Chicago Daily Observer

To know the Chicago River is to get down to water level and float along what Gary Mechanic describes as a “highway that flows through the heart of Chicago.”

Seeing this highway from 60 feet above on a bridge is simply not the same experience as seeing the powerful persona of the river “from the river’s point of view,” said Mechanic, president of the Illinois Paddling Council, an umbrella organization for Illinois paddling clubs.

Despite the coldest and snowiest Midwest winter in decades, global warming has taken over the Congressional calendar. This week Congress will vote on a bill that is designed to regulate so-called “greenhouse” gas emissions through something called a “cap and trade” system. Not since rationing in World War II, has the US contemplated such a draconian interference in the economy. While cap and trade is unlikely to pass this year, every major presidential candidate supports the approach. In other words, it will be back.
The bill, which is named “America’s Climate Security Act,” would actually set up two cap and trade systems – one for most types of “greenhouse” gases (mainly carbon dioxide) and another for hydro-fluorocarbons.
Under these systems, the federal government would set a maximum limit on the emission of certain gasses. This is the “cap.” Under this cap it would sell or give-away permits to ... Read More...

A pop quiz: When was Chicago supposed to run out of landfill capacity and we’d all have to start eating our garbage?

Answer? I don’t know exactly, but it was some time past, according to environmentalists who warned that in the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s the city—and the rest of the country—would run out of places to dump the garbage. Adding to the crisis mentality were scary claims that leaking toxic substances and methane would poison and asphyxiate the populace. Somebody had to “do something,” and fast.

So, Chicago and other municipalities stampeded into adopting solid waste recycling programs. Americans suddenly were “educated” or forced into massive recycling efforts, separating paper, cans, plastic and other materials from the oozing, dripping, rotting stuff. Recycling became a matter of given truth in the bible of the caring, even though the net benefits were, and in some quarters still are, in doubt.

Among ... Read More...

Indiana regulators on Thursday issued the final environmental permit needed for BP PLC to start work on a planned $3.8 billion expansion of its oil refinery along Lake Michigan.

The air emissions permit still needs approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, but the state action allows BP to start construction work at the Whiting refinery.

An environmental group that fought the project called the state’s review “drive-by permitting” and said it was considering its options for appealing the decision.

Project foes have raised concerns about increases in carbon dioxide and other pollutants coming from the expanded refinery about 20 miles southeast of downtown Chicago.

Earlier this month Seattle mayor Greg Nickels proposed slapping a 20-cent tax on disposable plastic shopping bags as a way to encourage retailers and shoppers to switch to reusable alternatives. Meanwhile, Chicago’s approach to plastic bag problems is alternately being characterized as a great first step and a missed opportunity.

Governments around the world have been working to reduce litter, cleanup costs, resource waste, and ecosystem damage caused by plastic bags, in most cases by implementing bans or heavy taxes on them. In Chicago, 39th Ward alderman Margaret Laurino has convened meetings with environmental advocates and business leaders to try to come up with a city ordinance mandating that they be recycled.

I was picking up my kids at their church youth group recently, and as I did they handed me a flyer: it’s the fall mission project to help save lives from the scourge of Malaria in the third world, particularly Africa, and the church has partnered with a missionary group active in the area. The mechanism for saving lives lost to the plague of malaria? Mosquito nets, with a natural insecticide on them.

I will probably buy a net or two. This is a solid evangelical church, and I want to support it in any way I can.

I just wish I could contribute to a DDT fund.

Seriously.

The charity rightly recounts that over a million lives in the third world are lost each year to Malaria. Some estimates put it at three million, and yes it’s mostly pregnant women and children. Hundreds of millions more are sickened ... Read More...

So Al Gore is the joint winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. Admittedly, he has to share it with the United Nations’ climate change panel – but, even so, I think we need to declare an international smugness alert.

The former US Vice-President has already taken over from Michael Moore as the most sanctimonious lardbutt Yank on the planet. Can you imagine what he’ll be like now that the Norwegian Nobel committee has given him the prize?

More to the point, can you imagine how enormous his already massive carbon footprint will become once he starts jetting around the world bragging about his new title?

FORMER VICE PRESIDENT and avid environmentalist Al Gore is set to speak Oct. 17 at the Economic Club of Chicago in the Grand Ballroom of the Hyatt Regency.

By now, the derision and laughter created by Al Gore winning the Nobel Peace Prize is old news. But if you still don’t believe that it was politically inspired, you might want to consider from whence it sprang.

The five-person committee that awards the prize is a creature of the Norwegian parliament, the Storting. The body, controlled by the Labour Party, has, you might say, something of a leftist tilt. Here are some of its recent high jinks:

Firms face quota deadline

Norway’s center-left government has issued a warning to 140 companies that still don’t have enough women on their boards of directors: Appoint more, or be dissolved.

Government [Equality] minister Karita Bekkemellem intends to enforce Norway’s law requiring that at least 40 percent of the boards of stocklisted companies be made up of female directors….

There I was attending the “naturallyheatlhykids.com” expo at Navy Pier held last weekend.

I’m all for healthy kids. I have four young ones, and I’d like to keep them healthy.

It’s the “naturally” part that gets me a little curious. “Natural” as in “nature.” Hmm. Isn’t “nature” what mankind has been fighting against for eons? I mean, when you think about it “nature”. . . kills people. In fact, the entire march of civilization has pretty much been one of, well, overcoming nature. Maybe that’s why people live on average about 40 years longer now than they did at the turn of the 20th century. Not only that, but even with all the “chemicals” in our culture we are healthier than ever before, and rates of virtually every kind of adult and childhood cancer are falling. Not just the rates of death but the rates of cancer occurrence itself, including ... Read More...