MUENCHHAUSEN, March 31, 2017

MUENCHHAUSEN

AN ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER ABOUT ENVIRONMENT,

RENEWABLE RESOURCE TECHNOLOGY,

AND RELATED TOPICS

By BOOTSTRAP PRESS, INC.

BETHESDA, MD

JJGREENBARON(at)VERIZON.NET

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March 31, 2017

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WELCOME!
The Green Baron (TGB) welcomes one and all who take the time to read Muenchhausen. He aims to “tell it like it is” as much as possible, and avoid advocacy and ideological positions. There are enough of those to go around in other publications.
The Green Baron also welcomes comments from anyone who may read Muenchhausen. Please send comments to the e-mail address above.

PLEASE PARDON OUR ABSENCE

Please pardon the long absence of Muenchhausen from the blogosphere. Mrs. TGB and TGB have had something of a rough winter, which saw Mrs. TGB take a fall on late-season winter ice. She sustained a fracture of a front portion of her pelvic bone. If there was any mitigation, it was that the fracture was what doctors call “closed”, so that surgery was deemed to be unnecessary. She is currently in the slow but apparently steady process of convalescence and has been given three weeks of in-home physical therapy. Her fall took place March 15, she was at Suburban Hospital for two nights, and came home the evening of March 16.

SOME RANDOM CURRENT MUSINGS

TGB wants to muse a bit about current situations in which we find ourselves, especially given the change of government that took place January 20 of this year. Let us consider, in passing, several factors.

Coal industry and fracking. Readers of Muenchhausen and of other publications might recall that during the 2008 presidential campaign, then-candidate Barack Obama spoke about essentially closing down the coal mining industry and coal-burning power plants. He said quite flatly, “Your electricity rates must necessarily skyrocket.”

Well, TGB saw his electricity rates increase (although not as much as his telephone/Internet costs). But new sources of—yes, fossil—energy were brought on line through the process of hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking. This process has helped temper increases in fossil-fuel prices, but it is not welcomed in many quarters. For example, New York and Maryland have instituted a moratorium on fracking, and it looks just about certain that Maryland will ban it altogether. Overseas, Scotland has levied an indefinite moratorium on the process (1).

Please do not misconstrue TGBs position. TGB would dearly love to see a world economy driven by energy from renewable sources. As he heard it said in 1974, during the height of the energy crunch of that year, “Using renewable energy is like living on investment returns. Using fossil energy is like living on your capital.” And he acknowledges progress, albeit slow, toward that goal. However, TGB would like to know by what scientific and engineering methods might this certainly worthy goal might be achieved.

Rescission of some regulations. Meanwhile, the current administration has rescinded, or is currently poised to rescind many of the regulations that have placed restrictions on coal mining and use. Several other environment/energy/climate-change agreements and regulations have been, are being, or are slated to be reversed or repealed. Salient among those are rules that grow out of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. When TGB and Mrs. TGB are in better shape, TGB hopes to discuss some of these rescissions and other similar or related topics in greater detail.

“See you in court!” TGB will sign off for now, in the hope that soon he can post more issues of Muenchhausen with greater frequency than he has in the past. Meanwhile, he will make one prediction with confidence: The current and future rescission of environmental/energy regulations, as well as the permission to complete the Keystone XL Pipeline and operate Dakota Access—these are just a very few examples—will most surely be challenged in court. Moreover, the plaintiffs in these cases likely will be quite adept at judge- and jury-shopping (please excuse TGB’s mild cynicism). TGB also believes the court papers already are prepared and ready for filing on, say, a day’s notice. He also fears that there could well be demonstrations, some of which could turn ugly.

TGB wishes all of his readers, whoever and wherever they may be, a Happy Easter and/or Happy Passover, whichever may apply.

REFERENCES

1. www.greenpeace.org.