The story is really about preserving endangered US mountain carribou from weekend-warrior snowmobile enthusiasts, but I thought this quote was worth pointing out:

Citing aerial photographs that show snowmobile tracks crisscrossing caribou routes to vital feeding areas, the judge added, “The court chooses to be overprotective rather than under-protective.”

And why not? If you move the snowmobiles to another location, or require them to reduce their pollution (noise and emissions), is there any real difference? Whereas if you do not, the carribou may be gone forever. Seems like the judge made a wise call, in terms of risk. The article goes on to show a little irony:

Snowmobile interests have countered that the herd has shrunk over the decades mostly because of past logging, backcountry skiing and global warming

Global warming, likely to be caused by exhaust. And snowmobiles are one of the worst polluters, each engine putting out the equivalent exhaust of 1,000 cars as I’ve mentioned before. Think about that for a second. Just one hundred snowmobiles would put out 100,000 cars worth of exhaust.

The risk actually identified by the animal experts was that the heavy snowmobiles pack down so much snow that it prevents the caribou from escaping their enemies in deep powder. They also argued that the noise of the unregulated engines disturbs the caribou enough to hurt their feeding and calving. These claims make sense, and were apparently well documented, especially when compared to the “it’s because of global warming, not because of the engines that might be a major contributor to global warming”. Interesting that the snowmobile interests wanted to argue about disturbances caused by backcountry skiing. With logic like that, it is no wonder the judge decided to send the snowmobiles packing. Did the defense present photos of angry-looking ski couples making nasty faces at the caribou? Perhaps they had evidence of the latest ski fashion colors causing a loss of caribou appetite?

Some folks in Southern California are starting to try and foment fear and anger over California Prop 87. Sadly, they get it all wrong and use the term “conservative” in vain. In fact, they go so far against the principles of entrepreneurship and individual action that they shamelessly condemn the successful business men who are putting up their own money to fight for 87.

It should be obvious why entrepreneurs would want to remove the partial treatment given to oil companies. The future market is in biofuels and alternative energy, not petroleum. I simply can not understand why the prospect of renewing an ages-old energy source and market (long subdued by the petroleum companies) would make anyone cry “liberal conspiracy”. Of course this situation would not be such a problem if the market had not been broken so badly that the petroleum companies were able to so vigorously attack and blanket alternative fuels.

In terms of the forest for the trees, when every other state has a tax on pumping oil from the earth, why does a California tax suddenly get classified as a disincentive? That’s like saying a company does not have the right to charge for its product because it will create a disincentive related to other companies charging for theirs. Nonsense. This warped perspective is quite telling. Don’t be fooled by people who say that fair treatment of petroleum would be unfair to California. Quite the opposite, Prop 87 removes the unfair incentives given to oil companies and moves the state more in line with a policy against government subsidies to the rich.

And finally, take note that some may try and proclaim that the US government should not be forcing its will on anyone (i.e. tax oil companies) while they also say we are justified to invade foreign countries.

I was reading another misleading article that biofuel will compete with food production, when I noticed a comment about Jatropha. I often wonder why so called “scientists” think that biofuel will keep someone from eating their dinner when the opposite is actually more likely. The Wikipedia explains:

Originating in the Caribbean, the jatropha was spread as a valuable hedge plant to Africa and Asia by Portuguese traders. Currently the tree is widely used as a poverty reduction measure in Tamil Nadu, India, and is being promoted as a very easy to grow biofuel crop in hundreds of projects throughout India and the third world. The rail line between Mumbai and Delhi is planted with Jatropha and the train itself runs on 15-20% biodiesel.

Not sure if there is a direct connection, but if growing a native flowering bush is all that is required to run a train on 15-20%…it’s easy to see why the petroleum companies are so down on biodiesel if even the poor can generate their own source of fuel. Hmmm, can you imagine smaller trains and fueling stations all along the tracks? And I don’t think anyone is thinking about eating the Jatropha so the impact to feedstocks is yet again a big fat 0.

A different comment mentioned “the most promising research is into algae, 50% oil by weight, that could grow in glass frames in desert areas.” Seaweed is a similar bountiful source…the list of natural oils outside the food industry is virtually endless. And that was the whole purpose of Rudolph Diesel’s engine, to provide security to engine owners by offering them the ability to use a decentralized source of fuel.