Spinning Around  

Bloomberg has an interesting article on a Russian plan to build a sort of energy superhighway (or super-tunnel) across the Bering Straight - transferring electricity as well as oil and gas. While you could debate the wisdom of getting hooked on Tsar Vladimir's hydrocarbon crack, the amount of tidal energy being talked about to flow across the interconnector is impressive. Even more interesting (for the small band of smart grid / global energy grid / GENI freaks like me) is the thought of one of the big gaps in the global grid closing - connecting the North American grid to the emerging Asian Energy grid (OK - thats more an oil and gas concept at this point but they'll eventually work out electricity is the most important energy source). Next up I'll be looking for something to bridge the Darien gap and connect North America with Hugo's new Latin American energy grid. At the other end there is the Europe to North Africa connector waiting to appear - but I suspect sub-Saharan Africa and Australia may take a lot longer to get hooked up. Maybe if Johnny's dream of a nuclear power plant on every corner (or my vision of a small desert covered in solar and geothermal collectors) comes true Asia will want to hook us in a bit sooner...

Russia plans to build the world's longest tunnel, a transport and pipeline link under the Bering Strait to Alaska, as part of a $65 billion project to supply the U.S. with oil, natural gas and electricity from Siberia. The project, which Russia is coordinating with the U.S. and Canada, would take 10 to 15 years to complete, Viktor Razbegin, deputy head of industrial research at the Russian Economy Ministry, told reporters in Moscow today. State organizations and private companies in partnership would build and control the route, known as TKM-World Link, he said.

A 6,000-kilometer (3,700-mile) transport corridor from Siberia into the U.S. will feed into the tunnel, which at 64 miles will be more than twice as long as the underwater section of the Channel Tunnel between the U.K. and France, according to the plan. The tunnel would run in three sections to link the two islands in the Bering Strait between Russia and the U.S. ...

The Bering Strait tunnel will cost $10 billion to $12 billion, and the rest of the investment will be spent on the entire transport corridor, the plan estimates. ``The project is a monster,'' Yevgeny Nadorshin, chief economist with Trust Investment Bank in Moscow, said in an interview. ``The Chinese are crying out for our commodities and willing to finance the transport links, and we're sending oil to Alaska.''

In Alaska, a supporter of the project is former Governor Walter Joseph Hickel, who plans to co-chair a conference on the subject in Moscow next week. ``Governor Hickel has long supported this concept, and he talks about it and writes about it,'' said Malcolm Roberts, a senior fellow at the Anchorage-based Institute of the North, a research policy group focused on Arctic issues. Hickel governed Alaska from 1966 to 1969 as a Republican and then from 1990 to 1994 as a member of the Independence Party. Alaska's current officials, however, are preoccupied with other issues, including a plan to develop a pipeline to transport natural gas from the North Slope to the lower 48 U.S. states, Roberts said. ...

Tsar Nicholas II, Russia's last emperor, was the first Russian leader to approve a plan for a tunnel under the Bering Strait, in 1905, 38 years after his grandfather sold Alaska to America for $7.2 million. World War I ended the project.

The planned undersea tunnel would contain a high-speed railway, highway and pipelines, as well as power and fiber-optic cables, according to TKM-World Link. Investors in the so-called public-private partnership include OAO Russian Railways, national utility OAO Unified Energy System and pipeline operator OAO Transneft, according to a press release which was handed out at the media briefing and bore the companies' logos. ...

The World Link will save North America and Far East Russia $20 billion a year on electricity costs, said Vasily Zubakin, deputy chief executive officer of OAO Hydro OGK, Unified Energy's hydropower unit and a potential investor. ...

``It's cheaper to transport electricity east, and with our unique tidal resources, the potential is real,'' Zubakin said. Hydro OGK plans by 2020 to build the Tugurskaya and Pendzhinskaya tidal plants, each with capacity of as much as 10 gigawatts, in the Okhotsk Sea, close to Sakhalin Island. The project envisions building high-voltage power lines with a capacity of up to 15 gigawatts to supply the new rail links and also export to North America.

Russian Railways is working on the rail route from Pravaya Lena, south of Yakutsk in the Sakha republic, to Uelen on the Bering Strait, a 3,500 kilometer stretch. The link could carry commodities from eastern Siberia and Sakha to North American export markets, said Artur Alexeyev, Sakha's vice president. The two regions hold most of Russia's metal and mineral reserves ``and yet only 1.5 percent of it is developed due to lack of infrastructure and tough conditions,'' Alexeyev said. ...

Rail links in Russia and the U.S., where an almost 2,000- kilometer stretch from Angora to Fort Nelson in Canada would continue the route, would cost up to $15 billion, Razbegin said. With cargo traffic of as much as 100 million tons annually expected on the World Link, the investments in the rail section could be repaid in 20 years, he said. ``The transit link is that string on which all our industrial cluster projects could hang,'' Zubakin said.

Japan, China and Korea have expressed interest in the project, with Japanese companies offering to burrow the tunnel under the Bering Strait for $60 million a kilometer, half the price set down in the project, Razbegin said. ``This will certainly help to develop Siberia and the Far East, but better port infrastructure would do that too and not cost $65 billion,'' Trust's Nadorshin said. ``For all we know, the U.S. doesn't want to make Alaska a transport hub.''

The Sydney Morning Herald has an article on a report from IHS Energy (part of CERA if I recall correctly) entitled "Iraq has double the oil". I could have told you that years ago (as could any old Iraq Petroleum Company geologists and anyone else who paid attention to the Senator Church's hearings in the 1970's for example) - and I'd be so bold as to say it has twice as much as IHS are currently estimating. A little Google search just then turned up this paper - apparently our current effort is the seventh oil war in Iraq since the Ottoman empire fell apart.

Iraq's oil reserves could be almost twice as vast as current estimates, and its production could also double in five years, a report from consultancy IHS has showed, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday. According to the business daily, the report, which it said was the most comprehensive independent survey of Iraq's resources since the US-led invasion of the country in March 2003, noted that such developments were dependent on an improving security situation in the Middle Eastern country.

"Obviously the security situation is very bad, but when you look at the sub-surface opportunity, there isn't anywhere like this," Ron Mobed, the head of IHS's energy division, was quoted as saying by the FT. "Geologically, it's right up there, a gold star opportunity."

Doubling Iraq's oil reserves would mean an increase of 100 billion barrels of oil, which would make it the second-biggest source of oil reserves in the world, after Saudi Arabia and ahead of Iran, the FT said. Iraq is currently third on that list with 116 billion barrels of reserves.

IHS also said that Iraq could double its current rate of production in five years, to four million barrels of oil a day, if international investment into Iraq increases. The consultancy's study of Iraq's oil reserves is based on data collected before and after the 2003 invasion, and its prediction of an additional 100 billion barrels of oil is based on an analysis of geological surveys.

Given that our pursuit of Iraqi oil seems to be bankrupting the US taxpayer and there are a lot of alternatives to oil out there (think electric transport + global energy grid) that will make for a massive economic boom when we make the switch - one the US technology industry is best placed to exploit - you really have to wonder if its worth killing so many people just so that a completely immoral sunset industry can maintain control over what is both a diminishing resource and one that is contributing to a vast swathe of environmental problems.

But I guess when the creatures of the aforesaid sunset industry still have their bony claws firmly on the levers of power in Washington this isn't going to change any time soon. Meanwhile their "surge" seems to have managed to have achieved an increase in the attrition rate from bombings.

On a related note, I've been arguing with the stupidest person I've had the misfortune to encounter in several years over at Jeff Vail's blog for the last week or so - one interesting link that appeared between the paranoid conservative conspiracy theories was this one from ZMag back in February entitled "It’s About the Oil".

By the standard moral and legal definition, “telling the truth” means telling “the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”

Seen from the standpoint of that criterion, Ted Koppel came up more than a little short in yesterday’s New York Times.

As all faithful daily readers of the nation’s official “newspaper-of-record” know, the former ABC “Nightline” anchor-editor Koppel graced yesterday’s Times op-ed page with a column chiding the Bush administration for its refusal to admit that “oil” is the reason that for the United States (U.S.) occupation of Iraq.

More than simply denying that petroleum might have anything to with “Operation Iraqi Freedom” (hereafter “OIF”), indeed, the Bush administration says that it is “irresponsible,” “partisan,” “dishonest,” and damn-near treasonous to “claim we acted in Iraq because of oil.”

That’s childish nonsense, Koppel rightly says, usefully enough for those of us who’ve never bought the doctrinal White House story lines about Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction” and (then) the administration’s passionate desire to export “democracy” to Iraq and the Middle East.

“There’s no reason,” Koppel boldly declares, “to be coy about why the U.S. is in Iraq.” “The reason for America’s rapt attention to the security of the Persian Gulf is what is has always been. It’s about the oil.”

And “the oil” is not just why the U.S. went into Iraq in the first place; it’s also why the administration says “the U.S. cannot now precipitously withdraw its forces from Iraq.”

There’s nothing to be embarrassed about in that, Koppel wants America and the White House to know. Glorious America is unfortunately “addicted” to overseas petroleum, he argues, and has long required “an uninterrupted flow of Persian Gulf oil.” And the U.S. can’t stand to have evil non-American others – Iranian Communists and their Soviet allies in the 1950s, Iranian Ayotollahs in the 1970s, and Islamic terrorists today – in charge of such a vital substance.

Consistent with his historical argument, Koppel dedicates the bulk of his column to a review of successive moments when Uncle Sam has moved to guarantee secure regular “oil flows out of the Persian Gulf.” Koppel’s narrative includes British and U.S. collaboration in the illegal but apparently noble (or at least understandable, as far as Koppel is concerned) overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected head of state Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 and America’s sponsorship of the brutal dictatorship of Sha Mohammed Reza Pahlevi between 1967 and 1979.

Also meriting mention in Koppel’s account is the famous White House “Carter Doctrine,” which proclaimed that “an[y] attempt by an outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.” The provocative establishment of U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia and the launching of Operation Dessert Storm were legitimate expressions, Koppel feels, of America’s obvious and logical interest in protecting its own and the world’s economy by “defending the free flow of Middle East oil” (Ted Koppel, "Will Fight For Oil," New York Times, 24 February 2006, p. 127).

So what is the supposedly super-candid Koppel leaving out? A few things beginning above all with the selfish and imperial nature of America’s longstanding “rapt attention” to Middle Eastern oil. The former “Nightline” host is right to say that OIF is “about the oil,” but he doesn’t give anything close to “the whole truth” on why Persian Gulf petroleum really matters so much to U.S. policymakers.

If Koppel likes history so much, he might want to look at how the U.S. State Department described that region’s unmatched oil reserves in 1945: “a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in history.” As such, that “prize” has long been understood by U.S. planners to be what leading U.S. policy critic Noam Chomsky calls “a lever of ‘unilateral world domination,’” adding that control of that that “prize” has “funnel[ed] enormous wealth to the U.S. in numerous ways.” Consistent with that imperial perception and the related wealth windfall, Chomsky observes, “the U.S. invaded Iraq because it has enormous oil resources, mostly untapped, and it's right in the heart of the world's energy system.” If the U.S. succeeds in controlling Iraq, Chomsky notes, “it extends enormously its strategic power, what [leading imperial strategist and Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor] Zbigniew Brzezinski calls its ‘critical leverage’ over Europe and Asia. That's a major reason for controlling the oil resources -- it gives you strategic power”(Chomsky, “Confronting the Empire,” Address to World Social Forum, February 2, 2003).

To be sure, America’s insatiable demand for fossil fuels is making the U.S. increasingly reliant on foreign oil. But even if the U.S. overcame its gasoline “addiction” and became fully energy- self-reliant (it currently receives just 20 percent of its oil from the Middle East), something else would still make U.S. officials positively obsessed with Middle Eastern petroleum: the ongoing and ever-worsening loss of America’s one-time supremacy in basic global-capitalist realms of production, trade, international finance, and currency and the related emergence of the rapidly expanding giant China as a new strategic military (as well as economic) competitor. As David Harvey argues, America’s basic decline, reflecting predictable (and predicted) shifts in the spatial patterns of capitalist investment and social infrastructure (David Harvey, Spaces of Capital: Toward a Critical Geography [New York, NY: Routledge, 2001], pp. 237-393) gives special urgency for the U.S. empire to deepen its control of Middle Eastern oil and use it as what Chalmers Johnson calls “a bargaining chip with even more oil-dependent regions” like Western Europe and East Asia, homes to the leading challengers to U.S. economic power.

America’s long-fading capitalist hegemony is no small part of what drove its hard-right and nationalist administration to occupy Iraq. By many analysts’ estimation, OIF is part of a White House effort to use America’s last truly unchallenged form of world dominance – it’s near monopoly over globally projected organized violence – “to establish U.S. control over the global oil spigot, and thus over the global economy, for another fifty years” (Giovanni Arrighi, “Hegemony Unraveling – I,” New Left Review, March-April 2005, p.62). As David Harvey noted on the eve of the illegal U.S. invasion of Iraq: "Europe and Japan, as well as East and Southeast Asia (now crucially including China) are heavily dependent on Gulf oil, and these are regional configurations of political-economic power that now pose a challenge to U.S. hegemony in the worlds of production and finance. What better way to ward off that competition and secure its own hegemonic position than to control the price, condition, and distribution of the key economic resource on which the competitors rely? And what better way to do that than to use the one line of force where the U.S. still remains all-powerful – military might?” (David Harvey, The New Imperialism [New York, NY: Oxford, 2004], p.25)

In a context where the U.S. has good reason to feel that its dominant position within world capitalism is seriously threatened, the Bush administration was “looking to flex military muscle as the only clear absolute power it has left” and to “hide the exaction of tribute from the rest of the world under a rhetoric of delivering peace and freedom for all” (Harvey, New Imperialism, p. 77). Powerless to maintain economic hegemony through the “normal” mechanisms of corporate-neoliberal “free market” globalization, Uncle Sam has bared the “hidden fist” (Thomas Friedman) of coercive militarism to retain planetary economic dominance through military control of Middle Eastern petroleum reserves.

The other thing Koppel either doesn’t know or doesn’t wish to divulge is that the U.S. is not simply worried about “outside forces” controlling Persian Gulf oil. It’s has an equal and related fear that groups internal to the region might attain significant control over the region’s critical raw materials.

Full truth be told, the U.S. strategic “stakes” and opposition to internal control in Iraq are so great that much current U.S. discussion of American withdrawal from Mesopotamia seems exceedingly na*ve. Even on what passes for a left in the U.S., many commentators seem to think that the invasion is properly understood as a bungled effort to spread democracy – an incompetent occupation that genuinely sought to “liberate” and would have been undertaken even if Iraq’s only raw materials were chicory, lettuce, and bananas. The “freedom”- loving Bush administration, many “left” American commentators seem to think, should just call off its overly “idealistic” misadventure and let the Iraqis work their problems out on their own. “We” should accept “defeat,” which “we” allegedly suffered in Vietnam and muster the humanitarian courage to admit “our” (merely) tactical “mistake” and leave (see, for example, Nicholas Kristoff, “What We Need in Iraq: An Exit Date,” New York Times, 14 February, 2006, p. A23).

The White House has never had the slightest interest in creating a genuinely free, sovereign, democratic, and independent Iraq. Under the useful cover story of “Iraqi Freedom,” it wants to deepen U.S. control of Iraqi and thus Middle Eastern oil, something such an Iraq would be certain resist. That core objective would hardly be attained by leaving Iraq to its own independently and democratically determined fortunes. And to make “the logic of withdrawal” yet less apparent to U.S. planners, the majority of Iraqis are Shiite Muslims and therefore likely to use real national independence as an opportunity to form a rough anti-systemic partnership with also oil-rich Iran. Together with Iran, Iraqi Shiites might well inspire Shiite resistance to state power in the Persian Gulf’s ultimate oil-prize, feudal and arch-repressive Saudi Arabia, home (by the way) to the world’s largest known oil reserves, where “strategic” petro-imperial considerations have long mandated a deep U.S. partnership with tyranny and dictatorship. As Chomsky recently explained in an important interview, reminding us that U.S. domination of majority-Shiite post-invasion Iraq is intimately related to U.S. domination of the entire Persian Gulf region (home to two-thirds of the world’s known oil reserves) and the rising world-systemic threat (to U.S. planners) of a dynamic new East Asian state capitalism:

"Let's talk about withdrawal. Take any day's newspapers or journals and so on. They start by saying the United States aims to bring about a sovereign democratic independent Iraq. I mean, is that even a remote possibility? Just consider what the policies would be likely to be of an independent sovereign Iraq. If it's more or less democratic, it'll have a Shiite majority. They will naturally want to improve their linkages with Iran, Shiite Iran. Most of the clerics come from Iran. The Badr Brigade, which basically runs the South, is trained in Iran. They have close and sensible economic relationships which are going to increase. So you get an Iraqi/Iran loose alliance. Furthermore, right across the border in Saudi Arabia, there's a Shiite population which has been bitterly oppressed by the U.S.-backed fundamentalist tyranny. And any moves toward independence in Iraq are surely going to stimulate them, it's already happening. That happens to be where most of Saudi Arabian oil is. Okay, so you can just imagine the ultimate nightmare in Washington: a loose Shiite alliance controlling most of the world's oil, independent of Washington and probably turning toward the East, where China and others are eager to make relationships with them, and are already doing it. Is that even conceivable? The U.S. would go to nuclear war before allowing that, as things now stand" ...

In more positive news from the Persian Gulf, Metropolis magazine has an article on "Desert Learning" - "A trip to the Gulf region awakens thoughts of twenty-first-century cities based on principles of sustainability.".

As our car idles in traffic, I spy a dozen cranes perched atop high-rises in various stages of construction. When the engine accelerates briefly, another view reveals a dozen or so more cranes. Sealed glass facades shimmer in the relentless sunshine. Buildings seem to be oriented every which way, not a shading device in sight. Sidewalks are hard to find. This once sleepy settlement on the Persian Gulf is experiencing the kind of massive building boom we’ve grown accustomed to seeing in Dubai, Shanghai, and other old cities pushing into the twenty-first century.

We’re heading to the sprawling grounds of the Education City campus, a collection of five American university outposts, for a three-day design conference organized by the Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar. Fifteen speakers and a large audience of locals and students from the U.S. cam­pus, plus groups from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, as well as teachers and local professionals, are immersed in sustainable design at all scales, from textiles to the urban fabric. On the last day of the conference, at the closing panel discussion, the first lady of Qatar is in attendance.

Known for her patronage of education, Sheikha Mozah is currently developing a sustainable site for design and research. She invites a few of us to lunch the next day. Both she and the emir want to hear more about our LEED rating system and growing green building practices, about why Interna­tional Modernism from the twentieth century is inappropriate for the hot and humid regions of the Arab world, about what historic local ­expressions—everything from Bedouin tents to well-shaded and well-insulated traditional structures—are teach­ing American architects about site-sensitive design, and what they can teach their own architects.

A development devoted to twenty-first-century design practices could have worldwide appeal and influence. I think of how each discipline might be involved—including product designers—to create an environmentally friendly place based on the unique conditions of culture and climate that exist in this region. And I wonder how different our product issue will look when industrial designers heed Paul Hawken’s advice and really get involved with breakthrough en­vironmentally benign materials, with practices that integrate the power of the sun and the wind into our built environment. A subversive thought in a kingdom that fossil fuels built? Sheikha Mozah doesn’t think so, and neither do I.

Metropolis also has an excellent interview with Paul Hawken about his new book "Blessed Unrest".

Paul Hawken has always been ahead of his time. In 1966, he co-founded Erewhon Trading Company, the country’s first natural foods business. Later he launched several successful sustainability-focused companies, including the garden-tool boutique Smith & Hawken, often cited for its environmental awareness. Hawken continued breaking new ground with several books on socially responsible business. His 1993 release The Ecology of Commerce went on to become a cornerstone of business-school curricula.

In his new book, Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came in to Being and Why No One Saw it Coming (Viking), Hawken deciphers the history of the environmental movement and predicts its future. Contemporary environmentalism, he argues, is nothing less than the fruition of a long global uprising to reclaim basic human rights. The book’s May release will coincide with the launch of a website, Wiser Earth, an open source social network with a database of more than 100,000 organizations. Recently Elizabeth A. Evitts talked to Hawken about the book, contemporary environmentalism, and how designers are playing a pivotal role in its evolution.

In Blessed Unrest you go back to the start of the environmental movement. You analyze Emerson and Thoreau, bring us through slavery and abolition to Civil Rights and the impact of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. What inspired this approach?

My work involves giving a lot of speeches and after every one people would come up, ask more questions, and give me their card. Over the years they just piled up until I had literally a huge shopping bag of business cards from nonprofit organizations. I began to wonder how many groups there were. It’s amazing; you just assume somebody knows. But nobody does. So I began to ploddingly try to figure it out. As I did so, I discovered that there were more than 100,000 (there’s in fact over a million, but at the time I only thought more than 100,000). I started to wonder how this compared to other humanitarian or social movements, both past and present. And I couldn’t find anything comparable to it. Then the question was: where did it come from? The easy answer is, well, it’s recent or it’s Earth Day. But it didn’t work that way. It was like pulling a string on a flour bag that went on and on. It was fascinating to see that there is this history that we don’t access. Or if we do, it doesn’t include the idea that there is a cumulative movement of humanity that wants to address the suffering of other forms of life, and specifically now, ecological degradation, economic disease, political corruption, and all of the cascading effects of that. I was surprised at how broad, deep and ancient it really is. What’s happening now is it’s spreading like crazy.

Thus the subtitle of your book: How the Largest Movement in the World Came in to Being and Why No One Saw it Coming.

Exactly. Climate change is certainly a big driver in the last few years, but there’ve been others—poverty, water issues, environmental refugees, war. The other driver is modern communication technologies, which allow groups to organize more easily. Smaller groups can have a much bigger effect than they could have prior to the onset of the internet. They’re connecting better, collaborating better, working as swarms, as some people say.

You write about how this evolving movement will look very different from movements of the past.


There’s no charismatic leader, no center. It’s not ideological. That’s often lost in the reporting of it, because what’s reported is the resistance point of a group saying, “Stop. Don’t.” That becomes an interesting event from a media point of view. What goes unreported is the innovation, design, engineering, and social technologies. This is a movement of ideas. And sometimes ideas don’t work and you try another one and that works, and then you try and figure out how to make it work better. It’s an iterative, evolutionary process. It’s tens of thousands of ideas with respect to water, buildings, cities, poverty, women, education, climate and carbon neutrality. You can’t sum them up because they appear all over the place. But they actually do all point north toward a very different world than the one we live in now.

You suggest that the politics of the future are really about fostering unusual alliances that revolve around ideas. Strange bedfellows—evangelicals aligning with environmentalists, for example. Are you seeing this elsewhere?

Yes. At the same time, we find out that we’re not strange bedfellows. We’re human beings and what estranged us is far less important and almost meaningless compared to what is meaningful now. You’re seeing Wal-Mart, for example, quite authentically—and I don’t care what someone else says about them—they’re very committed to 100% renewable energy and a lot of other things that they have not talked about yet. Well, who would’ve thought it? Is that a strange bedfellow or just the American people awakening to core values that now need to be expressed? ...

One more note about Metropolis - they have a whole section called "Sustainable Metropolis" about green building that is worth checking out. One example - the green roof timeline.

1961: Berlin, Germany
Reinhard Bornkamm, a researcher at Berlin’s Free University, publishes his work on green roofs.

1969: GENO Haus: Stuttgart, Germany
The Styrofoam base of this government-sponsored green roof remained functional until it was replaced in 1990.

1971: Germany
Landscape architects Gerda Gollwitzer and Werner Wirsing publish Roof Areas Inhabited, Viable, and Covered by Vegetation, an early treatise on modern green roofs.

1975: Mainz, Germany
The Landscape Research, Development & Construction Society, which has established widely followed green-roof standards, is founded.

1986: Hundertwasser Haus: Vienna, Austria
Friedensreich Hundertwasser’s public housing project in Vienna features trees and flowers on the building’s roof and balconies.

1993: Nine Houses: Dietikon, Switzerland
Architect Peter Vetsch builds nine concrete residences buried in earth and grass.

1995: Fukuoka Prefectural International Hall: Fukuoka, Japan
Emilio Ambasz transposes a 100,000-square-foot park in the city center onto 15 terraces of a new government building.

1997: Gap Headquarters: San Bruno, CA
William McDonough creates eco-friendly headquarters for the Gap, including a 69,000-square-foot green roof.

1998: Chicago
After seeing green roofs in Germany, Mayor Richard M. Daley directs municipal funds toward green-roof development.

1998: Washington, D.C.
The U.S. Green Building Council creates the LEED rating system; green roofs can contribute toward up to six points on the 69-point system.

1999: Toronto, Canada
Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, an organization of public and industry groups, is formed to promote the construction of green roofs in North America.

2000: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints: Salt Lake City
Olin Partnership’s terraced green roof includes a three-acre meadow.

2001: Chicago City Hall: Chicago
William McDonough and landscape architects Conservation Design Forum install the country’s first municipal green roof on Chicago’s city hall.

2003: Atlanta City Hall: Atlanta
The green roof on Atlanta’s city hall becomes the first municipally owned one in the Southeast.

2003: Ford Rouge Center: Dearborn, MI
William McDonough plants one of the largest green roofs in the world on Ford’s assembly plant, which now attracts ecotourists.

2003: The Solaire: New York
The first green residential high-rise in North America, designed by Rafael Pelli with landscape architect Diana Balmori, includes two green roofs.

2004: Millennium Park: Chicago
One of the largest green roofs in the world, the park extends 24.5 acres over underground parking garages.

2008: Bank of America Tower at One Bryant Park: New York
The first Platinum LEED high-rise office building will include a 4,500-square-foot green roof on a connecting building.

Science Daily has a post on using solar power to split CO2 into oxygen and carbon monoxide using gallium phosphide.

Chemists at the University of California, San Diego have demonstrated the feasibility of exploiting sunlight to transform a greenhouse gas into a useful product.

Many Earth Week activities will draw attention to the increasing concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the resulting impact on global climate. Now Clifford Kubiak, professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and his graduate student Aaron Sathrum have developed a prototype device that can capture energy from the sun, convert it to electrical energy and “split” carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide (CO) and oxygen.

Because their device is not yet optimized, they still need to input additional energy for the process to work. However, they hope that their results, which they presented at last month’s meeting of the American Chemical Society, will draw attention to the promise of the approach.

“For every mention of CO2 splitting, there are more than 100 articles on splitting water to produce hydrogen, yet CO2 splitting uses up more of what you want to put a dent into,” explained Kubiak. “It also produces CO, an important industrial chemical, which is normally produced from natural gas. So with CO2 splitting you can save fuel, produce a useful chemical and reduce a greenhouse gas.”

Although carbon monoxide is poisonous, it is highly sought after. Millions of pounds of it are used each year to manufacture chemicals including detergents and plastics. It can also be converted into liquid fuel. ...

Another interesting new referrer appeared today - PR Week's "Target Green" section (or at least their contributor Bob at BuzzLogic) was kind enough to put me amongst some relatively elite company (though I won't even try and work out what Instapundit's line on carbon emissions is - I find it difficult to imagine that its a green one though - last time I checked there he was plotting to invade Iran) - and even spun my propensity for mixing political musings of various stripes with the energy and environment news as "Green policy" - what's with all this new found respectability ? I'm obviously not getting enough tinfoil in my diet...

We asked Bob Schettino at BuzzLogic to do some data diving to on specific areas of interest to the green/clean tech community. Each week, he will crunch the numbers and update the list that determines, per BuzzLogic’s metrics, what the most influential blog or post, at that time, is in a particular category.

Carbon emissions - Instapundit
Clean tech - Joel Makower
Corporate social responsibility - Jeff Merrell
Green policy - Peak Energy
Green washing - Wal-Mart Watch
Sustainable living - Sustainable Life Media

While I have been known to criticise parts of the PR industry from time to time, I do quite enjoy observing their machinations on behalf of some of their more odious clients - and its important to remember that PR is very much a two-edged sword - for every military propaganda, global warming denial or green-washing PR exercise that makes your blood boil, there should be 10 Viridian style PR campaigns going on trying to convince people to be the best they can be. Its a matter of throwing more money at them and getting them to try and change the world for the better.

On that note one of my favourite TV series in recent years has been the BBC's "Absolute Power".

A savage swipe at the modern-day obsessions of celebrity and spin, Absolute Power cast light on life at Prentiss McCabe, the doyen of PR agencies where - with an almost heroic lack of morals or ethical responsibility - the staff spin news stories to benefit their often loathsome clients: wife-beating entertainers, ruthlessly ambitious politicians, bad-boy footballers, duplicitous TV personalities and others.

The agency's principal movers and shakers meet every morning to discuss the day's battles and are then allocated tasks according to their ability. Junior recruits Cat (Catherine) and Nick tackle the mundane stuff, while higher up the ladder Jamie and Alison wrestle with trickier challenges. Then there's the top strata - old timer Martin McCabe, a confused and bewildered soul usually out of his depth but - in simpler days - a big wheel in the field, and the Prince of Darkness himself, Charles Prentiss, a brilliant, soulless, manipulative, Machiavellian Svengali. Charles is the puller-of-strings, the king of spin, a liar's liar. He places ludicrous stories in the tabloids, destroys the reputations and careers of his enemies, and makes heroes out of the lowest of the low. It is said that you can't polish a turd but Charles can - and his charges invariably end up the shiniest s**ts on the block. Such talents could have given him a good career in politics but, as Charles says, he chose public relations because he 'wanted to work where the real power and money lay'.

Rarely have such a bunch of distasteful, unlikeable, morally bankrupt characters formed the basis for a British sitcom, for while other shows have featured such characters among their number here everyone was cut from the same cloth. All in all this was a classy-looking, smoothly-acted vehicle with a towering central performance from Stephen Fry and customary excellence from John Bird.

My occasional diet of news about the PR industry tends to come from Crikey and occasional email summaries from PR Watch - a few choice snippets from today's effort are below.

NEW PARTICIPATORY PROJECT: ADDING EXAMPLES OF GREENWASH TO SOURCEWATCH
http://www.prwatch.org/node/5968

In the last few weeks we have fielded inquiries from journalists around the world seeking recent local examples of greenwashing. Given that the article on greenwashing has ranked up amongst the top 50 articles in terms of the number of readers over the last few months, we figure it is time to add some recent case studies. So if you have an example that springs to mind, here's your chance to add it to our collection. Please go to http://www.prwatch.org/node/5968 for specifics on what we are looking for help on!
SOURCE: Greenwashing Examples for SourceWatch

ONWARD, FREE MARKET SOLDIERS: PRIVATIZING PUBLIC DIPLOMACY
by Diane Farsetta

U.S. Under Secretary of State Karen Hughes' remarks at the "Private Sector Summit on Public Diplomacy" opened on a militaristic note. "Looking around the room and seeing the quality and the scope of the talent represented here," she said, "I feel like reinforcements have arrived."
Given Hughes' membership in the White House Iraq Group, a key part of the Bush administration's Iraq War "sell job," perhaps her choice of imagery isn't surprising. But are her new corporate "troops" well suited for the job of public diplomacy?
The January 2007 public diplomacy summit was co-sponsored by the State Department and the PR Coalition, an "ad hoc partnership" of groups representing the public relations, investor relations, lobbying and other communications professions. Nearly 160 PR executives and government officials attended, engaging "in a dialogue over how the private sector can become more involved in and supportive of U.S. public diplomacy," in the words of PR Coalition chair and Accenture PR chief James Murphy.

To read the rest of this item, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/5967

GOODWORKS MEANS GOOD MONEY FOR ANDREW YOUNG IN NIGERIA
http://www.prwatch.org/node/5969

PR executive Andrew Young parlayed his civil rights and liberal political background into a lucrative career representing Wal-Mart Stores, Nike and other corporations. The New York Times examines the role of Young and his firm GoodWorks International in Nigeria, reporting that "GoodWorks is paid to represent many major companies like Chevron, General Electric and Motorola that seek big contracts from the Nigerian government. In addition, executives of GoodWorks have stakes in Nigeria's oil industry, the country's main source of wealth. And several years ago, the firm's chief executive, Carlton A. Masters, started an American company with close relatives of President Obasanjo ... . Mr. Masters said that GoodWorks typically received a 'success fee' equal to 1.5 percent of a contract's value, a fee that can lead to big payouts. In 2005, for example, G.E. Energy, a GoodWorks client, won a $400 million contract to supply generating turbines in Nigeria."
SOURCE: New York Times, April 18, 2007

AP PHOTOGRAPHER MARKS ONE YEAR IN U.S. PRISON CAMP
http://www.prwatch.org/node/5954

For one year, Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein has been "held at a prison camp in Iraq by U.S. military officials who have neither formally charged him with a crime nor made public any evidence of wrongdoing," AP reports. Hussein "was taken prisoner in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi on April 12, 2006." The director of the Committee to Protect Journalists commented, "It's unfathomable to me why, after an entire year, there has been no progress in terms of the legal process moving ahead." A Pentagon spokesperson pointed to four reviews of Hussein's case, each of which "determined Hussein represented an imperative threat to security and recommended continued detention," he said. AP, "numerous journalism organizations ... and many newspapers," have called for Hussein's release. AP executive editor Kathleen Carroll said, "The absence of evidence leads to the conclusion that Bilal is being held because of the photographs he took for the AP -- which were published around the world -- and which were part of AP's Pulitzer Prize-winning submission in 2005."
SOURCE: Associated Press, April 11, 2007

IRAQ: WHY THE MEDIA FAILED
http://www.prwatch.org/node/5953

"It's no secret that the period of time between 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq represents one of the greatest collapses in the history of the American media," observes Gary Kamiya. "Why did the media fail so disastrously in its response to the biggest issue of a generation? To answer this, we need to look at three broad, interrelated areas, which I have called psychological, institutional and ideological. The media had serious preexisting weaknesses on all three fronts, and when a devastating terrorist attack and a radical, reckless and duplicitous administration came together, the result was a perfect storm." In the "psychological" category, he points to "the subtle, internalized, often unconscious way that the media conforms and defers to certain sacrosanct values and ideals. ...
It's reflected in a cautious, centrist media that defers to accepted national dogmas." Institutionally, "The decline of newspapers, the rise of infotainment, and media company owners' insistence on delivering high returns to their shareholders have diminished resources and led to a bottom-line fixation unconducive to aggressive reporting." And ideologically, "the U.S. media works within a tiny ideological spectrum on the Middle East, using the same center-right and right-wing sources again and again."
SOURCE: Salon.com, April 10, 2007

STAUBER SPEAKING IN SAN FRANCISCO ON THE IRAQ WAR - 'WAR IS SELL'
Tuesday, April 24, 2007, 5:30 p.m.

John Stauber founded the Center for Media and Democracy in 1993 and has written about war and propaganda for over a decade. In his view the Bush administration has delivered defeat in Iraq by becoming entrapped in its own propaganda. He will examine how the U.S. media often behave like a propaganda arm of the government, and how recent attacks on independent journalists led CMD to launch the Defend the Press campaign. He will also talk about how the Democratic and Republican Parties are framing the war in Iraq for
the 2008 elections.

Location: CommonWealth Club, 595 Market Street, San Francisco, CA
Event URL: http://commonwealthclub.org/mlf/#stauber

And to close, anyone who knew the difference between "autarchy" and "autarky" this morning knew more than I did - but after seeing The Economist's Style Guide section on some common solecisms getting a high rank on reddit today I too know what they mean - the short version - autarky good, autarchy bad.

Acronym: this is a word, like radar or NATO, not a set of initials, like the BBC or the IMF.

Aetiology is the science of causation, or an inquiry into something's origins. Etiolate is to make or become pale for lack of light.

Aggression is an unattractive quality, so do not call a keen salesman an aggressive one (unless his foot is in the door or beyond).

Agony column: when Sherlock Holmes perused this, it was a personal column, not letters to an agony aunt.

Agree: things are agreed on, to or about, not just agreed.

Aggravate means make worse, not irritate or annoy.

Alibi: an alibi is the proven fact of being elsewhere, not a false explanation.

Alternate, as an adjective, means every other.

Alternative: strictly, this is one of two, not one of three, four, five or more (which may be options).

Among and between. Some sticklers insist that, where division is involved, among should be used where three or more are concerned, between where only two are concerned. (So The plum jobs were shared among the Socialists, the Liberals and the Christian Democrats, while the president and the vice-president divided the cash between themselves. ) This distinction is unnecessary. But take care with between. To fall between two stools, however painful, is grammatically acceptable; to fall between the cracks is to challenge the laws of physics.

Anarchy means the complete absence of law or government. It may be harmonious or chaotic.

Anticipate does not mean expect. Jack and Jill expected to marry; if they anticipated marriage, only Jill might find herself expectant.

Apostasy and heresy. If you abandon your religion, you commit apostasy. If that religion is the prevailing one in your community, and your beliefs are contrary to its orthodoxy you commit heresy.

Appeal is intransitive nowadays (except in America), so appeal against decisions.

Appraise means set a price on. Apprise means inform.

Assassinate is, properly, the term used not just for any old killing, but for the murder of a prominent person, usually for a political purpose.

Autarchy means absolute sovereignty. Autarky means self-sufficiency. ...

Actually, I think I'll throw in one more item - Glenn Greenwald on "Our benevolent surveillance state" - whcih prompted AmericaBlog to ask Why does the Bush administration have a list of everyone who has ever used anti-depressants ?.

The expansion of the Surveillance State is endless. Buried within an ABC report on the Virginia Tech shootings is this paragraph (h/t reader DT):

Some news accounts have suggested that Cho had a history of antidepressant use, but senior federal officials tell ABC News that they can find no record of such medication in the government's files. This does not completely rule out prescription drug use, including samples from a physician, drugs obtained through illegal Internet sources, or a gap in the federal database, but the sources say theirs is a reasonably complete search.

Is there any good reason whatsoever why the federal government should be maintaining "files" which contain information about the pharmaceutical products which all Americans are consuming? The noxious idea has taken root in our country -- even before the Bush presidency, though certainly greatly bolstered during it -- that one of the functions of the federal government is to track the private lives of American citizens and maintain dossiers on what we do.

If that sounds hyperbolic, just review the disclosures over the course of recent years concerning what data bases the Federal Government has created and maintained and the vast amounts of data they contain -- everything from every domestic telephone call we make and receive to the content of our international calls to "risk assessment" records based on our travel activities to all sorts of information obtained by the FBI's use of NSLs. And none of that includes, obviously, the as-yet-undisclosed surveillance programs undertaken by the most secretive administration in history.

It is true that much (though not all) of this data is already scattered in the hands of various private corporations and insurance companies. But, for multiple and self-evident reasons, it presents a fundamentally different type and level of threat when it is all consolidated and centralized in the hands of the federal government. Amazingly, it is the political movement that spent all of the 1990s stridently warning of the dangers of federal government power -- The Black Helicopters And Janet Reno Are Coming -- which has brought us this Surveillance State and continues to cheer on its infinite expansion.

The federal government data base which contains all of our controlled substance prescriptions, for instance, was mandated by a law -- The National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting Act -- passed in 2005 by the Republican-controlled Congress (though with full bipartisan support) and signed into law by the "conservative" Leader. That law appropriates funds to each state to create and maintain these data bases which are, apparently, accessible to federal agencies, federal law enforcement officials, and almost certainly thousands of other state and federal employees (as well as, most likely, employees of private companies).

Along these lines, the Department of Homeland Security last month promulgated proposed regulations for enforcement of the so-called Real ID Act of 2005. Those regulations require that every state issue technologically compatible Driver's Licenses which enable, in essence, uniform and nationwide tracking of all sorts of private information about every individual. Just as the Prescription Drug Tracking Law is "justified" by the Drug War, these national ID cards are justified by the War on Terrorism. As the Homeland Security Department explains:

The 9/11 Commission endorsed the REAL ID requirements, noting that: "For terrorists, travel documents are as important as weapons . . . All but one of the 9/11 hijackers acquired some form of identification document, some by fraud. Acquisition of these forms of identification would have assisted them in boarding commercial flights, renting cars, and other necessary activities."

EPIC notes that "the deadline for public comment [on the DHS regulations] is May 8, 2007" -- and from what I understand, more public comments are needed from people who have strong views about these regulations. EPIC explains why these regulations are so disturbing:

The requirement for non-REAL ID-compliant DL/ID to have explicit "invalid for federal purposes" designations, turns this "voluntary" card into a mandatory national ID card. Anyone with a non-REAL ID-compliant card would be instantly suspicious. Compliant cards would be necessary for federal purposes such as entering courthouses, air travel or receiving federal benefits, such as Medicaid or Social Security. It would be easy for insurance companies, credit card companies, even video stores, to demand a REAL ID-compliant DL/ID in order to receive services.

That the "conservative" movement is ushering in measures such as a federal law mandating that every state create National ID cards is ironic on multiple levels. But as Wired's Ryan Singel notes, numerous states -- the latest being Montana (after Idaho, Arkansas and Maine) -- have enacted laws refusing to comply with these requirements on the ground that they infringe on the privacy of the citizens of that state and/or on the ground that the law violates federalism principles by taking over areas (i.e., regulating driver's licenses) traditionally preserved for the states. For those reasons, many other states, particularly in the Mountain West and even the Deep South, are on their way to enacting similar laws refusing to comply.

It is simply no longer news when the "conservative" movement violates every "small-government" and states' rights principle it pretended to embrace ("conservatives" Andy McCarthy, David Frum, and John Yoo tonight are appearing at an event to argue for this Orwellian proposition: "Better More Surveillance than Another 9/11"). Apparently, we need to empower the federal government to maintain comprehensive dossiers on all Americans, otherwise our freedoms might be at risk from The Terrorists.

It is hardly worth pointing out that the idea of the Federal Government engaging in massive surveillance of innocent American citizens is about as far away from the core beliefs of the American Founders as one can get. Anyone who does not realize that is likely beyond the realm of persuasion.

But the only people who would think that it is fine to have the Federal Government compiling dossiers like this are those who place blind faith in our Leaders not to abuse their power. But that is the ethos that is the exact opposite of the one on which the country was founded, but which has come to dominate so much of our political culture.

UPDATE: Markos notes some news that is highly encouraging on several levels -- it was Democratic Governor Brian Schweitzer who, in Montana, drove enactment of the state law refusing to comply with the REAL ID Act, and Democratic Senator Jon Tester -- who, as Markos said, "violated every tenet of conventional wisdom and the blatherings of the pundit class by running on opposition to the Patriot Act" -- intends to lead efforts in the Senate to repeal the law altogether.

As the map linked above demonstrates, most of the states in the Mountain West are still highly resistant to the types of invasive federal surveillance schemes which the Bush-led Republicans/neoconservatives crave more and more. Markos has insightfully argued before -- in an essay for Cato Institute -- that there is a potentially valuable political opportunity for Democrats in the Mountain West (and elsewhere) to stand for principles of individual liberty against ever-expanding federal police power -- efforts that I wrote about awhile back, here at Salon, in the context of the rejection by Arizona (and near-rejection by Colorado) of anti-gay-marriage referenda.

Whatever else one can say the modern-day Republican Party stands for, individual liberty is plainly not it. Democrats could do themselves -- and the country -- a great service by devoting themselves to a defense of the core liberties which are being eroded so rapidly by "conservatives" in the name of Protection from the Terrorists and The Glorious, Endless, Epic War of Civilizations. ...