Weather, Water, Energy 10-10-06

One thing about doing these regular reviews of stories on what's happening to the planet in these three areas is that you start seeing things happening that clearly are just the harbingers of more frequent occurrences. One day, it's electricity riots in Bangladesh, the next it's Arctic villages literally having to move as rising waters, permafrost melt, and fierce storms make their location by the sea too hazardous to continue. Add in the insistence of the community to maintain its identity rather than assimilate with another also as a problem we'll have to be ready for. But this village is just 600 people and has only been there 4000 years so easy come, easy go. Except as a conservationist there said, "Alaska is the tip of the melting iceberg, or the canary in the coal mine with an impending heat stroke." But first we have to deal with whether or not Scarlett Johansson is promiscuous. . . . Speaking of our 49th state, seems the reduction in oil flow through the trans-Alaska pipeline last August set off a giant rattle through the metal like in water pipes in old houses when water pressure goes down. What did those massive vibrations do to the integrity of the pipeline and its maintenance? Don't worry. Nobody's sure yet. . . . As for our 50th state (that's Hawaii), plans there to use sugar cane to jump big time onto the new ethanol/biofuel bandwagon would need three times the water currently used for the industry. Other users aren't convinced. That seems to fit the title of this post pretty nicely. . . . In the "buy them for what they're worth and sell them for what they think they're worth" contest, while Ms. Johansson is certainly a semifinalist, my vote just might go to Alan Greenspan, a libertarian moron (redundant, I know) who always got way more credit than he deserved when there were others in the boat and when my mom could have guided the economy down the river at that particular stretch of stream. I am confident that he will rank only to the Busheviks, whom he helped greatly, in history's estimation of what undermined this country and the American Legacy. In yet another example, the estimable Daniel Gross nails him on now, now that he's impotent policy-wise (no statements here about his marriage to Andrea Mitchell), proposing a gasoline tax to encourage necessary conservation. Thanks for nothing, you miserable putz. (And, yes, I know the best money is on Paris Hilton, but isn't it nice to have a real alternative?)