My Commonplace Book

An alert was issued to the birding community in Maryland about a bill that has been proposed in both the House of Delegates and the state Senate that would expedite the construction of wind farms at will.

If you live in Maryland and care about the environment and wildlife, please contact your representatives in Annapolis and urge them to oppose this bill.

The bill would eliminate any requirement for any public review or notification -- or even informing adjacent land owners whose property values could plummet. Nor would there be any environmental review of the impact on wildlife, endangered species, or forest fragmentation. All an applicant for a wind project would have to do is request a construction permit from the Public Service Commission.

Nobody is trying to keep wind farms out of the state -- only to keep them subject to adequate review to ensure that the locations and construction methods that are chosen will not harm birds and other wildlife and plants.

For example, a wind farm in Alameda County, California, is killing an estimated 4,700 birds a year because it was built directly across an international migratory bird route and in an area that has the world's highest density of nesting Golden Eagles. More care in choosing the site and type of construction would have drastically minimized the slaughter.

"The bills look innocent enough," the alert explained. "It is just a matter of adding some new language to the existing Public Utility Companies Article in the Annotated Code of Maryland and the wheels are greased for the wind industry" to do whatever is best for their bottom line, regardless of its impact on the environment.

The Maryland Ornithological Society has issued a statement opposing the bill, and the birding community is being encouraged to contact our state legislators and urge them to oppose the bills: HB 1072 in the house and SB 566 in the senate.

( My letter )

I've already gotten a reply from my delegate, who wrote this before appending the boilerplate thanking me for contacting her on this important public policy issue blah blah blah:

This bill has a hearing in the Economics Matters Committee on Feb 27th.

I don't serve on that committee, but will keep a watch on the bill. Your arguments make sense to me.

I feel like I really accomplished something today!

Old toothbrushes, beach toys and used condoms are part of a vast vortex of plastic trash the size of Texas in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, that is threatening sea creatures that get tangled in it, eat it or ride on it, a new report says.

I saw An Inconvenient Truth today. The reviews all said it was really interesting, but for some reason, as the movie began, a thought suddenly crossed my mind, unbidden: This is going to be interesting science, but not very exciting.

I don't know where the thought came from, but I'm delighted to say it was totally wrong. It was a fascinating movie, and the time passed very quickly. I thought a user comment on IMDB summed it up very well:

...It had some funny and touching moments, but they were never done at the expense of the integrity of the film. It's very science based but presented in a fascinating way (I have no science background). It was also done on a technical level that was superb. The situation presented on global warming is unsettling, but I appreciate that the filmmakers do end it with some hope. ... [My only complaint is that] Al Gore (although I respect him more than ever after seeing this) is presented as a lone warrior type in trying to get the message out. I would've liked to have seen a more accurate portrayal of the community of people-- scientists, religious leaders, teachers, etc...-- who speak out for change every day.

I was terribly disappointed at the number of people in the theater. Granted it was a midafternoon showing on a weekday, but still ... only seven people? In a very liberal Democratic area?

When I tried to see the DaVinci Code in midafternoon on a weekday afternoon the theater was completely sold out, and AS and I had to hang out at the mall until the next showing ... and that one sold out too. By the time we got there, there weren't two seats together anywhere above the first couple of rows -- we were lucky to find two that weren't too far apart in the same row, and A asked the four people between them if they'd move over so we could sit together. Everyone who got there after we did had to split up.

An Inconvenient Truth was in a larger theater, but besides LH and me, there were two other pairs and one individual. That was it. And they didn't even have the air conditioning on in theater 2 ... it was warm and humid when we got inside, and I had to go and find a manager and ask her to turn it on. Apparently there were so few people coming to see the movie that they decided to save money by turning off the a/c. I'm hoping that it was because everyone saw it over the weekend and that there'd be more people at the evening showings, but I'm rather disheartened.

You need to see this movie. If you haven't yet, run, don't walk, to a theater near you! In addition to being important and educational, it's fascinating!

The science is in. The facts are there that we have created, man has, a self-inflicted wound that man has created through global warming.
                  —Arnold Schwarzenegger (b. 1947), Austrian-born American actor and politician