Have I ever told you how my parents love to talk about polar bears? Oh, yeah, I have. Almost every time I talk to them on the phone, they are bringing up some story about polar bears swimming 60 miles to find food, or polar bears cannibalizing each other, or whatever.

Anyways, when I arrived home on Thursday morning, I was greeted with this:

As I stared in disbelief at my polar bear Christmas decoration, now floating in our pool on several pieces of styrofoam, my mom remarked, “Gee, Lindsay, I hope the poor polar bear doesn’t start to eat himself.”
(Despite all this, they claim to be very proud that I work for “Big Oil.” Really, I think they are just glad I managed to find a job despite spending five years studying a country that no longer exists.)

But the real question is, what to do with a hungry polar bear that is roaming around your backyard? Well, shoot it, of course, and have it promptly turned into a rug to be placed in front of your fireplace.

(This photo was actually taken several years ago, and there is a story behind it that I’ve just been too lazy to write about. I will eventually, I guess.)

Kidding, of course. The polar bear is safely ensconced in front of our house, opposite the penguin decoration. Yes, our front yard resembles a real life Coca-Cola ad.

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Bay Area surfers were so frustrated with the government’s response following the Cosco Busan spill that they took it upon themselves to organize volunteers and clean up their favorite breaks:

Aghast at what he saw as the government-run cleanup’s slow pace, Rosas teamed up with two Silicon Valley friends, Byron Cleary and Kathleen Egan. All three are surfers. All three loathe red tape.

Their beach was getting slimed. Oil-smeared seabirds were in a death dance. The friends wanted action.
Risking arrest, they took time away from work to hit the sand — and get others out there with them.

In a matter of days they had launched a remarkably successful campaign, harnessing both the high-tech chutzpah and the environmental passion of the Bay Area.

Tapping into far-flung communities of techies and surfers, they marshaled volunteers over the Web. They set up a blog. They offered cleanup tips that others posted on Craigslist. They persuaded local businesses to pitch in by providing paper towels, synthetic gloves, even bagels.

As to be expected, some surfers did show up to the contaminated beaches wearing flip flops.

Several thousand miles away, the cleanup continues after an oil tanker loaded with 1.3 million gallons of fuel oil sank in the Black Sea.

It’s highly doubtful that this latest incident will lead to any improvement in Russia’s enforcement of its environmental standards (or lack thereof). Remember, only non-Russian companies have to abide by those regulations.

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My brain has literally been turning into mush since I’ve left LSE. I was once again craving the classroom environment, so I signed up for the Environmental and Natural Resource Economics course at the USDA Graduate School last spring. If you’re living in the DC area, I highly recommend taking a class or two there. The facilities and professors are impressive, and there are hundreds of courses to choose from.

We covered a lot of material in the environmental econ class, but my main interest was in energy. As part of our grade, we had to choose two topics and develop presentations for the class. My first presentation was on the Natural Resource Curse Hypothesis (3.6mb), which posits that countries with abundant natural resources (i.e., oil & gas) actually experience lower rates of economic growth than countries without similar resources. An oft cited example would be the so-called “Dutch Disease” experienced by the Netherlands following the discovery of large natural gas reserves in the North Sea. Contemporary examples would include Azerbaijan and other former Soviet republics.

My second presentation was on the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) (4.2mb), currently the largest greenhouse gas emissions trading system in the world. The first phase of the EU ETS experienced a number of problems, but the cap and trade system they’ve developed is actually quite interesting, especially when you start delving into the “linking directive” that allows EU countries to reduce their emissions via the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism and Joint Implementation arrangements. Gazprom has even gotten into the act by bundling carbon credits with the gas it sells to EU power generation companies.

I’ll probably take another class during the winter term…maybe something a bit lighter, like travel writing. I should probably start taking Russian again, though, if I ever hope to attain a higher vocab level than that of a three year old peasant girl.

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Facebook in 40 years – will we still have Facebook profiles when we’re 65?

MySpace for the proletariat, Facebook for the bourgeoise? If I have both, does that make me an equal opportunity class enemy?

Are there really no Republicans left in California? Foreign Nationals Hired For 2 California GOP Posts (this really is a hilarious story)

Uh, when has this guy ever seen the inside of a foxhole?

Tired Of Traffic? A New DOT Report Urges Drivers: ‘Honk’

Music festivals all over the former Communist Bloc – It’s like Coachella, but in Eastern Europe

New Cold War museum opens in Moscow – gas masks and Geiger counters optional

WSJ: Gazprom Pipeline Plan May Fuel Worry…Trust Russia on energy, Putin tells Balkan countries…meanwhile, the Nabucco pipeline project falters

Nice shades, Vlad

Can U.S. Adopt Europe’s Fuel-Efficient Cars? Yeah, right.

Considered but Discarded Names for the Indie Band Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin

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Here’s an interesting, and somewhat timely, AP article on the “thriving” wildlife population in the radiation soaked area surrounding the former Chernobyl nuclear (uh, “nucular”?) plant:

Two decades after an explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant sent clouds of radioactive particles drifting over the fields near her home, Maria Urupa says the wilderness is encroaching. Packs of wolves have eaten two of her dogs, the 73-year-old says, and wild boar trample through her cornfield. And she says fox, rabbits and snakes infest the meadows near her tumbledown cottage.

“I’ve seen a lot of wild animals here,” says Urupa, one of about 300 mostly elderly residents who insist on living in Chernobyl’s contaminated evacuation zone.

The return of wildlife to the region near the world’s worst nuclear power accident is an apparent paradox that biologists are trying to measure and understand.

Many assumed the 1986 meltdown of one reactor, and the release of hundreds of tons of radioactive material, would turn much of the 1,100-square-mile evacuated area around Chernobyl into a nuclear dead zone.

It certainly doesn’t look like one today.

Yeah, we’ll see.

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This article wouldn’t be out of place in The Onion, but sadly it’s true:

Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards took on the oil companies Thursday while campaigning in Menlo Park, with the help of a San Jose teenager who says his friends can barely afford to fill up their SUVs and a Hummer.

Edwards called for the U.S. Justice Department to conduct an “aggressive and thorough investigation” of oil companies, contending the industry exerts too much control over gas production and distribution. Antitrust laws need to be enforced or strengthened to bring down gas prices, the former senator said.

“The oil companies basically own the entire process from refining all the way to sales at the gas pump,” Edwards said during a stop at Stacks restaurant in Menlo Park.

He brought along Brandon Li, 18, and his mother, Wendy, to underscore how high gas prices are hurting average Americans who need short-term relief. The Lis own MCI Manufacturing, a San Jose sheet metal company.

As cameras rolled, Li complained her profit margins were being eaten into by fuel costs to run her company’s four vehicles. And in her personal life it “means we have a little less to pay the basic bills.”

“You can’t just really say drive less because it’s not a function of our daily life.” Li said. “We need more immediate relief.”

Brandon, an Edwards supporter who persuaded his mother to participate in the event, said he shares his parents’ pain.

“My gas comes out of my dad’s pocket. My friend has an SUV. It cost $100 to fill up a whole tank,” he said. ‘It’s hard for teenagers to get enough money to put in their cars.”

I think my brain just exploded. All California high school students are required to take an economics course in order to graduate, but it appears that Mr. Li hasn’t completed that requirement yet. Supply and demand? WTF is that?

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Quite a brilliant question to ask someone after they’ve had a few drinks, although to be fair I would have given a smart-ass response sans alcohol.

They said, “How are you working to save the earth?” (Although I remember it as “What are you doing for Earth Day?”) and I said, “Drive my SUV.”

For those of you who are fortunate enough to not live in this squalid cesspool (aka, Washington D.C., our nation’s capital, “grand old seat of precious freedom of democracy”, blah blah), the Washington Post Express is the free paper that is handed out to commuters every morning as they descend the escalators into the depths of hell (aka, Metro) on their way to dreadfully boring jobs as cogs in the government machine. Once a week they have this “Out There” feature in which they send out two people to scour restaurants for slightly inebriated Washingtonians in the hopes that they will say something stupid. The Express staff members will then take your photo and quote and publish it in next week’s paper, as demonstrated above.

Having also been featured in The Examiner, Washington’s other free newspaper, I now feel that I have accomplished everything I possibly can in this city and am ready to move on to another area where I can amuse commuters with my wiffleball skills and lack of environmental consciousness.

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Yeah, that’s right. This bloated website, which is like an SUV on the information superhighway due to my habit of uploading ungodly amounts of images, is officially “carbon neutral.”

Apparently, Dreamhost, the wonderful SoCal based company that hosts this website, is now purchasing offsets for the 2725 tons of CO2 they emit every year.

This means that I can drive the XTerra a bit more, knowing that the carbon produced by lindsayfincher.com is being offset by the good techs over at Dreamhost. Thanks, guys.

When you put a button on, it’s official!!

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Apparently, Climate Change is to Gen Y what nuclear war was to the Cold War kids (and no, I’m not referring to the band) back in the 50s and 60s. So says the Washington Post in a recent article, “Climate Change Scenarios Scare, and Motivate, Kids.”

Parents say they’re searching for “productive” outlets for their 8-year-olds’ obsessions with dying polar bears. Teachers say enrollment in high school and college environmental studies classes is doubling year after year. And psychologists say they’re seeing an increasing number of young patients preoccupied by a climactic Armageddon.

After 8-year-old Mollie Passacantando, daughter of Greenpeace USA’s executive director, read a story about polar bears in class this year, the Fairfax County youngster and her friends spent recess marching around the playground with signs reading, “Stop global warming. Save the polar bears.” A classmate taunted, “You can march all you want, but you’re not going to save a single polar bear.”

On the one hand, it’s good to see kids taking an interest in the environment. But…THESE KIDS ARE 8 YEARS OLD! They should be playing effin’ kickball and eating chocolate chip granola bars during recess, not taking sides in a debate concerning climate change and worrying themselves sick that there won’t be any oxygen left in 20 years (WTF?). When I was a kid we learned about recycling and acid rain and the big ass hole in the ozone layer during our science classes. One of my teachers even built some bizarre solar powered oven and baked cookies in it. Life was good. Technology was gonna save the day. None of this environmental doom and gloom stuff ever made it into our heads (odd, considering I went to a Catholic school, which basically traffics more doom and gloom than the Cali Cartel does in cocaine).

But then again, this is Washington DC. Are you really that surprised to read that the children of lobbyists are campaigning on the playground?

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We’ve all had the hilarious “cow-based” explanations of political systems/corporations/nations e-mail forward show up in our inboxes at one time or another. Crystal recently forwarded this new one by Mark Gilbert over at Bloomberg. A few of my favorites:

Currency Market
You have two cows. China has 1 trillion cows. Guess who sets the price of milk?

Hedge Funds
You have two cows. A guy in an open-necked shirt drives up in his Bentley and offers to take care of them for you in return for a year’s supply of steak and 50 percent of their milk. They won’t be allowed to leave his compound for two years.

Six months later, you have half a cow, producing sour milk. “You have to be willing to lose rump today to get rib-eye tomorrow,” the hedge-fund guy mumbles through a mouthful of sirloin and champagne.

Carbon-Emissions Trading
You have two cows. They produce 1.2 tons of methane gas per day. After a hefty donation to the re-election campaign of your local representative, the government gives you enough emission permits for six cows. You sell three permits, buy another cow, and apply for a European Commission grant to build a methane-gas power station.

Microsoft Corp.
You have one old, tired cow. A recent heart transplant may have come too late to save the beast.

Google Inc.
You have no cows. You slap advertisements on everyone else’s cows. The milk floods in. You use the proceeds to reinvent the cow.

Apple Inc.
Nobody wants your cows. You design the cutest little milk bottle. Now, everybody wants your cows.

Commodities
You have lots of stocks and bonds, but no cows. Are you crazy? Cows are the hot new market. Here, buy this exchange- traded cow futures contract. It can’t lose. It gained 40 percent in the past six months.

Gold
You have two cows. You wear a cap you made out of tin foil so that the tiny black helicopters can’t read your thoughts. You spend your days blogging about how the government’s decision to abandon the cattle standard in 1933 was part of a global conspiracy by the world’s central banks to destroy the value of your herd.

And, of course, my personal favorite:

Russian Energy
You have two cows. Comrade, those cows are an environmental hazard. We suggest you hand one of them over to us.

(A cute little reference to Russia’s propensity for “Oh, hey, (insert Western energy company’s name here, i.e., Shell), looks like we’ve found a few environmental problems with your project (i.e., Sakhalin-2), might have to revoke your permits for that nice, big LNG facility you’re building. Better to just give us a stake in that, yeah?)

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