Dallas Trees' E-News of the Day, June 22 - The Cost of Doing Business

The cost of Appalachian mountaintop mining is more than mountaintops. (Climate Progress)

We're on a financial spin here today as we jump into the economic fray of the climate bill, the stimulus, nuclear energy and human life.

It Can Happen Here - SLATE (Bruce Reed)

"At the height of the Ownership Society, when George W. Bush was pushing private accounts for Social Security, Grover Norquist explained the political rationale in the Washington Monthly: "Owning $5,000 worth of stock makes you 18% more Republican." Last November the GOP learned that Norquist's math worked just as well in reverse. Americans watched the value of their 401(k)s drop by half, and between 2004 and 2008, the electorate became 9 percent more Democratic.

Now chastened Republicans have scaled back their plans in order to make Americans a more modest offer. Mitt Romney and Sen. Lamar Alexander recently proposed turning over the federal government's 60 percent temporary stake in General Motors to the American people so that every household would own shares in GM. The company's current market capitalization is just $800 million, but even at its June peak of $1 billion, America's 120 million households would each receive GM stock worth $5. The Bush years may have wiped out your life savings, but the party of Lincoln will send you a five-spot to start over.

It will take conservatives a little longer to transform the political landscape now that the Ownership Society has been reduced to the Ownership Rebate Offer. (Buy now and get $5 back!) According to Grover Norquist's formula, owning $5 worth of stock will make you only eighteen-one-thousands of 1 percent more Republican. At that annual rate, the 7.2 percent difference between Democrats and Republicans in the 2008 presidential election will disappear in exactly 200 years. On the other hand, the downside risk is smaller as well. GM stock, like GOP stock, has nowhere to go but up."

Sanford Predicts Stimulus Will Result In 'A Thing Called Slavery' - THINK PROGRESS

"Speaking to the Lexington County GOP last week, Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) lamented his defeat in his quest to reject American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds for schools, the unemployed, and for job creation and retention. On June 4, the South Carolina Supreme Court ordered Sanford to accept the $700 million in stimulus funds he had opposed.
To defend his grandstanding, Sanford has previously lashed out at his critics, saying it would be tantamount to “fiscal child abuse” to accept the federal money. He has also compared President Obama to Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, because of his fiscal policies. But now Sanford is taking his hyperbolic rhetoric to another level, claiming that the stimulus will result in “a thing called slavery.”



US Climate Fix to Cost Consumers $175 a Year: CBO - CLIMATE ARK (REUTERS)

CLIMATE PROGRESS
ENERGY AND GLOBAL WARMING NEWS for JUNE 22

"Consumers could pay $1.9 trillion to $4.4 trillion in excess costs if 100 new nuclear reactors are built instead of using renewable energy and energy efficiency to provide the same electricity, according to a new report by a consumer advocate and senior fellow at Vermont Law School.

The report released yesterday said cost estimates for new nuclear reactors are currently four times as high as estimates made at the beginning of the “nuclear renaissance.” New reactors will cost 12 to 20 cents per kilowatt-hour — at least 6 cents per kilowatt-hour more than electricity provided by renewable energy and energy efficiency, the report says.

“The nuclear industry cannot live up to the hope and hype because nuclear reactors are mega projects … that are site-specific and prone to delay and disruption,” Mark Cooper, a senior fellow for economic analysis at the Institute for Energy and the Environment at Vermont Law School and director of research at the Consumer Federation of America, said during a teleconference yesterday."

Nobelist Krugman takes on the "fantasists" of the "burn-baby-burn crowd" for opposing climate action that costs Americans 18 cents a day.

Coal mining costs Appalachians five times more in early deaths than it provides in economic benefits.

"The Appalachian region has been supplying American with cheap energy for generations, a duty it has performed with a sense of pride and patriotism. But while electricity from the region’s coal has been cheap for the rest of us, the price has been extraordinarily high for the people of the mountains.
That price took on a new dimension this week in a peer-reviewed study (subs. req’d) from the Health Policy Institute at West Virginia University. Researcher Michael Hendryx reports that coal mining costs the region five times more in early deaths than it provides in economic benefits.
Hendryx’s sobering calculation is that the coal industry provides about $8 billion annually in jobs, taxes and other economic benefits — but premature deaths attributed to coal mining and its impacts, including local air and water pollution, cost the region $42 billion."


ENERGY BULLETIN
Peak Oil News - June 22
Most oil traders continue to say that oil is over-priced, given the weak fundamentals. In recent weeks gasoline prices have moved up to a current national average of $2.69, a rate high enough to suggest that the increase in consumption we saw in April and May could be coming to an end. While some are looking at oil as a commodity to be consumed, others see oil as a store of value that can be used to offset a falling dollar and inflation. This struggle between oil as a commodity and oil as a financial tool is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, or until governments put restrictions on speculation.


Peak Oil and Supplies - June 22

THE OIL DRUM
The Net Hubbert Curve: What does it mean?

Drum Beat - June 22

INHABITAT
US Government may bulldoze 50 cities; create more green space.

ACCUWEATHER
Global Temperatures So Far This Year

TREEHUGGER
There's no way to stabilize CO2 without tackling coal emissions: MIT study

Climatologist James Hansen urges Obama to ban Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining.

ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS NETWORK
Destroying Levees In Louisiana

UNITED NATIONS ENVIRONMENT PROGRAM
New scientific report warns that climate change is real.

EPA
EPA issues Clean Energy Guidebook to help states save money, reduce greenhouse gas emissions

EUREKALERT GOODY BAG
Beyond CO2: Study reveals growing importance of HFC's in climate warming.
The authors took a fresh look at how the global use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) is expected to grow in coming decades. Using updated usage estimates and looking farther ahead than past projections (to the year 2050), they found that HFCs—especially from developing countries—will become an increasingly larger factor in future climate warming.


Close relationship between past warming and sea level rise.


Total knee replacement appears cost-effective in older adults.
Approximately 12 percent of adults older than 60 have symptoms of knee osteoarthritis, and their direct medical costs are estimated to range from $1,000 to $4,100 per person per year, according to background information in the article. "Total knee arthroplasty is a frequently performed and effective procedure that relieves pain and improves functional status in patients with end-stage knee osteoarthritis," the authors write. "Almost 500,000 total knee arthroplasties were performed in the United States in 2005 at a cost exceeding $11 billion. Projections indicate dramatic growth in the use of total knee arthroplasty over the next two decades."


Less frequent social activity linked to more rapid loss of motor function in older adults.
Loss of muscle strength, speed and dexterity is a common consequence of aging, and a well-established risk factor for death, disability and dementia. Yet little is known about how and why motor decline occurs when it is not a symptom of disease.

Now, researchers at Rush University Medical Center have found that, among the elderly, less frequent participation in social activities is associated with a more rapid decline in motor function. The study is published in the June 22 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

"It's not just running around the track that is good for you," said Dr. Aron Buchman, associate professor of neurological sciences at Rush University Medical Center. "Our findings suggest that engaging in social activities may also be protective against loss of motor abilities."

"If the causal relationship is confirmed by others, the implications are enormous for interventions that can help the elderly. Our data raise the possibility that we can slow motor decline and possibly delay its adverse health outcomes by supporting social engagement – a relatively low-cost solution to a very large public health problem."