American Madness

Song originally written for Kermit the Frog by Joe Raposo, the fascinating composer for sesame street. (Via Lily Allen AmericanMadness*).

*Josh may have found it today through Lily Allen, but we had it posted on here a month before her. -Matt

NPR is putting together a report about the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. The editor, David Gilkey, interviewed the center’s director, Zhang Zhihe and asked him “why he thought the giant panda bears are so popular. A simple answer from the director: ‘Because they make you smile!’

In advance of the full report, they have made available a few highlights of the film. I don’t know how one could watch this video and not immediately feel better.

I’ve written often on this site about the propaganda tactics used to create the false impression of a scientific consensus about the effect of C02 on the earth’s climate. Because of this many people probably don’t see me as an environmentalist, but the truth is that I do care deeply about creating a clean environment where humans can live in relative symbiosis with nature. Part of my motivation for moving to New York City was the fact that urban dwelling just seemed like logical best approach to living in a world which will have 9 billion inhabitants in the not too distant future.

That being said, I was rather disappointed to see Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan go down in flames. Unlike his Olympic Bid and the West Side stadium, this proposal actually seemed to make sense. New York City is simply not designed to support massive numbers of vehicles. If most people did not already take public transport, the system would not work at all. As the population swells and more and more cars try to jam themselves into the The City the system will break down.

I’d like to ride my bike on my city’s streets without having to fear for my life. I’d like to be able to ride on a public transportation system that isn’t a relic from 1965 (The $350 million for public transport that Albany denied us will ensure that this does not happen). I’d like to be able to breath cleaner air.

The Legislature in Albany, who always seem to have New York City’s worst interests at heart, have denied me and other New Yorkers the right to live in a decent environment, so that they can drive their stinking SUVs into The City whenever they feel like it, without paying a toll for the misery it causes the rest of us.

If it hadn’t been published 6 days prior to the 1st I would assume this wasn’t for real, in fact it is so unbelievable I am just going to start off by quoting the first line: “Farmers in North Queensland are doing their bit to be environmentally friendly by investing in a tree that produces diesel.”

The U.S. is currently struggling with oil prices topping $110 a barrel (in no small part thanks to our involvement over seas, can we get a “Go Team!”?). We are fighting to convince car companies and industries that use vast amounts of oil to figure ways to cut back, like producing cars that are more fuel efficient or don’t need it at all. Australians, on the other hand, are taking a tip from Brazil and have purchased over 20,000 trees that produce “oil that can be extracted, filtered and used to power vehicles” that run on diesel.

Although it is apparently a long term investment (it takes between 15 and 20 years for the trees to mature enough and become ready to harvest for oil), though once they have matured, a hectare (100 meters square) can produce 12,000 litres of fuel a year (a bit over 3,000 gallons… or a little more then 75 barrels).

Oh and because it is a tree it is also a renewable source of energy. You can read more about the trees here. Maybe some one might want to mention this to our government.

Matt introduced the AmericanMadness world to Flocke back in January. Back in those early days, she was just a squirming ball of fluff, but like all baby polar bears she captured the world’s heart.

Today, she is growing up fast and taking the star from Germany’s other world famous polar bear cub Knut. Of course, how can we forget Knut? When he took those first shaky steps last March in Berlin, he ignited a baby polar bear frenzy, and in the process becoming the spokesbear for the environmental movement (he starred next to Leonardo DiCaprio on the cover of Vanity Fair). The Berlin Zoo actually saw its stock price increase as a result of higher gate revenues from all the folks wanting to get a glimpse of the little bear.

Not to be outdone, the Nueremberg Zoo has plans to roll out its star to the public this coming month. In anticipation of Flocke’s big day, the Nuremberg Metropolitan Region has unveiled posters utilizing the star power of Flocke’s black button eyes and large bears’ paws.

Translated, “Knut war gestern,” is roughly, “Knut is yesterday’s bear.” The poster expresses some of the self-confidence of the Nuremberg Metropolitan Region, which knows its infrastructure will soon be strained with Germany looking to get a glimpse of Flocke on her first days out. (more…)

Well, at least if you are producing electronics. GreenPeace just published its quarterly report (they have run it 7 times since August ‘06) on the top 18 computer, cell phone, tv and video game companies and how they do in producing “Greener Electronics.”

While GreenPeace let’s you know how the companies do from one year to the next, they also have the previous reports linked so that you can see how they have been doing over to 1.5 year period that they have been running the report.

You can even read about why each company got the ranking that they received and how their practices have changed in the past quarter (if they have changed). While no one has yet received a 10 in going fully green (or as green as GreenPeace expects them to go), companies like Nokia, Sony, Dell, and Lenovo are inching towards it (all currently with 7.3).

For you Apple fans, they are tied on the second tier with Sony Ericsson, LGE, Fujitsu-Siemens and HP with 6.7, but have been inching their way up (while Sony-Ericsson, LGE, Fujitsu-Siemmens have all gone down).

This is interesting info and worth a peak, especially if you are concerned that your electronics will still be sitting in a landfill polluting the Earth for years after you are gone.

And for those of you in the market for a new TV, we have TakeBackMyTV (TBMTV). (more…)

Adam will like this post.

I highly recommend The Angry Economist. It’s rare that we really think here at AM. Mostly we tell you about cool ideas, products, culture. The AE appears to think every day. Not easy to do.

Teaching Climate Change

A California legislator wants the state’s science cirriculum to teach climate change. Climate change is a documented fact. Within recorded human history we have gone through two 1500-year warming / cooling cycles. There’s evidence on every continent of this. But human-caused global warming is bullshit. Basically, we’re being asked to believe that the inevitable warming is *more* warm *now* than it *should* be. We have zero evidence of that. Nobody can say with any precision how quickly the earth warms when it warms. It was warmer during the Roman Warming than it is now. Fig trees grew in northern Italy where they don’t grow now.

Yeah, teach climate change, but teaching global warming is as bad as teaching creationism. They’re both faith-based education.

I’ve been fascinated by the global warming consensus for a number of years, because it is such an excellent example of how we as a species can delude ourselves on a global scale with amazing speed and thoroughness. The Internet is a wonderful propaganda tool, and as a marketing professional I have come to admire the tactics used by Gore and his minions to spread the global warming gospel.

However, as a rational human being I am concerned. I can see that the importance placed on consensus is a direct attempt to destroy the scientific method of working towards the truth through careful observation of reality. It is the classic battle of subjectivists vs. objectivists and the subjectivists’ method of science by consensus has been winning.

Luckily, those who understand the scientific method have a very powerful weapon on their side, reality. The natural world has been drilling a number of holes into the global warming gospel over the past few years and the news media has finally begun to pick-up on this. For example, we have experienced a series of mild hurricane seasons despite catastrophic predictions. Further, while everyone has been wringing their hands about the ice cap at the North Pole shrinking, the ice layer at the south pole has been steadily expanding.

I have recently read two interesting articles that I hope are harbingers of a cultural shift away from alarmist group think and towards a respect for true scientific inquiry into the nature of earth’s climate. The articles are as follows. (more…)

Just a quick little post about my favorite topic: Green. Well, kind of, at least everything in this post can be tied together under the Green heading.

First up, a website for Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth was hacked and loaded up with spammer links to sell Viagra, Xanax and the like.

It looks like only the pages associated with the blog were attacked and linked to other hacked pages from Westmont College (that or the Christian College is running a side business pushing drugs).

Looks like the hackers exploited a flaw in WordPress (a popular piece of publishing software) security. Might be time for us to up our own security here.

(more…)