The Plastic Vacuum

Since plastic is one of the major ingredient in vacuums, Electrolux is planning to harvest trashed plastic from the supplies now swirling in the oceans and use it in a new household vacuum cleaner. Electrolux’s green line of vacuums is currently 70% recycled plastic and lack of available recycled material is limiting their goal of 100 %.
The region from which the plastic in each vacuum comes will determine where the appliance will be sold. So vacuums made with Northern salvage will be available in the North. Nice touch.

Electrolux is recruiting trained volunteers to gather plastic, either by diving after it or scooping it up from waves, from a variety of locations in the Pacific, Indian Ocean, the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and the Baltic and North Sea. Collection started in Sweden two days ago, according to Cecilia Nord, Vice President, Floor Care Environmental and Sustainability Affairs, Electrolux. Once enough plastic has been collected, Electrolux will press it together into a series of concept vacuum cleaners.

"Depending on what plastic we actually find, every vacuum cleaner will look unique," Nord says. "If we're in Sweden, the kind of garbage we'll get is from Northern Europe. When we're collecting plastic in Thailand it will look completely different. The vacuum cleaners will be a bit of a mosaic." from FastCompany

Gen. McChrystal’s awesome Rolling Stone happy hour

No telling what fate General McChrystal will meet in his hastily scheduled meeting at the White House with Obama .I have a feeling though not much good can come from any of this.(Updated below)

The volcano in Iceland, however, changed those plans. As the ash disrupted air travel, Hastings ended up being "stuck" with McChrystal and his team for 10 days in Paris and Berlin.
McChrystal had to get to Berlin by bus. Hastings says McChrystal and his aides were drinking on the road trip "the whole way."

"They let loose," he said. "I don't blame them; they have a hard job."

Something from the past came back while wondering what the circumstances were surrounding McChrystal and his staff speaking so openly to Rolling Stone
Back in 2009 a NATO bombing strike had taken place that killed 125 civilians.

Back then McChrystal reported that his subordinates could not be raised quickly. Steps were reportedly taken to limit drinking at headquarters after this, but the plan to do so reportedly had been in the works for some time.

General Stanley McChrystal tried to contact his subordinates after a NATO strike killed 125 civilians, but too many had been “partying it up” and could not be raised.
General McChrystal, head of International Forces in Afghanistan (Isaf), has since put a stop to drinking, admonishing staff for not having “their heads in the right place” on Friday morning a few hours after the attack, the Times reports.

FYI: McChrystal's favorite beverage is Bud Light Lime

UPDATE: I had some doubts he would do it but …Obama dismissed General McChrystal.
He will be replaced by Gen. David Petraeus – commander of the US Central Command and former head of coalition forces in Iraq.

“The conduct represented in the recently published article does not meet the standard that should be set by a commanding general,” Obama said. “It undermines the civilian control of the military that is at the core of our democratic system. And it erodes the trust that's necessary for our team to work together to achieve our objectives in Afghanistan.” More here

Oops,We seem to have broken the Earth!

Here are some lines from from the Guardian by Naomi Klein in the Guardian. Her observations about the continuing Gulf oil leak,the climate crisis in general and the reactions to it are truly disheartening.

If Katrina pulled back the curtain on the reality of racism in America, the BP disaster pulls back the curtain on something far more hidden: how little control even the most ingenious among us have over the awesome, intricately interconnected natural forces with which we so casually meddle. BP cannot plug the hole in the Earth that it made. Obama cannot order fish species to survive, or brown pelicans not to go extinct (no matter whose ass he kicks). No amount of money – not BP's recently pledged $20bn (£13.5bn), not $100bn – can replace a culture that has lost its roots.

As climate change negotiations wear on, we should be ready to hear more from Dr Steven Koonin, Obama's undersecretary of energy for science. He is one of the leading proponents of the idea that climate change can be combated with techno tricks like releasing sulphate and aluminium particles into the atmosphere – and of course it's all perfectly safe, just like Disneyland! He also happens to be BP's former chief scientist, the man who just 15 months ago was still overseeing the technology behind BP's supposedly safe charge into deepwater drilling.

In other petroleum related news:

Fly away to a clean ocean

Corporate sensitivity and the small people in the year 2010

BP chief executive Tony Hayward, often criticized for being tone-deaf to U.S. concerns about the worst oil spill in American history, took time off Saturday to attend a glitzy yacht race off England's Isle of Wight.

Spokeswoman Sheila Williams said Hayward took a break from overseeing BP efforts to stem the undersea gusher in Gulf of Mexico to watch his boat "Bob" participate in the J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race.

I seem to remember Capt. Joe Hazelwood of Exxon Valdez fame being roundly vilified by the government, press and the public(his ship and his image even had a cameo in the movie Waterworld). Maybe times and attitudes have just changed or Tony Hayward’s ilk don’t consider themselves to be of the small people whose lives can be disrupted by the disaster in the gulf. Fly away to a clean[er] ocean.

"It's a well-known event in the British calendar. He's entitled to private time with his family," said BP spokesman Robert Wine.

Texas Rep.Joe Barton demands Gulf of Mexico Appologize

In congressional hearings today Joseph Linus”Joe” Barton Repubican Congressman from Texas’ 6th district demanded that the Gulf of Mexico apologize to BP CEO Tony Hayward for soaking up all his crude oil.


What really happened is almost that bad :

A Texas Republican apologized to BP CEO Tony Hayward on Thursday for having to set aside $20 billion for Gulf of Mexico damage claims, drawing ridicule from Democrats and embarrassing Republicans.

Representative Joe Barton, a major recipient of campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry, triggered an uproar with his lengthy apology to Hayward for being the victim of a White House "shakedown."

"I'm speaking totally for myself, I'm not speaking for the Republican party ... but I'm ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday," Barton said.

Forcast:Cloudy with a Chance of Global Warming

By only a six vote margin, 53-47 the Senate stopped a Republican attempt to block the EPA from regulating carbon emissions that it has deemed a threat to health and environment. Among those in favor of the effort were six Democrats. Climate change denier Republican Tom Coburn raising the fear of job loss said of allowing the EPA regulate that “Even if it is the right thing to do, now is not the time to do it.”

The New York Times points out:
But it [the close vote] provided a showcase for a Senate fight over global warming as well as an indicator of where lawmakers could be expected to come down on legislation aimed at carbon emissions. The near-even division among lawmakers showed that a 60-vote supermajority on climate change legislation remains elusive.

We all know Sen. Coburn (R,OK) dances to a different drummer but the razor close margins in the Senate don’t appear to reflect the what the country thinks. National polling shows support for legislative climate remedies, yet the Senate stumbles forth with Kerry, Lieberman, and Graham climate bill.

In the June 2010 survey, 86 percent of respondents said they wanted the federal government to limit the amount of air pollution that businesses emit, and 76 percent favored government limitations on greenhouse gas emissions generated by businesses. Only 14 percent said that the United States should not take action to combat global warming unless other major industrial countries like China and India do so as well.

Therecent survey by Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University shows a slight decline (even after the ‘climate-gate’ foolishness) in those who think global warming is happening 84 percent in 2007 to 74 percent today. Unfortunately little interest is shown in being motivated to reduce personal consumption through taxes.
Among other survey results:

• 78 percent opposed taxes on electricity to reduce consumption, and 72 percent opposed taxes on gasoline;
• 84 percent favored the federal government offering tax breaks to encourage utilities to make more electricity from water, wind and solar power;
• Four out of 5 respondents favored government requiring or offering tax breaks to encourage the production of cars that use less gas (81 percent), appliances that use less electricity (80 percent) and homes and office buildings that require less energy to heat and cool (80 percent);
• Only 18 percent said that policies to reduce global warming would increase unemployment.

Double the Flow Estimate !

The Flow Rate Technical Group, a special US government team was created to analyze the flow of oil from the Deepwater Horizon leak. This was thought wise after worries surfaced about British Petroleum low-balling the amount gushing from the damaged well.
They released some troubling calculations today.

The new calculation suggested that an amount of oil equivalent to the Exxon Valdez disaster could have been flowing into the Gulf of Mexico every 8 to 10 days.

This assessment, based on measurements taken before BP [British Petroleum] cut the riser pipe of the leaking well on June 3 to cap some of the flow, showed that approximately 25,000 to 30,000 barrels of oil could have been gushing into the Gulf each day. That is far above the previous estimate of 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day.

New York Times

Obama's Loyalties

Once again New York Times'Frank Rich on Obama:A Sneigwhblog bi-monthly nod to Frank Rich’s observations.

It’s also a great excuse to haul my Obama as admiral image(courtesy of the photoshop elves at Hyper Kitchen).

We still want to believe that Obama is on our side, willing to fight those bad corporate actors who cut corners and gambled recklessly while regulators slept, Congress raked in contributions, and we got stuck with the wreckage and the bills. But his leadership style keeps sowing confusion about his loyalties, puncturing holes in the powerful tale he could tell.

Obama has yet to find a sensible middle course between blind faith in his own Ivy League kind and his predecessor’s go-with-the-gut bravado.

A Dividend from British Petroleum

British Petroleum, according to reports will not cut its 10 billion dividend payment to shareholders. One stock analyst said “My take on the underlying message is that the dividend is safe.” This came only 24hours after US Senators Chuck Schumer and Ron Wydon urged British Petroleum to suspend stock dividends payments.

In a conference call to shareholders and analysts, Carl-Henric Svanberg, BP’s chairman, and Tony Hayward, its chief executive, stopped short of giving an undertaking that the payout would be maintained.

He added: “Future decisions on the quarterly dividend will be made, as they have always been, on the basis of all the circumstances at the time. All factors will be considered and decisions taken in the long-term interests of our shareholders. And we are aware of the importance of the dividend for you, the shareholders.