LA Weekly

Back after the day of Labor.

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I guess this Hummer ad is supposed to suggest that because tofu contains phytoestrogens it makes one less masculine, and in order to balance that out, a man has to have a Hummer.

I mean, I think that's what they're saying.

Honestly, I thought it was a parody when I read about it on Metafilter. But it's on the Hummer's own site. So, um, they must be serious.

And I think that means the Hummer is dying a slow but very certain market death.

(The one in the picture might be a nice climate-change ride, though, especially if you live in the Florida Keys or something.)

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Did you wake up this morning asking yourself how natural gas compares to coal in greenhouse gas emissions? How carbon dioxide releases have fluctuated with the economy over the last decade? How much transportation sector carbon emissions grew in the last year? Why residential CO2 emissions rose 3.2 percent in the last year? (Hint: air conditioning: "While heating degree-days were essentially flat, cooling degree-days rose by 13.2 percent.")

Boy, do I have the page for you: The Energy Information Administration's wonky flash slideshow on everything greenhouse gas.

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Back in the early '90s, the media used the word "eco-terror" to refer to acts of war against the planet (not sabotage in defense of it, as they do today). One example was Saddam Hussein's dumping of millions of gallons of oil into the Persian Gulf at Al Hamaji in retaliation for U.S. air attacks. "Ecoterror" also describes pretty well the consequences of last month's Israeli attack on a Lebanese power station. As "Democracy Now!" reported one morning last week:

Since then around 15,000 tons of oil have leaked into the Mediterranean Sea. Satellite images show the spill has already reached as far as north as Syria. 70 miles of coastline have already been polluted. Environmentalists fear the spill could also end up affecting Cyprus, Turkey and Greece.

Friends of the Earth has said that the spill -- which is spreading unchecked due to Israeli blockades -- "threatens to be the greatest environmental disaster ever in the Eastern Mediterranean." And according to Wael Hmaidan, coordinator of the Oil Spill Working Group:

al devastation of our marine environment. The oil spill, which has happened more than three weeks ago, it is -- no one has started the cleanup process yet. It has spread over 100 kilometers of Lebanese coastline. It has reached Syria, contaminated several kilometers in Syria, and there is the possibility it will reach Turkey or Greece.

Massive die-offs of fish and birds have already begun to happen. Other sources are reporting possible increased cancer risks in Mediterranean countries due to the spill.

Most recent update here.

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Today is the day the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, after a three-year hiatus, once again begins offering rebates to customers who install photovoltaic -- that is, solar -- electrical system. The incentive program provides a $.14/kWh rebate for solar power installations that are Underwriter’s Laboratories (UL)-listed, and approved and listed by the California Energy Commission. You get two cents more per kilowatt hour if your panels were made in Los Angeles. More to come.

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Among the highlights of yesterday's signing of the Clinton Climate Initiative were Villaraigosa's second reading of his speech in Spanish, Clinton's presumably accidental reference to the Murdoch empire as a "country" instead of a "company" (and one that aims to be carbon neutral) and Blair's grateful response to his standing ovation, which he admitted doesn't happen often on Britain's college campuses these days (it was hard to look at him without being reminded of the sweater). There was also London Mayor Ken Livingstone's promise to slap SUVs in the city with a $50-a-day "gas guzzler charge."

But man oh man -- none of them bowled me over like San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's whole deal: The skin (dermabrasion? facials?), the shiny chocolate hair, the delivery of his speech apparently without notes, and best of all, his declaration that reducing carbon emissions is "not that difficult." In fact, he says, it's "as simple as the stroke of the pen."

Newsom boasted of mandating B20 (a 20 percent biodiesel blend) in the city's fire engines, of instigating "the largest municipal-owned solar project in the United States," of plans in the works to install a "very large tube at the mouth of the bay, right below the Golden Gate Bridge," to harness tidal-current power the he predicts will power six percent of the city's households. He insisted energetically that there were no excuses left: "Of course we want to focus on the realities of the economy that's obviously being challenged globally," he said, "so we're now focusing on replacing blue-collar jobs with green-collar jobs."

Okay. Whatever. Go, Gavin.

(And sorry about the lousy photo. I posess a limited skill set.)

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I just thought it was cool. And look -- the air was already kind of dirty. (From "Los Angeles in the 1900s," by George Garrigues.)

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