ESF on Science Friday

I saw this ESF Insider or something but almost forgot about it.

ESF is hosting Science Friday with Ira Flatow today. You can listen online starting at 2:00.

It's very exciting.

USS Oriskany

Saw this in WaPo this morning.

My favorite part:

It took just 37 minutes for the 888-foot USS Oriskany to slip beneath the waves of the Gulf of Mexico.

As hundreds of veterans looked on solemnly, the Navy blew holes in the retired aircraft carrier Wednesday, sending vessel to the bottom of the sea and creating the world's largest manmade reef.

The rusted hulk became completely submerged about 4 1/2 hours faster than predicted, after more than 500 pounds of plastic explosives went off with bright flashes of light and clouds of brown and gray smoke.

Boy did someone get those calculations wrong...

WSB 2006

Our full photobook is here, but below are some snaps from our WSB event in the Garden State. We saw 75 species of birds, a pod of dolphins, some overtly zealous birding groups, and various other wildlife.


 

Here's a cause big enough for my appetite

May is eat local month.

Kyoto, Iraq and Irony

Saw this online and wanted to share:

Is Kyoto Cheaper than Iraq?

University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein thinks so. He makes the case in today's Washington Post:

For the United States, the cost of the Iraq war will soon exceed the anticipated cost of the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement designed to control greenhouse gases. For both, the cost is somewhere in excess of $300 billion. These numbers show that the Bush administration was unrealistically optimistic in its prewar prediction that the total cost would be about $50 billion. And the same numbers raise questions about the Bush administration's claim that the cost of the Kyoto Protocol would be prohibitive, causing (in President Bush's own words) "serious harm to the U.S. economy."

The incidence of the two costs is not equivalent. Iraq is funded from general tax revenues while any Kyoto-style policy would be likely to increase energy prices. For some, these distributional differences may matter. Moreover, Kyoto represents but a tiny downpayment toward an emission stabilization policy. (Of course, one might say the same about Iraq and its relation to the overall war on terror.)

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, the EU's fledgling carbon trading market has experienced tremendous price volatility, due in part to an over-allocation of emission credits. Europe has yet to impose real limits on its own carbon emissions, and questions remain how effectively its carbon trading market will reduce the cost of curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

The comments on the post bring up some tired points about China and India, but also point out some flaws in the logic of the costs not being equivalent. I don't really know much about Kyoto as a specific program, but I have been reading about Europe struggling to meet its goals.

The more interesting connection to me, is what we are willing to expend financially and in terms of American and Iraqi lives to not change our current lifestyle. And that a bulk of our decision to go to war over oil, rather than reduce our use of the product is due to the rhetoric and marketing of some oil men.

Any thoughts on this or the original blog posts comparison of the two costs?