In NBN today ink cartridge insanity and and water bottle blues, in Recycling News

At NBN we frown on using patriotism as a vehicle for populism, but this press release caught our attention. These folks are making American flags out of discarded plastic bottles. Bravo. Recycling should be viewed as patriotic. Bet most of you didn't realize that Polartec, one of the finest insulating materials ever sown into the lining of a jacket is also made from old soda bottles. Polartec is also putting folks to work in the very bowels of America’s former industrial heartland, Lawrence, MA. If that’s not patriotism what is? Buying guns? Click on this link. It’s a handgun repair business. It has more flags than Arlington National Cemetery. Which is better for the country? More handguns or cleaner lakes, rivers and streams? As you can see we’re getting a little carried away about Recycling News in NBN today. But we do hate waste here at NBN, almost as much as we love this country. 

News By Nature today ponders words wasted by NY Times Columnist Thomas Friedman and others in Hot News. In School News there are artificial viruses and Matrix Redux.

Not another similar vernal pond certification effort going on elsewhere, even though there are vernal pond protection groups like the CAVPT in states across the country. Why aren’t those getting folks out and about getting official sanction for these wellsprings of woodland wildlife? Who knows? So, on behalf of those groups not pushing their volunteers harder, NBN wants you to get out and find a vernal pond and see if your state will let you certify it. Check out the video above, it’s a vernal pond near Detroit, MI. Hear the frogs? Visit the same pond at night. It will sounds like you’re under attack. These are truly amazing ecosystems worth saving.

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In News By Nature Today we have a quick coupla words on Darwin and unnatrual selection in Opinion News.

In News By Nature Today we have geothermal energy going mainstream in Alt E News and we've got people living in the ocean in Weird Science.

NBN today looks at doing things a little differently. We preached in the past two issues that the old ways won't work any more, so we thought it might helps to give you a glimpse of the future. Not that we have a crystal ball, and the rapid advances in technology increasingly rule out prospects of making a living in the fortune telling business. However, this you can be sure of. With all the amazing science detailed a little bit in this issue of NBN, this girl's going to fit these two together, probably better then what we used to use.

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We Promised Monday to get more practical and less preachy in these pages, but a few studies stories out this week leave us no choice. So, we tee-off on feckless politicians and bad Global Warming science as evidence of a greater malignancy threatening this country: its citizens. A while back NBN suggested that JFK's classic quote about “what you can do for your country” was off the mark. The news out this week has us feeling otherwise. Americans are far and away the most wasteful people in the world.  We buy stuff just to show others we have the money, then we throw that same stuff out. To get the country back on track, we're talking more than belt-tightening. We're talking about a whole new way of life American's have to embrace. In last issue we lamented the lack of leadership to show us how. But American's need first to show those leaders the direction.

In News By Nature today we get on the soap box and don't get off. In Opinion News we have a half-hearted mea culpa followed by Profiles in Capitulation. In Today's Catch it's political pandering and a call for Ichthyological armageddon. Bad News has good news for corporate corn growers. Today, it's all about playing politics and not doing the right thing.

In 1955, the late John F. Kennedy wrote "Profiles in Courage." The book portrays eight political leaders who crossed party lines and/or defied their constituents back home to do what they felt was right for the country. Even back then Kennedy could find only eight politicians who qualified. Today, he couldn't compile a comic book, and that's not funny. NBN tries to take a lighter look at the very serious clashes between science and the world around us. Today, we indulge in a little righteous anger—everyone else is—and offer up a few of the dozens of examples every day where political leadership yields to political pandering. Worse, in these cases this capitulation is allegedly on behalf of iconic America: farmers and fishermen. Great political theater, disastrous environmental policy with the only really defenseless player, the planet, once again paying the price. In Today's Catch we have politicians disdaining science in favor of fishermen defending ruinous fishing practices, In Bad News we have corn gas making a questionable comeback vis-a-vis the recent election of the Republican US senator from Massachusetts.

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n News By Nature today we delve into nano-nature: the tiny little particles that make up the world around us. In School News we have MIT lasers replacing electricity and in Weird Science we have spray glass.

It only takes Wikipedia a few sentences to completely bewilder the reader on the subject of Chaos theory. Something as common as chaos shouldn't be so hard to comprehend. NBN thought it could simplify chaos theory by drawing parallels between plumbing and quantum physics and kitchen work and nanotechnology. What does Chaos have to do with simplicity? Or kitchen cleaning with nanotechnology? They are all part of the same enchilada we call earth and no one should be discouraged from taking a bite. Whether you're a plumber using heat, abrasives and antioxidants to improve capillary action between copper pipe fittings or a physicist doping germanium with phosphorous to make the former give off light energy instead of electricity, it's all just the mechanics of systems. Systems, inside of systems, inside of systems....

NBN today: Composting goes Main Stream Green Groups get Political, (see below). We're working on some other stuff, but that's it for now.

We don't know which of two fictions best suits the political mood in this country today: Alice in Wonderland or the Al Pacino movie “City Hall.” Arguing for Alice, we have the Supreme Court ruling along party lines to open the financial floodgates for corporate campaign contributions, all in the name of free speech. That means the organizations with the big money, Exxon, ADM, Dupont, and their antagonists the UAW, Teamsters and UFT will be setting foreign and national policy for the foreseeable future. It also means the powers that rose to prominence by laying waste the world's resources will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. And that means, status quo for America when the rest of the world is in an information technology and manufacturing revolution. If that's not political jabberwocky, what is?

Still, we're siding with "City Hall," thanks to two stories about environmental groups and leaders being bought off for political or personal gain. For those not familiar with the Pacino movie, it exquisitely illustrates the opportunities available in every good government program for the politically connected make a fast buck. Along those lines, we have this story about a California green group that sold its endorsement of an off-shore drilling project for $100,000. The other story is about the UN glacier expert lying about the rapid decline of Himalayan ice sheets in order to scoop up half a million dollars in research grants. In our eyes, these two stories are worse than the Supreme Court decision for two reasons. First, no one trusts the corporations so they can't betray your trust. We expect them to be self serving. Certainly, no one trusts the politicians they are bribing, it's integral to our political system. Folks tend to be less jaded about the green groups. We expect them to be sincere.  The second,reason we're so upset about the spat of wrong doing surfacing in the environmental movement these days, is their infidelity comes at a time the planet can least afford it. The damage being done to this planet is subtle, but very difficult to reverse. At the same time Global Warming theory and the environmental movement in general is finally gaining global traction. Accordingly,  the powers that pollute are gearing up for a war they will easily win until we start seeing environmental devastation. Unless people are dying, it's going to be very difficult for American's to give up this amazing standard of living we've come to take for granted. NBN firmly believes we're at a crossroads on this planet and these corrupt green groups are doing more damage to our feeble prevention efforts than even the inexplicable court ruling.

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In News By Nature today we stray from the environmental beat with a story about an earth-bound asteroid as reported by an asteroid-bound earthling. Then we have: when aliens invade, and a job for Jonahs.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration defines a Jonah as: “those men who have been unlucky in their fishing voyages. The belief in luck is very deep-seated...There are many kinds of Jonahs.” Looks like there are no Jonahs on board this boat. That may change soon. The latest kind of Jonah may be the folks NOAA plans on planting on fishing boats throughout New England this year to enforce a very unpopular law called Catch Shares. We raise this subject once again in NBN because in Today's Catch there's a training program for people who might want to take this enforcement assignment. Do you think there's a waiting list for that job? Are you ready to jump aboard a boat where the captain would like nothing better than to throw you over? Do you have what it takes to be a Jonah? Elsewhere in NBN we have Asteroids threatening Europe in Weird Science and in Invasive News we have a nettlesome issue: Invaders: Loath Them or Leave Them?

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Today, it's all about watersheds. We have a desert watershed in Good News, and watersheds shedding dams across the country in Watershed News.

How many folks really know what a watershed is? They are sort of like the earth's gutters: They collect rain and then either store it in lakes or underground aquifers. Along the coasts, much of that rain follows streams and rivers into estuaries and eventually the oceans. Even deserts have watersheds, like this one here, also known as Palm Springs. This watershed collects rain in an aquifer which, like most other southwest water supplies, is running low lately. When you live in New England watershed takes on a different meaning. It's pretty much water, water everywhere, with a few exceptions. For an Easterner, a visit to a place like Palm Springs is an eye-opener. These palm trees pictured here are a real-life oasis, snatching all the water they can from a tiny underground stream that percolates to the surface in a few spots.

That's the magic of watersheds. In NBN today we dabble in the complex world of these waterful wonders, hopefully answering a few more questions than we raise on this vital, if poorly understood, aspect of our environment.

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In News by Nature today we argue against windfarms in the Opinion Page and argue in favor of them in Wind News. Can't make up our minds? Sure we can, we just want to hear both sides of the story before we do.

Pardon us for leveraging a trip to Palm Springs into a few items for a website, but this place has a lot to talk about. And we're just starting to stretch it out. Here are just a few of the windfarms which are the focus of today's NBN. The majestic backdrop is what brings people here. The luxury is what keeps 'em here. In NBN today, we talk about the right places and wrong places to put windfarms and, it appears, Palm Springs is clearly in the former camp. These things are everywhere, churning out electricity which sinks into the blackhole of excess that is Palm Springs. But what would this land be used for otherwise? It's a desert. As we discuss in the opinion page, it's sad that conservation efforts aren't getting quite the warm embrace that building windmills does in this town. But it's a lot better than building coal burning power plants to energize all those golf carts .

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In NBN today we look at an unremarkable little bird that is very remarkable when it gets together with a few hundred thousand of its buddies. On the Opinion Page we have someone who loves these birds. In Invasive News we take a look at a few folks who don't. The European starling in News by Nature today.

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Joe, on the other hand was an easy man to love, because he loved birds. Homely little birds called grackles and European starlings that flock together in amazing acrobatics few people know about. Learn a little about grackles and starlings, in News by Nature today

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The True Cost of Commerce
On our Opinion page we consider the taxes needed to cover the true costs of our high standard of living

Is this a scene from Christmas Past? If not, there's certainly change a-foot in this country suggesting Santa may not be so busy next year. We offer up a pair of recent headlines indicating the country might be cashing in its buy-and-discard economic model for something a little more practical. First we have this ray of sunshine from the New York Times  saying a Miami mother and her six-year-old have discovered a romp in a rowboat costs a lot less than a PlayStation 2 and the boy enjoys it more. Then we have this piece saying the old economic indicators, specifically manufacturing, are not working as economic indicators anymore. Put another way, just making stuff for the sake of making stuff and buying stuff for the sake of buying stuff is no longer an economic driver in this country. Could it be that the country is now switching to an economic model of making stuff that we actually need and not rabidly buying stuff that we can easily be without. By extension, should we, and will we soon, pay a lot more for this high standard of living we've enjoyed at the expense of the planet? All the goods and fine food we eat is made from raw material extracted from Mother Nature. Can we continue to ask her to foot the bill.?Is Mankind going to start paying its fare share? That's a lot of questions. Open the opinion page for a few answers and a lot more questions.

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Giant squid and swans in Biodiversity today. In Bad News we have pill pollution piling up.

In News by Nature today we focus on animals adapting to, and evolving in, a world no-longer governed by natural selection. Man sets the tempo of evolution these days, not random mutation. As a result we've got: giant squid terrorizing California beaches; behemoth swans beguiling Northeast bird lovers and Potomic River largemouth bass struggling with their sexual identities. That's just a smattering of the perversions of wild animal populations pulled from periodicals this week. The fact is, just about every animal population on the planet is now marching to a different drummer. Some might see him as the Pied Piper. You see it so much more so in marine environments for two reasons. One: oceans are so much more productive; so many more animals live in the water than on land. Two: man has become so much more prolific, we don't tend to clean up after ourselves and we love to live near the water. In NBN today, we don't attempt to explain these changes in animal population dynamics, beyond these two possibly partially inaccurate postulations. (We tried coming up with explanations when we discussed this issue a few weeks ago and it didn't really add up.) Today, we're just citing odd examples to make people think a little more about this rather scary problem. And that's what NBN is all about. We don't tell you what to think. We just want you to think a little more.

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That's not to say the Indians in this country didn't get an awful deal when Europeans arrived. But history is rife with similar, and arguably greater, assaults by one culture on another. The objections of the Wampanoag in this case seem more political than spiritual. Perhaps, they are entitled to some special compensation, but they should not be allowed to interfere with a project that clearly has wide-ranging benefits. Should we invite a few of the Indians up to the Salem coal-fired power plant to see if they change their minds? Judging by this Boston Globe piece it looks like the historic designation eligibility will create such problems if acted on by the federal government that it won't interfere with the Cape Wind project. We write about it here because it's sad to consider that the Wampanoag might be using its political capital against clean energy. Sadder still, to see a group whose shifting arguments against the windfarm happily exploited injustices to which the Wampanoag and all Indians are rightly entitle some redress. This came in Thursday. The Boston Globe is asking Interior Secretary Salazar to resolve the Indian claim as quickly as possible to allow Cape Wind to go forward. Taking a harder look at the politics here, who can blame the Indians. They are just getting what they feel they deserve. If you own the last home in the path of an apartment complex you hold out for the best price. To twist the theme a little. The Indians have political leverage and they are just using it. The Globe is right to criticize the decision allowing the sound to be designated an historic landmark. Can we fault the Indians for cashing in?

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Like clean water, you don't really appreciate road salt until you start to run out. Unfortunately, it's appearing increasingly likely you can't have both in some low-lying, northern regions of the country. As Winter introduced himself in earnest this past few weeks, the familiar sight of salt trucks on the nation's highways did as well. But in places like Minnesota and New England, the life saving mineral is killing off equally dear lakes and streams.In southern New Hampshire along Interstate-93, shown here on a less festive occasion, a group called the Conservation Law Foundation was threatening legal action to stop a highway expansion project through a marshy area which had shown signs of elevated road salt in the surrounding waters.

In Minnesota, roads are getting a low-salt diet for the same reason and in western New York beet sugar is substituting for salt as an ice-melt. Outside of presenting plenty of opportunity for bad puns for local writers, these efforts are doing little to address one of winter's most vexing and worsening environmental problems. Some of the waterways around Minnesota and southern New Hampshire have reached salt concentrations approaching sea water.  That bodes badly for fresh water fish. Salt is also a disaster for cars and concrete reinforcement rods in bridges.

But, if we're having a hard time selling folks on the urgency of curbing global warming, what chance do we have of telling them to slow down on the way to work on winter days. Slow WAY down. A couple of preventable deaths, and kiss the low-roadsalt movement good-by. Yet there was a time when we didn't use any road salt and horses had no problem navigating the roads. There has been some good news to report on the subject. The CLF's legal action in New Hampshire was winning state concessions on reducing salt use on ancillary roads in order to get the highway expansion past. The use of beet juice in the Niagara area of New York, and left overs from brewery operations elsewhere in the country, have given discarded sugar a secondary market as a de-icer. There has also been effort to use low salt, liquid “brine” as a deicer. All are more effective than road salt, but also much more expensive. Elsewhere in the country folks are learning to get by on less road salt.