Obama: Interior reforms too slow

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar

Off With His Hat

Finally some sanity ~ it’ll be interesting to see whether Obama has the integrity to follow through (not holding my breath):

Obama: Interior reforms too slow ~ By Dan Berman, Politico

White House insiders say Salazar has fallen out of favor and speculate that he will be gone after November’s midterms. Obama didn’t say directly whether Salazar would still have a job, but he acknowledged the overhaul of the former Minerals Management Service — long accused of being too cozy with the oil and gas companies it regulated — took too long.

It’s not just the MMS that’s been a disgrace under Salazar’s Interior, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management,and other agencies at Interior are all failing the American public, effectively liquidating America’s environmental heritage to appease the very industries that ran the Department under the Bush Administration.

Interior: same contractors doing their NEPA on behalf of the same industries … if it smells like Bush and tastes like Bush … we’re supposed to call it “Change” ?

Scientists: Wolf Hunts More Deadly Than Previously Thought

Proposed Montana wolf hunt, now on hold, would have significantly reduced state’s wolf population-

Scientists: Wolf Hunts More Deadly Than Previously Thought. By Virginia Morell. Science Insider. Link is now fixed!

Here is the actual scientific paper. Meta-Analysis of Relationships between Human Offtake, Total Mortality and Population Dynamics of Gray Wolves (Canis lupus). By Scott Creel*, Jay J. Rotella
Department of Ecology, Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana.

We have been discussing this all day under another thread, but it is important to post this story.

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It’s unreasonable to except that there won’t be future wolf hunts in the Northern Rockies, despite the current count imposed relisting of the gray wolf.  However, this article demonstrates that Montana and Idaho’s wolf hunting plants for 2010 (which would have already been underway) would have significantly reduced the wolf population. Idaho was honest about their intention to reduce the population. Montana argued that a hunt of that size was needed merely to keep the current population from growing, and that was about all it would really do.

Solar Or Wind Power? Why Not Both?

Using satellites to produce energy could eliminate the need for other power sources but how do you get the energy back to earth? Beam it.

This idea has been around for a while but it could have profound impacts that aren’t well understood. I find these kinds of stories fascinating and I think they relate to the discussions we have here.

Questions that aren’t addressed here are what effect would this have on climate? Yes, it could obviate the need for new sources of power but what about the effects of the beam itself? What about transmission lines and who would control it once it gets here? No doubt it would be controlled by some megacorporation if past history is any guide.

Other practical questions are how do you protect such a large object from space debris? What would such an object do to the night sky?

Solar Or Wind Power? Why Not Both?
Discovery News