers concluded that the obvious course is to convert biomass to electricity, rather than ethanol. This course of action would double the greenhouse gas offsets to bring about climate change. The researchers warn that the problem is more complex than this particular study covered. These results only cover the issues of transportation and climate. The problems of water consumption, air pollution and economic costs were not addressed. What is your take on the subject? Leave a comment and we’ll have a lively discussion about this or any other issue involving saving our environment. Let’s talk, see you around the galaxy…