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 7, 2015
MARCH 7, 2015
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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.
WITH NO PIPELINE. . .
. . .road or rail transportation of oil from Canada's Alberta Province to the Gulf Coast of the United States may have to suffice. As TGB, among many others, predicted, President Obama vetoed the bill authorizing construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline.
TGB readily acknowledges that there may be hazards associated with oil pipelines. There are risks of leaks caused by equipment failure and, yes, let's face it, sabotage. With current technology, however, it becomes quite possible to detect a leak or break rapidly and move fast to rectify the situation so that damage from a spill may be limited. If, however, oil is shipped by rail, for example, let us look at what happened at Lac Mégantic, Québec, Canada, July 6, 2013. (This town, incidentally, is located not far from the border with the northwestern part of the state of Maine.) A 74-car freight train carrying crude oil became a runaway train that derailed in Lac Mégantic, resulting in many fires and the deaths of a total of 47 persons because of the the explosions and fires that followed (in addition to extensive property damage) (1).
A hackneyed old cliché, one that is true, however, tells us that a picture is worth a thousand words. Here, then, is a picture taken from a police helicopter of the Sûreté du Québec (2) after the train derailment:
Fires in Lac Mégantic (2) Photo: Sûreté du Québec
A similar crude-oil spill occurred in Fayette County, WV, Feb. 16, 2015. Fortunately there was no loss of life; "only" one injury and a house burned down. Thirty cars of a 100-car train carrying crude oil derailed--perhaps partly because of severe winter conditions?--and spilled crude into the Kanawha River, a main source of drinking water for Fayette and Kanawha Counties. The severe-winter aspect has yet to be determined as a cause (3). TGB is of the opinion that accidents such as these could have less severe consequences if the oil were transported by pipeline, but please note that this is one man's opinion.
EARTH, NOT STOMACH!
A leading nutritional panel admonishes us all to think of Earth, not your stomach, when you plan your food diet (4). It calls for more consumption of grains and other plant-derived foods, and reduction in demand for animal products, especially beef, for example. One reason given is that the farming of meat animals, particularly cattle, tends to disrupt many portions of Earth's ecosystems.
TGB recalls one recommendation for the imposition of a meat tax. "Put a surcharge on foods with high fat and low nutritional value," says Prof. Kelly Brownell, then of Yale University (5). This tax would be parallel to "sin taxes" on products such as alcoholic beverages and tobacco. Although this recommendation was made in a New York Times op-ed article in 1994, which addressed mainly obesity and its costs to society, it might hypothetically be linked to greenhouse gas emission reduction, which animals such as cattle do emit, particularly methane. TGB leaves it to any readers he may have either to shout "YES, YES!!" or to snort at this proposal. Indeed, Denmark levied a fat tax on dairy and other higher-fat foods in 2011, but TGB understands that this tax was repealed after numerous complaints from the Danish business community and citizenry.
Tax her gas emissions? (6)
REFERENCES:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-M%C3%A9gantic_rail_disaster
2.
