"Peak Oil" and Us

Separate threads from articles appearing over the past two weeks in the “The Economist”, “Bloomberg Businessweek” and the Wall Street Journal tie together the conclusion that recent trends in energy costs again are lulling us into a misplaced sense that there is plenty of time to get our collective energy act together.

If one makes energy decisions simply based upon current headlines and the price of gas at the pump it is easy to act as if there is no urgency to upgrade home energy efficiency substantially or make changes in lifestyle based upon the cost of energy. Gas prices are touching on the $2.50 per gallon range and may fall lower and electricity rates may even decline slightly in 2011. So, am I, and others who believe there is an imperative to live a more green and sustainable lifestyle, simply doing a good impression of “Chicken Little”?

Chesapeake Bay Water Quality Degraded by Politics

There is perhaps no better example of political failure to address a real issue in a meaningful way than Maryland officialdom’s politically driven regulatory approach to Chesapeake Bay water quality. It professes its deep commitment to long-term improvement in Chesapeake Bay water quality, while ignoring the principal current source of Bay water quality problems. Remarkably, the Maryland legislature, the Maryland Department of the Environment and the State’s governor have embraced and adopted new storm water regulations, the sole measurable effect of which will be the radically increased cost of any form of land development within Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay watershed, with an imperceptible effect at best, on Bay water quality.