Minnkota Power not happy about climate change

Minnkota Power, a generation/transmission cooperative serving electricity consumers in northwest Minnesota and eastern North Dakota, is not happy about climate change and they want their customers to know about it, every other month. A review of their customer newsletter, the Minnkota Messenger, indicates a consistent concern that climate change is a massive environmental sham. Some of it reads like grocery store tabloids and it’s quite interesting how much coverage they give to it, perhaps hoping that quantity will make up for quality. They might do well to read “How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic.”

• Nov/Dec 2007, p6 - “A Developing Catastrophe”

• Sep/Oct 2007 - break

• Jul/Aug 2007, p9 - “Global Warming: The Rest of the Story”

• May/Jun 2007 - break

• Mar/Apr 2007 - break

• Jan/Feb 2007, p9: “Polar Bears and Climate Change”

• Nov/Dec 2006 - break

• Sep/Oct 2006, p6: “A shaky foundation”

• Jul/Aug 2006, p6: “Another Perspective: Noted scientist weighs in on climate change issue”

• May/Jun 2006, p10: “Political Science: New film puts climate change in headlines”

• Mar/Apr 2006, p10: “Myth: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate.”

• Jan/Feb 2006, p10: “An astonishing discovery: Recent finding underscores cautionary approach”

• Nov/Dec 2005 - break

• Sep/0ct 2005, p11 - “A hurricane of misinformation global warming activists turn storms into spin”

• Jul/Aug 2005, p6 - “Earth’s ever-changing climate state geologist offers his perspective”

• May/Jun 2005, p12 - “Alarmist warning; Myth: Carbon dioxide levels in the Earth’s atmosphere are currently at an all-time high.”

• Mar/Apr 2005, p11: “Baliunas debunks Kyoto Protocol”

• Jan/Feb 2005, p12: “Myth: Global warming caused the recent tsunami in Sumatra.”

And the list goes on…

Solar Energy vs. Wind Energy Advertising Smackdown

Those darn Europeans! They’ve gone and created melodramatic renewable energy commercials!

Power of the Sun (Bronze Medal Clio Award Winner)

(Apparently Solon has gotten negative feedback that the batteries look too much like bombs, aka terrorism attack.)

Power of the Wind (“Golden Lion” Winner at the Cannes Advertising Festival)

(Honestly, the wind one would be a lot better if they closed with a helicoptor pan of the “wind guy” on top of a wind turbine raising his arms in victory to more strongly tie the link.)

Stretching Doesn’t Prevent Injury

In November of 2003 I was diagnosed with illiotibial band friction in my left knee and told the only thing I could do was stretch it and try to build up pain stamina by increasing my short jogging distance every few days. I had previously done light stretching before every exercise. After 3-4 months of physical therapy and stretching, I got fed up with it and quit stretching. Three weeks later the pain was gone.

For the last three years I’ve played club and league ultimate frisbee 2-3 days a week (seasonal), i.e. lots of sprinting, and didn’t stretch beforehand. I do about 5 minutes of jogging, cross-overs, and a bit of cutting instead. I have been injury free for 3 years and never stretch. Am I crazy?

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control doesn’t think so. They published a meta-study in 2004 that found “no benefit positive or negative in stretching to preventing injuries”:

“For Dr. Thacker’s paper The Impact of Stretching on Sports Injury Risk: A Systematic Review of the Literature (PDF) he and his colleagues pored over nearly 100 other published medical studies on the subject. Their key conclusions: stretching does increase flexibility; the highest-quality studies indicate that this increased flexibility doesn’t prevent injuries; few athletes need extreme flexibility to perform their best (perhaps just gymnasts and figure skaters); and more injuries would be prevented by better warmups, by strength training, and by balance exercises, than by stretching.” (BioMechanics Magazine, October 2004)

Pretty much everyone I tell this to thinks I’m crazy. As was pointed out last night by some WAFC-league teammates, science also brings us evolution, global warming, and by association, American freedom haters, so can we really trust it? But I think this is another “idea” that’s gone “scientific.”

Did you know that the recommendation for 8 glasses of water each day has no scientific basis either? Sure you need liquid, but 8 is essentially made-up. (“Drink at least eight glasses of water a day.” Really? Is there scientific evidence for “8
8”?, American Physiological Society, August 2002).

So go ahead and stretch if you’d like to. Maybe it feels good. Maybe there’s a placebo effect. Maybe everyone else is doing it. Maybe stretch after you workout (a totally different motivation). But don’t tell me it prevents injury.

Minneapolis Bridge Collapse - a teammates’s wife walked away

We live in DC now but the wife of an old ultimate frisbee teammate from Minneapolis and her friend survived the bridge collapse yesterday. They crawled out of the silver car above and are standing on the collapsed part of the bridge to the right. Here is a picture they took after getting out:

Here is a diagram of the bridge pre- and post-collapse. Her car is located on the water section: Click Here

They took many of the eye witness photos from the bridge: Click Here

Here is a video of her on Good Morning America: Click Here

Minnesota Public Radio story: Click Here

Real-Time Video of the Bridge Collapsing: Click Here

Associated Press Diagrams of the Bridge: Click Here

And a couple of days later, with the police markings:

Here is the location:

My Cat Meowed About Global Warming On NPR

It’s not often you get on National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” and it’s probably even less often that your cats do too…

NPR is running a series called “Climate Connections” and this particular story was about trying to find the United States’ biggest greenhouse gas polluter. I signed up for a voluntary government greenhouse gas tracking program a few years back (”Count Me In” is a story I wrote about it for Grist.org), which led the NPR reporter to me since I was one of 2-3 regular people in the whole country who signed up with the likes of Ford, Pepco, BP, and IBM.

The best part about the story is that my cats were mentioned and one of them even meows for the story…

Click Here (listen around the 1:40 mark)

What’s kind of ironic about the voluntary greenhouse gas tracking system is that the government hasn’t signed up to report its emissions. If George Bush would like to start, I can help them calculate the White House’s emissions, and maybe they can challenge Al Gore to a climate reduction contest…

Groovin’ Indie Songwriters

All artists are local when they start and these have caught my ear lately…enjoy.

Jeremy Messersmith, “Novocain” (Minneapolis)

The Mountain Goats, “Half Dead”

Alexi Murdoch, “Breathe”

Rocky Votolato, “White Daisy Passing”

Stuart Davis Live Music Videos

My favorite musical artist is Stuart Davis…self discribed musical poet on sex, god, and rock n’ roll. Sometimes he gets a little esoteric (okay, a lot of times) but I dig the music. Maybe one day he’ll come to DC and I’ll show you, but here are some videos to tide you over (live performance at the Fine Line Cafe, July 29, 2001 in Minneapolis, Minnesota)…(Source: Dream Usher)

DIVE

FLOWER OF A ZERO

UNIVERSE COMMUNION

JONAH

VERONICA

DOPPLEGANGER

KALEIDOSCOPE

FALL AWAKE

DROWN

DRESDEN

SAVORING SAMSARA

ROCK STARS AND MODELS

SWIM

PSYCHO KILLLER

Cut Your Energy Bills in Half - Natural Gas (Part 1 of 2)

[Editor's Note: Part 2 of 2 on Electricity, is also now available.]

Natural Gas , or how I saved over $250 this winter (Part 1 of 2)

We moved to the DC area last September and in the first bill from Washington Gas, it had a table of the previous owner’s natural gas use for the last year. A perfect opportunity for a little data analysis…

Using data from the National Weather Service, I was able to make sure that the numbers were comparable. If last January was colder than this January, it wouldn’t be apples to apples, but for months with similar “heating degree days,” they had the same average temperature and any differences in natural gas use would be a good assessment.

December 2006 (us) and January 2006 (old owner) had similar temperatures (639 and 672 HDD respectively). The old owner used 142 therms and we used 63 therms, which based on this year’s prices, saved us $90.

January 2007 (us) and February 2006 (old owner) were also very similar (746 and 733 HDD respectively). The old owner used 156 therms and we used 88 therms, which saved us $76.

That’s $166 in only two months!

When I standardize the old owner’s data to our data and normalized it to this year’s winter temperatures and natural gas prices, I came up with a cumulative savings of $230 from September through January (see the graph above).

So your first thought is that I must be freezing all the time. Nope. The thermostat is set at 70 F right now. Spent a lot of money? Nope. We have the same house, furnace, water heater, stove, etc.

Here are my secrets, which cost less than $100 and only a little effort:

• Bought, installed, and programmed a programable thermostat - We set it at 68-70 in the morning and evening, 55 at night, and 50 when we’re at work in the day. And no it doesn’t take more energy to heat the house back up.
• “Hold” the thermostat when gone - If we’re leaving for the evening, not coming back from work until late, or going away for the weekend or a week, we set the thermostat at 55 F. The cats don’t mind.
• Closed off the guest room - I shut the vent and we keep the room closed (unless a guest is visiting of course). No one’s going to notice. We do the same for a three-season office with poor insulation.
• Covered up the holes - We have a whole house fan in the second floor ceiling, which I assume will be great in the summer, but is basically a hole in the ceiling in the winter. I cut out some cardboard and taped it up. I also put weatherstripping around the attic “hatch” in the ceiling.
• Shut the basement door - It’s gross down there anyway.

Other things I’ve done since, i.e. they aren’t included in the above numbers:

• Seal the “attic bypasses” - You have hundreds of holes in your wall, which basically create a highway for warm air to escape through the walls and out the attic. I bought outlet gaskets, basically foam inserts, to put behind the light and electric outlets. For some, I put a little sealant foam around the outside if the gasket didn’t cover it enough. There are other things to do…for more information on these secret heat losses click here (PDF) - insulation without address the bypasses is almost useless. The better solution, if you have access, is to seal the tops of the wall cavities from the attic (but think about whether you’re going to insulate the walls in the process).
• Covered up more holes - I’ve since covered the kitchen fan and the office vent.

Other things you can do:

• Put up plastic on the windows - It’s not fun, glamorous, or good looking, but it works. I did it in Minnesota but we have better windows here in Maryland.
• Wrap the water heater - Trendy these days but not as necessarily if you’re water heater is newer and uses foam insulation (vs. fiberglass).
• Wrap the pipes - Buy the foam piping insulation and wrap the first few feet of the hot AND cold water pipes going into and out of the water heater. Go nuts and wrap the rest of the hot water pipes if you want to. Do the same if you have a boiler.
• Caulk - Caulk your attic bypasses. Caulk the window edges. Caulk it all.
• Put in a low-flow showerhead - They work well.
• Insulation - If you’ve addressed the attic bypasses, then insulation makes sense. Go with the ceiling and then perhaps the walls, but this isn’t necessarily a cheap option.

Things not to do unless money is no object - if you run the numbers, they aren’t your best investments:

• Don’t replace the windows for energy reasons - Do it for aesthetics. Do it for comfort. Don’t do it expecting to save oodles of money and run from anyone who says otherwise.
• Don’t replace your furnace for energy reasons - Do it for safety. Do it for a remodel. Do it if it’s broken. Have the old one checked out for safety and efficiency, but if it’s working fine, let it keep working.
• Don’t replace your washer or dryer for energy reasons - Do it if it breaks. Do it for a remodel. And when you do, get a front-loading washer and a gas dryer with a moisture sensor.

Next time: Electricity, or how I have a $30 electric bill (Part 2 of 2)

DC Food: Thai Menu Democracy

I come from Minneapolis, which has consistently good Thai restaurants.

I live in the DC metro, which has surprisingly unexciting Thai restaurants, more like Chinese food sauce rehash than popping Thai goodness. My DC favorite so far is Lemongrass Thai in Annapolis but the 4-5 I’ve tried in DC haven’t left memorable impresssions. Want a red curry with tofu? Sorry, only with squid. And mock duck is a rare thing.

One of my favorite Thai restaurants in Minneapolis is Tum Rup Thai, which takes a decidedly democratic approach to their menu…mix and match dishes, proteins and flavors! DC Thai take note!

Step 1: Pick your dish (Soups, Favorites, Curries, Noodles, Fried Rice)…Let’s try a curry.

Step 2: Pick your protein…Let’s have mock duck.

Vegetarian - $9.95
Chicken, Pork, Tofu, or Mock Duck - $10.95
Beef - $11.95
Shrimp or Squid - $13.95
Scallops - $14.95
Shrimp, Squid and Scallop Combination - $16.95

Step 3: Pick your flavor…Let’s have a massamun curry.

Gaeng Kiow Wanh (Sweet Green Curry)
Green curries are volcanic and complex, rich with voluptuous sweetness of coconut milk, bell peppers, egg plant, squash, green beans, zucchini, peas, and Thai basil.

Gaeng Daeng (Red Curry)
This spicy traditional Thai curry is combined with bell peppers, zucchini,
egg plant, squash, bamboo, and basil. This curry can also be ordered with mixed vegetables.

Gaeng Massamun (Massamun Curry)
From the southern part of Thailand, Massamun curry is a spectacular dish
containing potatoes, onions, peanuts, and your choice of meat.

Tum Rup Thai Egg Noodle Curry
A hose specialty, this flavorful curry is served with potatoes, yams, frie onions, cilantro, scallions, lime, and crispy egg noodles.

Gaeng Daeng Sapraros (Pineapple Red Curry)
Tomato, pineapple, bell peppers, and basil cooked in red curry. Available with roast duck (Gaeng Pet Phet Yang)

It’s absolute friggin’ genius! And I’ve seen it elsewhere in the Twin Cities. Why can’t DC come up with such a method? If there is one, I’m there.

News, climate change, and editorial balance

Do news organizations have a responsibility to provide media coverage proportional to the scientific understanding of a topic? Is that even possible? (Assuming that the Minnesota Magazine really is a news organization.) Does that squelch minority opinions? (The world would still be flat if not for minority opinions.) Or does the need to maintain topic interest and controversy trump scientific consensus and editorial reporting?

Minnesota Magazine published an article on climate change (Sept/Oct 2006, “Hot Commodity“, which elicited this response from a UMN alumni in the letters to the editor (Nov/Dec 2006):

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Inconvenient Articles

Have you ever considered renaming your magazine Minnesota/Global Warming? It seems that every single issue is devoted to the idea of global warming, blames Bush, and allows no room for debate on the issues. A little, and I mean little, amount of research on the subject (Minnesota is a research University, right?) told me a few things not mentioned in your articles:

• The cost for America to comply with the Kyoto provisions have been estimated as high as $440 billion annually, would cost millions of jobs, and punish families to the tune of $2,700 a year.

• The United States got the worst of the deal when Clinton signed the Kyoto treaty: other countries were assigned lower reductions or completely exempted.

• The Senate voted unanimously 95-0 to reject the terms of the treaty.

• Satellite and weather balloon data show none of the warming found by land-based thermometers.

I look forward to the November–December magazine, which no doubt will mention how Christmas (excuse me, “holiday season”) will be ruined by global warming.

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Which then elicited this response from a different alumni (Jan/Feb 2007):

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Equal Time is Unbalanced

[NAME] is apparently the new conservative voice that helps the alumni association indicate balanced coverage in the alumni magazine [Letters, May–June 2005, May–June 2006, and November–December 2006]. At what point does balanced coverage override the need for objective assessment of opinions?

Minnesota magazine may very well be reporting on global warming more than other relevant topics. However, no other issue in history has likely been studied and scrutinized on a consensus basis as much as the science on global warming. Scientifically, detractors are approaching the realm of those who believe, but can’t produce evidence, that the earth is 6,000 years old. However, the media insists on giving equal time to the small minority, which tells the wrong story to the public.

Bowers mixes uncited research and politics, taken as fact, and would do well to read http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics [an independent environmental journalism Web site] on how to talk to climate change skeptics.

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