OK, in truth, I don’t know if this is factual but it is terrifyingly possible, since the price of crude went up $5 a barrel yesterday alone. Over at Random Mumblings, Jack Lail quotes from a Fast Company interview of T. Boone Pickens, the Texas oilman.

Fast Company: What will happen in the next five years?

Pickens: Demand will go up, and price will go up.

Fast Company: Take a stab at what we’ll be paying at the pump in five years.

Pickens: Oh hell, that’s so far out. Maybe $6 to $8 a gallon.

Pickens is a walking contradiction. He was the principal funding behind the Swift Boat attack ads on John Kerry and he believes in global warming to the point that he’s spending $10 billion to create the country’s biggest wind farm with 2,000 turbines. He may be controversial, but he does know oil and he’s probably not far off. Will the possibility of doubling your gasoline bill over the next presidential term affect votes? You know, issues, over personality or race or sex or age.

Got Techno-Junk? Get rid of it this Saturday! Via the Nashvillians LiveJournal community comes this info:

WHAT: Dell Computer Recycling Event

WHEN: Saturday, April 12, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

WHERE: Dell Nashville Campus, near Nashville International Airport Two Dell Parkway (intersection of Donelson Pike & Murfreesboro Rd.)

COST: Free of Charge

ITEMS TO BE RECYCLED: Any make or model of computers and related equipment, including desktops, laptops, monitors, printers, scanners, keyboards and mice. Gaming consoles and mobile entertainment devices are also accepted.

ITEMS NOT ACCEPTED: Televisions, stereo equipment, cell phones, appliances, etc.

OTHER INSTRUCTIONS: Participants should remove all data from their computer’s hard drive and any removable media such as disks, PC cards, flash drives, CD-ROMs. Drop off is free. The first 1,200 participants will receive a tree sapling ready for planting.

Hey–a free tree! And a great place to unload that old 286 and CRT monitor collecting dust in the garage.

Emma met their goal.

During SXSW, we asked you to show your support for our leafy friends by voting YES for trees. The idea was simple: if you and 999 of your pals voted YES, we would plant 1,000 trees in a non-harvest location in the U.S. So on behalf of cedars, sycamores and possibly hackberry trees everywhere, we’re thrilled to announce that our mission was successful.

Via Dave Delaney on Twitter 

It was a long time ago, way back at the start of this century, when a politician running for office said ”I would work with our friends in OPEC to convince them to open up the spigot, to increase the supply” to bring down gas prices. That was Texas Governor George W. Bush, and at that time he wasn’t even the confirmed Republican candidate.

I had to fill up the truck today in anticipation of picking up the mower and, well, W., I got to say your plan ain’t working all that well. I got 10% ethanol and I felt fortunate to find it at $3.07. According to the Times,

OPEC on Wednesday rebuffed calls from President Bush to increase oil output, instead citing “mismanagement” of the American economy as a major factor driving prices up.

I added a bit of emphasis but the information comes from a neighbor. Southern Beale also takes us back to 1976 in her post. And a different president who seems to have seen the writing on the wall for gasoline. July 15, 1976, in fact, and the man was Jimmy Carter.

I propose the creation of an energy security corporation to lead this effort to replace 2-1/2 million barrels of imported oil per day by 1990. The corporation I will issue up to $5 billion in energy bonds, and I especially want them to be in small denominations so that average Americans can invest directly in America’s energy security.

Just as a similar synthetic rubber corporation helped us win World War II, so will we mobilize American determination and ability to win the energy war. Moreover, I will soon submit legislation to Congress calling for the creation of this nation’s first solar bank, which will help us achieve the crucial goal of 20 percent of our energy coming from solar power by the year 2000.

Jimmy was a micromanager, among other things but if that one policy had continued, 20% solar would be a huge cost savings. Go read the whole thing.

From Npt:

Pete Johnson posts a good editorial on Chattanoogan.com regarding this week’s declaration by Georgia of its intentions to challenge the Tennessee border.

And that is precisely why there is no issue: shoddy surveying can’t change the state’s lines, but a state’s inaction sure will. Georgia will lose this land for exactly the same reason it lost the Barnwell Islands in the Savannah River to South Carolina. Tennessee has established sovereignty over this strip by prescription and acquiescence since Georgia has done nothing to tax, police, or patrol the property for well over the requisite period of time since discovering the error.

To that, I say, “hell, yeah“–Georgia’s latest interest in that strip of land has less to do with correcting some 200 year old error than it does with feeding its industry and McMansions with water from the Tennessee River. I echo Southern Beale’s comment over at yesterday’s post on Volunteer Voters:

Peach Staters do not DESERVE our agua. Against all logic, they have shown themselves to be foolhardy and wasteful with their resource. While Orne, TN, was rationing themselves to three hours of running water a DAY, Atlanta allowed the Coca Cola bottling plant to chug along full-speed-ahead, and Six Flags Over Georgia went ahead with their 1.2 million gallon mountain of snow on an 81-degree day in September.

Indeed. Georgia’s water shortage has nothing to do with state line boundaries and has everything to do with tremendous population growth, poor planning/infrastructure, and an explosion of McMansions in the metro Atlanta area (which just about encompasses the state these days). Newsflash Georgia: we had a drought here, too. And we have more farms that feed people than you do. And the water that came out of my faucet alternated between smelling and tasting like pond water and pool water this summer. It turned my once-shiny and dark hair orange and frizzy. And I lost one large tree and a lot of landscaping this summer, so I have absolutely no sympathy for you and your conspicuous water consumption. Last I checked, you were adjacent to an ocean.

UPDATE: More commentary and links from Jim Voorhies.

A couple of tips for you:

Sam at Cool People Care gives us a tip on how to save fuel. And over a Planet Trash, there’s a link to an article about how to recycle anything.

Did you know that the Nashville Humane Association will also take your old (digital) cell phones? And your used printer (laser or inkjet) cartridges. Geez, I’ve got several phones and ink cartridges laying around here that I’ve been meaning to take forever. I’ve got no excuse, so that’s going on the to-do list for next week.

Over the weekend, I visited just about every blog on the MCB blogroll. As I mentioned, I was smitten with Bridgett, but I also fell in love with Planet Trash. I read through the entirety of the archives and was fascinated. And disgusted. Here’s a snippet for you:

One of my favorite songs is Joan Osborne’s “One of Us.”

What if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us?

Some poor slob removed his clothes and just left them in the road. I don’t understand, but I’m glad that “God is not one of us.”

As I mentioned before, I’m from Memphis. While I was growing up in the 70s and 80s, there was this organization (that’s still going strong) called Memphis City Beautiful that did lots of public outreach and education–particularly through schools–about litter. I specifically remember that calling someone a “litterbug” was right up there with “butthole” on the list of worst elementary school insults. But it seems that a lot of people just didn’t get the same message. I live on a corner where there’s a stop sign and pretty much have to pick up trash on a daily basis. What went wrong in these people’s lives that made them think it’s okay to throw your garbage out a window? I’m going to assume it’s just a matter of education rather than just willful disregard for our planet (and property owners).

Funny enough, litter and garbage has been on others’ minds as well. I just got a message from Kate of the Nashville Hiking Meetup Group who’d like to organize a litter pickup hike. It’s an excellent idea and I am all for it.

And I was just talking to Ivy the other day about reusable grocery bags. She’s gotten a few of the Kroger bags, but I prefer Baggu bags. They fold up really small–small enough to fit in a pocket or purse and certainly to keep in the glove compartment of the car so you’ll have them handy for not only trips to the grocery, but Target, Old Navy and anywhere else you get a bag. Seriously, who needs yet another Old Navy bag–AMIRITE? So I bought six and I just love them. No matter how many times you use them, they still fold up small and fit in their pouch. If more people used them (or other reusable bags), perhaps we’d see less of this.

Incidentally, if you have a bunch of plastic grocery bags around, be sure to take them back to the grocery. If not to re-use, then to recycle. Most grocery stores have bins at the front of the store for recycling those bags. They’ll also take the plastic newspaper sleeves (for those of you still getting dead trees delivered to you–unsolicited or not).

UPDATE: Well, whaddya know–Sarcastic Mom’s on the same wavelength. I wonder what the piqued interest can be attributed to…is there an epidemic of litter in Nashville? Or are we just fed up?

I want some snow. Just a little bit that will fall gently on my face and where I can smell it.

I love the smell of snow.

If you are following Twitter, which I suggest you do if you don’t, there is quite a bit of talk about wishing for snow, or making wards to hang around the state of Tennessee to keep it out. I like Twitter although I was initially a huge skeptic about it. I know more about traffic in Knoxville and Nashville each and every morning. And, in some respects, it’s more accurate on weather reports than Doppler radar.

Big Stupid Tommy has a theory:

Maybe I’m weird. I’d like a little snow.

That might make me especially weird, since most of you know I work in the grocery business. And, in most places, and in this place especially, the mere whisper of the word will send the world scurrying to the grocery store to buy the milk and the bread (and the Little Debbies and the Cokes and the Cigarettes…). We like to make the joke that Jimmy Joe Cottonbottom’s not bought a gallon of milk nor drank a glass of the stuff since before the turn of the millennium, but upon the grumbling of the word by the guys on Channel 3, he’s gotta speed over to the Stop n’ Shop to buy two gallons.

Maybe milk wards off snow. That’s a thought….

Southern Beale is drowning…

We’re drowning in catalogs at the Beale household. There’s a whiff of panic in this daily retail blitzkrieg: where in the past I may have received two or three catalogs from a particular retailer, now we’re getting dozens from each one.

But she’s not gonna take it them anymore. See what she’s planning to do to reduce the number of dead trees that show up in her mailbox.

I send direct mail for a living and lemme tell ya, we really don’t want to send anything to people that don’t want it…for the most part. Because it reduces our ROI (return on investment), which is a key measurement of success (and job performance). The good ones among us track every piece we send to see if one cover or image or type of correspondence worked better than another and overall, we want to get the highest response rate we can from every postcard/letter/catalog. And if it’s going directly in the recycle bin, it’s not doing anyone any good. If there’s a particular mailer out there that’s been sending you unwanted dead trees, in addition to what Southern Beale is doing, I suggest simply calling them and asking to be removed from the mailing list. Most of them are more than willing (and even happy) to oblige.* It saves money and hassle.

 Which reminds me…I really need to call L.L. Bean and ask them to stop sending catalogs…

*Financial institutions notwithstanding. They don’t care and will send you junk all the live-long day.

William brings us the news that not only is the Globe warming, but it’s apparently warming much faster than previously predicted.

Look at the facts:

* The top 11 warmest years all occurred in the last 13 years. The provisional global figure for 2007 using data from January to November, currently places the year as the seventh warmest on records dating back to 1850.

* The Arctic Ocean reached record high temperatures, arctic ice diminished to a record low, and ice melted on Greenland for a record number of days.

* The Arctic Sea ice dropped from 7.8 million square kilometers to 4.2 million square kilometers. For comparison, the area of ice is the same as all the states east of the Mississippi River and a broad swath of those to its west.

Much more at his place…

Les Jones is more than a bit miffed about the recent news that marriage is better for the environment.

Do I really have to tithe to the Sierra Club? Is it 10 percent even if I recycle? Could we knock a couple points off if I vote for candidates who support light rail?

Head on over to his place for other questions and a bonus Chanukah Environmental Tidbit.

Our fair state is a haven for smog, according to S-Town Mike’s latest.

Our smoggy state is ranked 17th in in the nation in carbon emissions due largely to our coal-burning power plants. The Tennessean reports that smaller counties are the worst polluters

Nuclear plants would be a good idea, don’t you think?

Rob Robinson is driving the Thinktrain to Recycleville.

Is recycling a ton of consumer waste something that an individual family should brag about?

The Curby program has proved wildly popular with some Nashville residents who brag of having up to three of the green, 96-gallon carts to fill with paper, aluminum and other recyclables for monthly pickup …

In Nashville, Curby came to homes automatically, and the convenience has made it a recycling method some love. “We have three containers and they’re usually full,” said Paul Brown, a retired minister in the Green Hills area. “I think the program ought to be used, if it can be.”

I am a frequent recycler, and I want to see our citywide recycling rates increase. Wouldn’t it be better for all of us, though, to find ways to divert as much of our household garbage as possible, from both the trash can and the recycling bin?

And Southern Beale has some of her own input on the issue as well.

Yesterday’s article on Nashville’s “Curby” program came at an interesting time, since I have been meaning to call Metro Public Works to get another green cart out at our place. Mr. Beale and I recycle, and since pick up is just once a month, our two 64-gallon bins are always filled to overflowing.

I have a little challenge with myself to see how little actual garbage I can generate. One week I actually got it down to one large garbage bag, but I suspect that’s because we ate out a lot that week. The truth is, we generate plenty of garbage at our house.

She has a lot more fascinating detail about the economics and politics of recycling as well. Many of those same questions were being asked by Ben at Taxing Tennessee. Actually, they’re being asked by a man called Nate from Lawrenceburg.

Crawford, who terms himself a “country boy from Lawrenceburg,” never used it, and his questions about the program have only grown.

“I did not want my tax dollars spent for that. I feel the same way now when it’s only being used by 37 percent of the people.

I personally live outside the district where Metro picks up the trash, and I have to pay for my own trash pickup–and should I be interested–my own recycling. Frankly I still think that if everyone had to pay for their own trash pickup and also pay a poundage rate we’d see a lot less trash. It’s sort of like how people make sure to turn off the lights if they’re getting big electric bills. Hitting the wallet is the best way to reduce waste.

Y’all, I LOVE LED lights. I’ve got them all over my house–under cabinets, in shelves and as various cool book lights. If I had my way I’d even have LED lights installed under my glass desk, just because I think they’re cool.

They’re apparently the HOT new thing in Christmas decorating, and the gang over at the Fun Times Guide has a round up of fun facts and info about LED lighting.

Meredith at The Fun Times Guide to Brentwood has uncovered the mystery behind the price differences — why white LED lights cost more than colored LED lights.

She wrote:

There also seems to be a price difference based on colored vs. white lights. At Lowe’s, a $10 strand of GE lights includes 25 bulbs. The same $10 gets you twice as many colored bulbs in a strand.”

“White light is composed of several different colors, and white LED lights must use several different color semiconductors. That’s why they cost more than single-color (single-semiconductor) bulbs.”

This is a new billboard campaign from Heather Mills in the UK.

According to Mills, who is a very vocal vegan (nice alliteration, huh?), and the organization, “Viva,” consuming anything from cows is promoting global warming and destroying the environment, because of all the methane they produce.

She actually asks, “Why don’t we drink rat’s milk or cat’s milk or dog’s milk?”   (gah! Sorry if you were eating breakfast!)

I believe we should all do our part to preserve the environment for future generations, and I am also very much of the belief that we consume far too much meat and dairy as opposed to fruits and veggies for the good of our health.

But…isn’t this taking the whole idea a little too far?

What say you?

h/t:  Blowing Smoke

Ariah Fine has some ideas about the Economy Of Jesus. Quite simply, he believes that Christians should operate on a different economic level and with different interactions than non-Christians.

* Whenever possible, foster a gift economy.
This goes beyond just sharing stuff. Instead, it encourages people to
give stuff without expectation.
* Christians should try to open source all of their intellectual property.
Instead of seeing our creations as our property, we should see it as
belonging to the Body of Christ. I believe that this is more faithful
to our theology than assuming that we “need to work within the system.”
We don’t anymore.
* Garden with friends and share the bounty.
* Supplement your gardening with Community Supported Agriculture.
* Share housing. It frees up money for other
things, fosters sharing of resources, encourages hospitality, and helps
us live the way that most people in the world live (and the way folks
in America lived before the 1940s).
* Start making and fixing more things yourself.

* If you can’t make it or fix it, buy it used.
* Instead of investing in your future, invest in the futures of others through micro-financing.
* Reclaim Christmas as a celebration of Christ, rather than a
celebration of affluence.

He goes into detail about these points at his blog. Many of them are interesting points to ponder for those of us who are Christian.

Mel is a Nashvillian transplanted to Greece. She always has the most interesting stories. Today she’s talking about what it’s like to live on a Greek Mountain.

One thing I’ve learned is that you can’t ever have a good appreciation for dense fog until you have lived in the thick of it for days on end. Sure, I’ve been in situations where the fog was so heavy you could barely see in front of your car, and on Olympus we had moments when we were totally ensconced in fog, but never for more than a few hours. When you can’t really see past your balcony you start to feel a little uncomfortable, especially when it lasts for two days. But after awhile it seems kinda cool, like you are the only people floating on a cloud way up in the sky. The creepiest thing is when a dog or cow walks out from the fog, like a ghost from the ether. I compare it to the corn field in Field of Dreams.

Sarcastro brings us his thoughts on environmentalism in the way that only HE can.

It ain’t authentic Global Warming without Man Made™ Global Warming on the label. We’re told that humans are using up all the oil, burning down the forests, paving over the wetlands, expanding their settlements into the heretofore peaceful critter’s habitats. The unspoken inference is that the world would be a whole lot better off if there were less humans.

Personally, I would feed the still-beating heart of the last, lazy panda to my children if it meant our survival. What we are being fed, thanks to the Humans Are Bad movement, is a steady diet of thin gruel based on the assumption that the snail darter has as much, if not more, right to live here as I do. Bad or not, I’m the one with the fishing pole and the opposable thumbs.

The Tennessee Center for Policy Research hopes the Nobel Peace Prize goes to a deserving candidate, such as Lida Yusupova, who has devoted her life to human rights, even as she faces death threats. Her work in Chechnya has shed light on human rights abuses committed by both Russian armed forces and Chechen rebels.

Sigh. I hate it when people have one good story that they hammer into the ground. It looks like that’s what’s going on over at The Tennessee Center for Policy Research. I agree that there are many folks out there more worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize than Al Gore. Even if you accept that Mr. Gore is doing good work in terms of the environment, work which would foster future peace, there are others out there–as the TCPR mentions–who are doing more pressing peace work with more immediate results.

Nevertheless, this recent press release is just more of the same TCPR Pride in their “we read Al Gore’s Utility Bills” coup from earlier this year.

“Handing a Nobel Prize to Al Gore, a proven hypocrite on the issue of climate change, would be an injustice to the many people bravely fighting for peace and freedom throughout the world,” said Tennessee Center for Policy Research President Drew Johnson. “We discovered that while Gore told us to curtail our energy use, he guzzled more electricity at his posh Nashville mansion in a month than the average American family used in a year.”

The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006 Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh – more than 20 times the national average, according to the Nashville Electric Service. The Tennessee Center for Policy Research uncovered this fact through a public records search in the wake of Gore’s Oscar-winning movie, An Inconvenient Truth. Gore paid nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for his Nashville estate in 2006.

I really like the idea of the TCPR. I don’t know who is advising them on press strategy, but if it were me, I’d tell them to back off the utility bill thing–it’s looking increasing foilhattish.

The Cardens are all about the recycling.

Recycling is one of the best and easiest ways to get the entire family involved in taking care of the earth. Our kids know that we have two waste receptacles in the kitchen, one for trash and one for recyclables. … I, mistakenly, thought that recycling would be a big hassle so I resisted doing much of it over the years even though we had that handy-dandy cart provided to us. … When we decided to get serious about this environmental stewardship mentality, I was surprised and delighted to find that it was quite easy to start setting aside items that could be recycled, especially since there were so many that could be put in our cart. There are times when I begrudge have to rinse some containers out but just seeing the way we’ve reduced the amount of trash that goes to our weekly pick-up encourages me to keep it up!

The rest of the post is a really great window into how a modern “typical family” encorporates recycling into their lives.

The BBC is reporting flows through the floes..as in, the ‘fabled’ Northwest Passage is now open, thanks to the melting of the polar ice cap. Trading ships can now freely navigate the Passage for the first time ever, saving roughly 5,000 miles from the normal southern routes. Scientists are blaming/crediting global warming the big break-up, stating that average temperatures in Alaska are 11 degrees higher than in the early 1970s.

So..it is global warming, right?? Not so fast there, ice-huggers…the blogger at Power and Control says that the Northwest Passage has been navigated before:

1940 Canadian RCMP officer Henry Larsen
1957 the United States Coast Guard cutter Storis
1977 sailor Willy de Roos
2005 47 ft aluminium sailboat, Northabout, built and captained by Jarlath Cunnane

I blame it on man made global warming. Except for 1903-06*, 1940, 1957, and 1977.

I think the difference here is that trade ships can possibly navigate the passage freely, versus smaller boats challenging the wiles of nature, but what do I really know - I’m not a climatologist (a fact shared by most bloggers who opine on the subject).

*It should be noted that the 1903-06 journey noted here took three years because two of those years, the boat was stuck in ice…not sure I’d call that one a great example.

I’ve always said that I’m agnostic about mad-made climate change. Still, I figure it doesn’t hurt me to do what little I can to not be wasteful. Besides, I come from a long line of farmers. Conservation is in my blood.

I’ve never considered it to be a form of Pagan worship, yet it seems Mark Rose and some other folks may disagree.

I often think back to Romans 1:25 when so-called Christian leaders join ranks with environmentalists, thinking it is somehow their Christian duty: “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator — who is forever praised. Amen.”

You have to admit that McDonald’s is kinda clever…

Many people want to save the Earth from Global Warming. So how can a company that sells hamburgers capitalize on this trend? Remember, their product is hamburgers. Perhaps the most dangerous product on Earth as far as Global Warming is concerned.

In Japan you can buy a Big Mac for half price if you download a form that shows how to reduce Global Warming.

My neighbor Kate O’ got Michael (not Mike) thinking.

Kate said:

Why does it seem that so many of the people who get most passionate when it comes to matters of personal financial responsibility and conservation of fiscal resources are not equally passionate when it comes to environmental responsibility and conservation of natural resources?

Michael is a libertarian, and not really a tree hugger (by his admission), but like I said, Kate made him think:

My initial thought is - free markets. Libertarians are free market believers. As something becomes scarce, it become more valuable. It’s high cost cuts down on consumption and generates incentives to either protect the remaining portion of that resource, increase the available supply or find suitable substitutes, see, e.g. oil.

One problem I see with that is it does not account for certain resources not traded in the free market. For example, the market can create little incentive to protect or foster the growth of a rare, endangered species of plant or animal. A small plant that lives only in an isolated corner of the Kansas prairie may have little or no resale value. Limited supply is met with limited demand leading to limited market value. A person living under a strict market view would not care about the lose of a rare endangered species under these circumstances. But that ignores two things.

First, this free market approach ignores potential undiscovered value in now extinct organism. Extracts from that plant might have held the key to a fantastic medical break through, have been a phenomenal new energy source or a potential miracle food that could cheaply nourish millions. The market cannot appreciate what it does not know.

Read the second thing here. Good thoughts (and people think blogging has no value!)