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.
