Hashemian Blog Web Tools, Financial Markets, Technology Monday, July 07, 2008 The ANWR Oil Debate  Lately I've seen a number of Web sites and emails exhorting Americans to press their government to explore for oil in a parcel of land in ANWR, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in the northeast corner of Alaska. The ANWR debate is nothing new and it was a hot topic back in the 1970's oil crisis. Proponents argue that this location may hold vast deposits of oil which could bring relief to the current shortages of oil and thus tame the high prices in the US and the rest of the world. Opponents include the natives and environmentalists who fear that such exploration and subsequent drilling could endanger this natural setting robbing it and its inhabitants (humans and animals) of its ecological diversity and wealth. I am not sure which side of the debate holds the better argument. Personally I don't like to see natural settings overrun by industrial concerns, i.e. the oil companies. What I do know is that Exxon-Mobil's earnings topped $40 billion in 2007 and surely they will easily exceed that figure this year. As people learn of these outlandish profits by the big oil while their savings are being squeezed, there is bound to be some backlash. That has manifested itself in the form of calls for special taxes on oil companies. Couple that with the inevitable emergence of fuel economics and alternative energy and it's not hard to guess that oil companies are worried about their prospects. To me, these pro- oil exploration campaigns are not about alleviating oil shortages, but more about distracting the public from the abuses of the oil companies. Many go even further to shift the spotlight away from the big oil and cast it on the liberals, democrats, or Arabs in a shameless effort to create public sympathy and support for the oil companies. One wonders who the real authors are. Oil companies already have millions of acres of land they can start exploring, but that's not enough. ANWR may hold large reserves of oil, but this campaign smells more like a land-grab and less like a sincere effort to help calm the oil crunch. Blaring their propaganda machine in times of panic and despair is always a good way to assure power and profits. Review history and see how dictators and tyrants have come to power. Their reigns have almost always preceded by periods of unrest and panic when people are at their most vulnerable and can be easily deceived by empty promises and blustering rants. Once they tap into the herd mentality, they are assured of their golden positions. I want a way out of this oil mess too, but not enough to sell out this country to oil thugs. They're beyond rich enough already. oil,anwr,alaska,oil companies,exxon Labels: environment, financial, oil <The ANWR Oil Debate> // posted by rh 2 comments Sunday, January 20, 2008 The Beauty of Winter  I know many people don't like winters. In the northeastern US, where I live, you can see expressions of pain and depression on many faces when temperatures drop and the snow season starts. Kids, being the energetic creatures that they are, don't mind it though. For them there's lots of fun to be had in snow and ice. They almost worship it, if nothing, for its supreme power to dictate school cancellations. This picture of a recent snowfall reminds of my childhood, growing up in Tehran. We never had quite the bone-chilling temperatures that we sometimes experience in the northeast, nor did we have the volume of the powdery snow that we receive here, but we still had plenty of snow and it usually was of the wet variety, good for making great snow balls. Even there, the snow had the magical power to force school cancellations, and who could complain about that. winter,snow,school,northeast Labels: environment <The Beauty of Winter> // posted by rh 1 comments Wednesday, October 31, 2007 Recycling Grocery Store Bags  Years ago when I lived in Germany for a short time, most people used their own canvass bags when grocery shopping. Initially I attributed that to the European environmental consciousness, which is probably somewhat correct. But then I found out that grocery stores charged for their bags and most people probably didn't want to pay for them. I believe the system is still the same over there and it works well. In the US stores, grocery bags are an expected perk. Sure, we all pay for it in the form of tiny margins added to the cost of other items, but that is lost on the consumers. Grocery bags are abundant and free. At home we use these bags as trash can liners but when I go to my local grocery store's salad bar for lunch, the cashier would place the container in a plastic bag and I would promptly toss it in the trash at my desk. For years I felt guilty about this practice, but I wasn't about to change that habit. Then a couple of months ago as I was leaving the store I noticed the long rows of the checkout lines filled with the yellow plastic bags. The sight and sound of hundreds of these bags crinkling and rustling as they were being filled made me consider the amount of waste that was being generated. This was just one moment in time, in one store, in one town. I was overwhelmed by the thought of millions of these bags being dumped in landfills everyday and right then I vowed to change my bagging habit. I wasn't quite ready for canvass bags, but I decided to save the plastic bags and reuse them every time I go to the store, until the bags become unusable. It took a few false starts, but I finally made good on the promise. In the past couple of months that I have been reusing the bags, I have become quite accustomed to recycling them at the checkout counters. By now I have probably prevented 40 or so bags from going to the landfills and I feel pretty good about it. It wasn't difficult, nor was it inconvenient. It was just making a slight adjustment to correct this wasteful habit. Yet I wondered how many bags can be recycled if everyone shook the old habit. Today I saw a glimmer of hope to that end. When I presented the clerk with my bag, she credited me with two cents off the total. When I inquired about the credit, she showed me a stamp imprinted on the bag indicating a 2-cent credit for re-use. The grocery store, ShopRite, is obviously trying to portray itself as an environmentally conscious company and I applaud them for that. Whatever their motivation (probably a mixture of business sense and green ambitions), this could set the stage for saving millions of bags from being wasted so needlessly. Other stores have also begun with their own similar initiatives to show their green sides. They just need to promote this a little. Grocery store bags could be going the same way as the beverage bottles and cans went years ago, and that's a good thing. grocery stores,plastic bags,recycling,environment,green,landfills,trash Labels: environment <Recycling Grocery Store Bags> // posted by rh 3 comments

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