Our World and Everything in It

Saturday and Sunday, May 10^th and 11^th, 9 am-4 pm the annual flower and plant sale to benefit the Humane Society of Monroe will be open in front of Pet Supplies Plus on Telegraph Rd. It’s under a tent, so rain or shine, stop by. All the plants are donated. I took a loaded car over there this morning, even my beloved-just-got-it-to-bloom and bear fruit again lime tree. The state agriculture department inspects all the plants once they’ve all arrived.

One gardener’s overgrowth is another gardeners find, so shop around. The prices are great. Year before last I bought a $3.00 Oriental Poppy plant. The thing is 22 inches across this year and I see 5 blooms. The little thing bloomed one flower after I planted it. The stuff I’m bringing is pretty prolific too. I’m not nitpicky so I know it’s hardy and will grow just about anywhere.

There are hanging baskets, flats of flowers, houseplants, planters, and garden art. It is packed up this year and tomorrow at least is supposed to be a nice sunny day. There are some really nice Mother’s Day gifts waiting, especially if you plant it for her too. A perennial is a gift that keeps giving. I know I’ll end up taking something home, or two. 

I haven’t written any posts despite an earthquake in Indiana or Illinois, a House energy package that passed Michigan’s House of Representatives,  Earth Day tomorrow, and all the environmental events over the weekend because I didn’t have any dial tone.  I’m sooooo tired of my sloooooow dial up service for the internet I finally decided to get DSL.

DSL was only offered out here in Berlin Twp. a few months ago. But instead of getting faster service with DSL, I lost all of my phone service. The best part was fixing it. Imagine my surprise that a phone repair guy knocked at my door at 9:00 am Sunday morning.

There I stood in my beat up, but comfortable robe, hair all over the place, no makeup, and just as badly beaten slippers explaining what had transpired and why this was no ordinary repair call. I should have listened to that little qualm of mine that said someone was going to show up on Sunday. I thought that might happen after talking to yet another customer rep on Saturday, except this was a simple do it yourself hook-up for DSL. No repair or installation guy was necessary. I guess my phone lines simply were not ready yet, and neither was I on Sunday morning.

By the time I got back on line to look up everything I missed, like the earthquake, it was already this morning. It’s good I have my pc back, but I lost the acceleration program I used to have, so now I’m slower than ever. Hopefully, I’ll finally have DSL soon. (more…)

We had problems with tainted produce last year. Industrialized farms are finally being shown in their true light as horrific for the animals, the source of major pollution, as well as, the source of hormone and antibiotic infused meat and dairy. So it is so vitally important to pay attention to the U.S. Farm Bill that is up for debate in Congress right now. It has everything to do with our farms. The same ole, same ole bill will pass again if we do not contact our congress people and let them know we want changes in the bill that will be of the greatest advantage to our farmers, ourselves, and our environment.

 
As my American Farmland Trust (www.farmland.org) newsletter stated about the bill, “Decisions being made now will impact agriculture, the environment and the nation’s food supply far into the future.” It went on to say we all have a stake in this bill. It affects our air, water, and health of our farmlands and forest. It impacts our food choices. Change is needed in the farm bill. The way it subsidizes farmers actually pushes them to overuse fertilizer, which leeches into the Gulf of Mexico and robs water to the bottom of all oxygen. It is a dead zone. Like gulf shrimp? Better talk to your congressman. There is also runoff from over fertilized farmland that pollutes our freshwater with phosphorus and sediment. Newly subsidized ethanol production will cause a glitch of corn by-products that will end up as high fructose corn syrup in every packaged thing we eat. Tired of giving kids Ritalin? Stop the sugar additives! We should be in control of our food.

 
To understand what is needed, it is important to know how are tax dollars are allocated. Instead of subsidies there should be rewards for environmental stewardship on land. There should be finances available and programs to help farmers manage the risk factors they cannot foresee, like increasingly bad weather patterns. There should be full funding to conserve and protect what is left of our farmland, and support for our local farm markets for all types of foods.  Ciolino’s in Monroe is an example of a great farm market with a large variety. Supporting the farm markets leads to new market opportunities for innovation. Finally, we need to invest in renewable energy development on farms and ranches. I can see where funding for this can also subsidize any losses to farmers. If part of their crops are ruined, they will still have income from devoting part of their acreage to wind farming for example.

 
American Farmland Trust’s recommended policies are highlighted in the brochure Farm and Food Policy for All –Farmers, Citizens, and Communities. Go to AFT’s website above or click on the link to the right and visit their farm policy campaign page to download a free PDF version of this brochure. If you are concerned at all about our food supply, our dwindling farmland, imports of foreign produce instead of our own, our clean air, water, and earth, a return to natural farming which means protecting our grazing land from urban sprawl then read about the changes needed to the 2007 FARM BILL. And contact our congress people. They do pay attention. I always get replies from them and find out where they are on the issue. Congress votes on this bill this fall. Let’s not let another FARM BILL go through without our input. Let’s hope we don’t have another summer of tainted food.

 
A good example of what can be done when everyone stays on the ball and makes an effort to conserve farmland happened recently here in Michigan. AFT’s Michigan State Director Scott Everett worked with Liberty Renewable Fuels for an ethanol plant to use 32 acres of farmland that was part of a preservation program, but in exchange for this 32 acre parcel, it was agreed that 75 acres of nearby farmland would become permanently protected and off limits to ethanol production. Liberty recognized that production of corn for ethanol must be countered with preservation of other farmland as a balance. It’s an idea of the exchange that can take place if everyone focuses on the environment from all aspects when doing business.

 
Balance is the key word here. We’ve been out of balance for far too long in this country. The weight of profits from big industry is weighing down our basic rights to pure air, food, and water. The small farms of our supposed “amber waves of grain … and fruited plain” and rancher’s grazing acreage have been in a stranglehold with industrialization far too long. It’s to the point it’s disappearing. We as individuals are not innocent in this. Our urban sprawl evidently was unnecessary. Look at all the empty houses for sale, all the unfilled subdivisions. The use of that land was unnecessary. Every little acre takes a toll. We need to pay attention. The more we learn the more we see how very interconnected we are to everything in our world.

Debates about global warming continue on Capitol Hill, but this weekend, Michael McConnell, director of national intelligence gave a thumbs up for the spy business to do a comprehensive study about the effect of global warming relative to our security. There have been ongoing partisan arguments over the intelligence sector becoming involved with global warming. Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee is in opposition. He thinks other agencies already cover this. Our intelligence is stretched thin with the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, but McConnell thinks it’s fitting that the intelligence sector assess problems of security that could arise if too many catastrophic events take place as a result of global warming. Most of our intelligence agencies were to include global warming effects relative to security through 2025 in a report for next year anyway.

Just a month ago, several retired admirals and generals agreed that climate change posed a serious threat to national security. Some nay sayers about global warming thought that was quite a stretch. But think about it.
There are fires burning out of control in the west, in Florida, and now Minnesota, land of the lakes? It never occurred to me that Michigan might burn also. We’re surrounded by huge masses of water. Yet Minnesota, which is saturated throughout with small lakes is burning. Florida alone lost 250,000 acres. Fires don’t just burn trees; they pollute the air horribly and leave no trees to eat up the excess CO2. They also burn telephone poles, and power sources. Communication is cut. Remember high school psychology? People seek food and shelter on first before they do all else. When homes and all their contents are lost, food and shelter is the first thing sought. No one is thinking about terrorism.

In the 2004 presidential elections terrorism was all anyone was thinking about. When a political poller called me they had a list of about 10 things that might be important to voters. They spoke with my husband and me. On the list of course was terrorism, the war in Iraq, the economy, healthcare, etc. About 7th on the list was the environment. Of course my husband chose the economy for his concern, but when I said environment, the Democrat on the other end repeated “Environment???” in wonderment. I guess it didn’t concern very many people then. I explained that Mother Nature could kill us all in a short period. One million terrorists could surround us but if that ground opens up or that volcano blows, see ya bye. The young voice was silent for a while. Not long thereafter, we got Katrina. What an example.

What this says to me is that global warming is real despite Sen. Inholfe’s waving a list of scientists that don’t believe so. And debates that heated up on Capitol Hill not long ago are giving way to the realization about climate change agency by agency. Admirals, generals, more scientists than not, and now our national intelligence thinks it’s a serious threat. While we have people like Inholfe in adamant opposition of global warming, our House passed a bill this past Friday that is believed to be around $48 billion dollars that concerns global warming. It’s an authorization for national intelligence to estimate the risk factors for national security associated with catastrophic events, like famine and rising sea levels, brought on by global warming.

Remember I keep saying, “move over” relative to other nations being devastated. People become desperate when it’s about survival and will seek any country that will give them refuge. That’s a concern for our national intelligence. They also realize when events like this hit third world countries like those found in Africa, their governments could literally topple. All of sudden we’re concerned about these countries, in connection to global warming catastrophes of all things, where we should have been concerned all along. Many African countries are budding democracies. This is where we should have been instead of Iraq, helping democracy grow throughout Africa. Arab militia have been raping and pillaging there all along. So we have a pretty good idea who will step in as quasi governments if these countries suffer any more natural disasters.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/12/washington/12intel.html?_r=1&ref=environment&oref=slogin.

An energy bill passed in the Senate yesterday that everyone is making much of but it’s not going to have any effect on the prices at the pump, for our heating bills, high electricity costs, etc. It’s long term effects won’t be seen for 5,10, or 15 years. So don’t jump for joy. The U.S. is still dismally behind. While it calls for more use of ethanol in refineries which will help some reduction is CO2 emissions, it also calls for more U.S. oil and gas exploration. I’m sorry but this is not what the American public was looking for.

The only thing better about the Senate bill as compared to the House bill, passed earlier this year, is that it makes no provisions for oil exploration in Alaska like the House bill, and it does want expand more quickly the use of renewable energy sources, like wind and solar power. It also does not offer any liability protection to companies that use a fuel additive called MTBE like the House bill. It is a more expensive bill than the House bill, however.

“Methyl tertiary butly ether (MTBE) was added to gasoline as an oxygenate to reduce air emissions in the state of California as well as other regions. California is experiencing widespread contamination of groundwater and surface waters as well as formaldehyde air emissions, posing a carcinogenic threat to humans. A cost-benefit analysis was needed to evaluate the gasoline blend with MTBE versus alternatives. The analysis concluded that there was no significant reductions in air emissions due to MTBE-blended fuel as compared to non-oxygenated alternatives, but that MTBE presented significant public health risks and costs associated with water contamination. The analysis, presented at two public hearings as well as in various written forms, has led to a ban of the MTBE additive.” http://ucanr.org/delivers/impactview.cfm?impactnum=232.

After reading about MTBE, what is the House thinking? They want to give liability protection to companies that use MTBE, which pollutes even more than the usual gas emissions? We’re trying to eliminate pollution. And no one wants drilling in Alaska; they’ve got enough going on with melting ice caps. As far as both bills, we want to get away from fossil fuels altogether. It’s already been established that ethanol is not a way to go. We have less and less farmland in this country all the time to grow the corn, and corn prices are just going to go up like gas. So it’s a dumb idea to begin with and the Senate bill requires a larger ethanol market than the House bill.

Another thing I find curious is that the U.S. wants to be able to expand the import of natural gas from overseas, because natural gas prices are high or even higher than the gasoline prices that we’re finding at the pump. Why? It’s been said over and over that we have plenty of natural gas. This administration has literally punched holes all over our NW states in search of more natural gas already, but here we go again looking to import fuel from elsewhere and get ourselves dependent on someone else again for our heat—dumb!

Read for yourself http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/congress/jan-june05/energy_6-28.html. It’s not a very promising future for our country’s alternative energy capabilities. It’s nowhere near anything like the Kyoto treaty most of Europe signed. We’re still fooling around with a big bunch of nothing as far as capping our emissions and getting away from fossil fuels. It’s as if no one is noticing 75 tornadoes across 6 states. The east coast this morning is watching for a hurricane as that season begins. The same states that just experienced the tornadoes are flooding horribly with at least 5 levees breaking from the Missouri river. And LA residents are being evacuated due to fires.

The weather gets worse and our government doesn’t seem to get global warming. Start writing our congressmen. Let them know what you want and often because I think they are totally out of touch with the American public. So many of us are doing what we can, simply changing light bulbs, recycling paper, waiting for American hybrid cars, looking into alternatives, while our government looks for more oil and gas. Sometimes I think it’s too late for this country. The wealthy have taken over already. They just aren’t wearing their kingly crowns yet, 

You know I would really like to know what’s going on with the honeybees? I’ve got fruit trees and I’ve checked Michigan’s outlook and it’s not good. The news this weekend had a good article on how much we depend on the bees. The very first thing I heard all over the news is that the honeybees are disappearing due to cell phones. The radiation from the cell phones mixes up their homing device much like a bat’s. The bees cannot find their way home and die in a field somewhere because they certainly are not in the hives.

I hear nothing about cell phones anymore. Now it’s a mysterious disease called Colony Collapse Disorder. But since there aren’t any bees around to check, no one knows. And I personally don’t think we’ll hear the truth anyway if mankind is screwing them up some how. All I know is that my neighbor has bees on farm property in Hillsdale, and there are plenty. That’s a good sign. I will be looking around my fruit trees for the little guys. I have an overabundance of bumblebees, and yellow jackets I’ve noticed so far.

One of the reasons many beekeepers believe the bees are dwindling is from urban sprawl. I blogged about it, but I never thought about bees being affected by urban sprawl. Michigan bee keepers also said the warm up of weather we had way too early this year didn’t help. I have about 5 blossoms on my red apple tree. Only half of my Golden Delicious has blooms. I will have a handful of cherries and only half the pear tree blossomed.

As for ornamentals, I had no Magnolia blossoms, the Forsythia looks burnt, the Washington Hawthorne trees hardly have any blooms, I finally had to cut my roses back to the ground and they were as tall as me. My hydrangeas are struggling. That little warm spell will cost us at the market in the fall. I know the cost will be up on Michigan clover honey, my favorite. I’ll pay the price as long as I can get it. 

If you don’t grow things you might not realize how important all these little things are. The little changes are like mini forecasters of what it would be like to have dramatic climate change. I love my yard in the spring and am used to having some type of tree or bush in bloom constantly over a 4-month period. Not so this year. It means they didn’t like what happened to them. Having warm weather year round sounds nice but the costs are extreme. Many of Michigan’s trees, birds, mammals, fish, grasses, flowers, fruits, vegetables wouldn’t be around. They would be replaced by plenty of bugs, pollen, mold, and possibly venomous snakes enough to want the winter freeze back again. Our lakes would suffer from constant evaporation and not necessarily get more rain. Changes in cycles are meant to happen long and slow. As nice as it was, I don’t really want an early warm up again. 

People like to bring up the fact that Al Gore is not a scientist. That shouldn’t exclude him from being a messenger of a scientist though. Many  people still do not know the scientist behind global warming. His name is Roger Revelle. Gore is his messenger. Roger is deceased. Gore was impressed by him long ago at Harvard College. Other scientists have looked at this scientist’s theory and concurred that he was right. Here’s a quick look at Roger from Wikipedia.
Roger Revelle graduated from Pomona in 1929 with early studies in geology and then earned a Ph.D. in oceanography from the University of California, Berkley.  Much of his early work in oceanography took place at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) in San Diego. He was also Oceanographer of the Navy during WWII. He became director of SIO from  1950 to 1964. He was President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1974.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (or AAAS) is an organization that promotes cooperation between scientists, defends scientific freedom, encourages scientific responsibility and supports scientific education and science outreach for the betterment of all humanity. It is the world’s largest general scientific society. The AAAS is also the publisher of the well-known scientific journal Science.
Revelle was instrumental in creating the International Geophysical Year in 1958, and was founding chairman of the first Committee on Climate Change and the Ocean under the Scientific Committee on Ocean Research and the International Oceanic Commission. During planning for the IGY, under Revelle’s directorship, SIO participated in and later became the principal center for the Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Program. In July 1956, Charles David Keeling joined the SIO staff to head the program, and began measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, and Antarctica.
In 1957, Revelle co-authored a paper with Hans Suess that suggested that the Earth’s oceans would absorb excess carbon dioxide generated by humanity at a much slower rate than previously predicted by geoscientists, thereby suggesting that human gas emissions might create a “greenhouse effect” that would cause global warming over time. Although other articles in the same journal discussed carbon dioxide levels, the Suess-Revelle paper was “the only one of the three to stress the growing quantity of CO2 contributed by our burning of fossil fuel, and to call attention to the fact that it might cause global warming over time.”
Revelle and Suess described the “buffer factor”, now known as the “Revelle factor”, which is a resistance to atmospheric carbon dioxide being absorbed by the ocean surface layer posed by bicarbonate chemistry. Essentially, in order to enter the ocean, carbon dioxide gas has to partition into carbonate ion, bicarbonate ion, carbonic acid and sodium bicarbonate, among other ionic compounds, and the product of these many chemical dissociation constants factors into a kind of back-pressure that limits how fast the carbon dioxide can enter the surface ocean. Geology, geochemisty, atmospheric chemistry, ocean chemistry … this amounted to one of the earliest examples of “integrated assessment”, which 50 years later became an entire branch of global warming science.
As we keep hearing about surface water temperature in the ocean off of Chili, or off of some other coast, and as it relates to us in the form of El Nino’s, Noreasters, drought, floods, and tornadoes of greater intensity, we might just see the lightbulb go on where Roger’s global warming theory is concerned and quit arguing.
 
 
 

 I can’t say enough about Petersburg being a tree city. Trees have been ignored and considered expendable for far too long. I have two Ash trees that I’ve spent a lot of money on trying to save. It looks like they not going to make it and must come down. I will cry. Those trees were here for the past 20 years I’ve lived here and are in many pictures of my now deceased pets. They will leave an awful blank spot in my yard and my heart. To me, new subdivisions are an eyesore most specifically because they are devoid of trees. They appear stark, uninviting, and like I said before, without trees during the hot summer months, the homes in treeless subdivisions literally bake in the heat.

 
J. Sterling Morton’s idea of Arbor Day needs to be acknowledged and venerated now more than ever. Trees can literally help reverse the over-accumulation of CO2 and give us pure oxygen in return. They are a remarkable part of our environment’s system of coping with pollution. Yet the first thing someone does when excavating to build is mow all the trees down. How tragic.

 
My husband and I just purchased vacant property down the road from us to preserve it.. There isn’t much property like this left. There are 80 ft. evergreens blocking the view of the road. When I walk onto the property, it’s like a sanctuary. There are actually live bunches of Ash trees blooming still. It opens onto open water on the mouth of the Huron River. I was standing on the property one day when the neighbor across the street came running over. She said she was so distressed it was for sale. Someone was going to ruin her little slice of heaven over there and bulldoze all that wonderful nature down.  I told her I bought it. She almost knocked me down with her hug. She asked what we were going to do. I said “nothing.” It will stay that little slice of heaven for as long as we own it. Her sentiments were my sentiments. Call me nuts, but I’m a little tired of “progress” and never ending human sprawl. Surely someone would have knocked all the trees down and planted a giant albatross of a house it.  Na,na,na!!!

 
Think twice about the easy disposal of trees, shrubs, or any type of greenery. They take in carbon dioxide and give us oxygen. If you plan to build try to keep some trees on your property. They provide shade and windbreaks. And plant more large trees and shrubs. Many people receive Arbor Day Foundation literature in the mail and toss it. Big mistake. For a small fee a person can fill a yard with trees and shrubs of all sorts through the Arbor Day Foundation. When they say they will send 10 trees for a pittance, it’s true. I’ve supported the Arbor Day Foundation for years and purchased plenty. Of course the new plantings are small, bordering on miniscule and some appear to be nothing but a stick or twig. But oh how they transform.

 
When you receive your order from the Arbor Day Foundation, plant all you receive in a tilled bed first. It keeps them together where it’s easier to nurture them and helps avoid running them over with your lawnmower, and bunnies or deer eating them.  Within a few years they will be ready to transplant where you want them. I have a 30 ft. Silver Maple, a 20 ft. Pin Oak, and a beautiful 12 ft. Blue Spruce Evergreen that began as twig, another twig, and what appeared to be a 3 inch top sprig of an evergreen someone lopped off.

 
I’ve also purchased for next to nothing a fence of lilac bushes through the Arbor Day Foundation. Again, they looked like twigs when I got them but now tower over my head in rich pungent blooms every spring. I know we are a nation of “want it nows,” but time flies. I thought the same thing when I plant all these teeny tiny shoots. It’s been only 10 years for much of the things I’ve mentioned to spring forth and tower over my property. So think about it. If you have the patience you can get 10 times the trees through the Arbor Day Foundation as compared to the purchase of one at a nursery. For large property owners it’s the only way to go and you’ll be helping the environment 10 times more, as well as, assuring the Arbor Day Foundation continues on, an idea of J. Sterling Morton that is one heck of a legacy for Monroe.

I am sorry I was warned to use notepad and did not. So the former post on this subject was all lumped together and harder to read. This is an easier version to read. I’m bothering to do this because I think this is important to know.

Friday’s paper had a column about DTE customers and their ability to subsidize renewable energy by opting to buy the alternative energy sources. I don’t like the word subsidize. Ever since the deregulation of electricity in Michigan there has been much subsidizing going on already. The public was warned that deregulation would cost a rise in consumer electricity bills.
 
“As predicted, all the benefits of deregulation are going to investor-owned utilities in the form of multi-billion dollar bailouts, and to large industrial and commercial customers who have the clout to negotiate lower electricity prices. Meanwhile, residential and small commercial customers are receiving few if any benefits as electricity in many deregulated states is still more expensive than the national average.”

There is basically no free market system. It is still a monopoly but is now unregulated. The larger investor-owned utility holding companies offer lower rates to the big block buying power of larger consumers affiliated with them. These utility holding companies cross subsidize their unregulated subsidiaries with revenues from us. We are unable to realize really low and fair pricing elsewhere. This is the control I complain about.

“In short, state-led deregulation has created unregulated monopolies to the detriment of consumers, competitors, workers, and the environment.”

A good example of buying power and offsetting costs to consumers was the rise in gasoline prices when America’s own oil reserves were opened but foreign oil was not cut off. The idea of opening our reserves is to bring relief to all consumers. Foreign oil imports are stopped or slowed during this time so that their cost to us drops because of lower demand. It is the first time any president/administration opened our reserves but did not cut off foreign oil imports. The result was that the lower priced American oil reserves were given or allotted to big industry, which may or may not have been a company like DTE, while you and I paid dearly for the expensive imported foreign oil instead. We literally paid for the reduction of costs to the big guys who did not pass that reduction of cost onto us in the form of lower bills.

There is plenty more to be read about the deregulation of energy utilities I’ve already cited at:

http://www.citizen.org/cmep/energy_enviro_nuclear/electricity/deregulation/articles.cfm?ID=4165.

The above article is not the easiest to understand if we are not adept at financial jargon, but as a way of fortifying what I did manage to understand, that the cost of deregulation would indeed be passed on to consumers, I dug up my old electricity bills. This April’s electricity bill is $21.00 higher than it was in April, 2004 even though I’ve cut back on my consumption, and changed out the requisite low energy bulbs in my house. They should be lower due to competition. Which proves there really is no competition.
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On another note, DTE’s CEO Anthony Earley recently spoke to Michigan’s congress about reversing deregulation in Michigan. Their monopoly would be regulated once again, and I assume our utility bills would drop also. Adding rules to the already deregulated market could achieve the same results however, where there would be no monopoly at all. The lure I imagine is that if my bill dropped the $21.00, I might be more enticed to take the plunge to add the 2 cents per kilowatt-hour back onto my bill. But I’m still a little reticent about incurring any costs at all. Remember not long ago DTE announced in the Free Press they would continue production (coalburners) as usual for the next 20 years. Now they are offering renewable sources at a little higher cost that is past onto us. This is the other thing I complained about, picking up the tab for a companies poor foresight as far as environmentalism. We shouldn’t. I found another article on:

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/oct2004/2004-10-20-03.asp that states:

October 20, 2004 (ENS) - The Energy Department and the private sector are beginning to roll towards the creation of a hydrogen economy to replace today’s petroleum economy. On Tuesday, the agency awarded more than $75 million in hydrogen research projects, a figure that mounts to nearly $100 million when private sector contributions are added. In addition, a hydrogen technology park opened Tuesday in Michigan with the ability to produce hydrogen to refuel fuel cell vehicles. 
 

The high tech facility in Southfield, Michigan is the result of a partnership between the Department of Energy (DOE) and DTE Energy to develop, install and operate a multi-use renewable hydrogen station. “Today’s opening of the Hydrogen Technology Park is an important step forward,” said Acting Under Secretary David Garman. “Projects such as the one here in Michigan will enable industry to reach a 2015 commercialization decision with hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.”

Now I’m really confused because that article is dated 2004. And the government through the Energy Department helped subsidize the park. So why is it we as consumers are just now being offered alternative renewable sources and asked to subsidize them as well? Why would DTE, not long ago, announce they would continue as usual for the next 20 years? I will be posting another article soon about the ability to convert coalburning facilities to produce hydrogen. Hydrogen can be used for many things besides vehicles.

You know until it is all put together and explained in terms the general public understands from before deregulation until the present I don’t think I will make any moves to invest. Something is not right. DTE ignored environmentalism as long as possible to squeeze what they can out of their investment in fossil fuels by squeezing us when in fact they own every aspect of the industry from the coal, to the trucking, the grids and lines, etc.  We should have the lowest bills in the country, yet they’ve risen and now we are asked to pay more again to go green. Let it come out of their pockets. I’m tired of the little guy suffering more than those at the top. Small businesses don’t have that luxury. I owned my own business. If I made mistakes, or decided to switch my methods, the cost came out of my income first in order to save my business. I could not pass the cost along to customers because of competition. It should be likewise for big business, which is afforded the luxury of bailouts, cross subsidizing, and unregulated monopolizing. And they have little to fear from competition. Yet they turn around and raise the price for consumers anyway.
 

Friday’s paper had a column about DTE customers and their ability to subsidize renewable energy by opting to buy the alternative energy sources. I don’t like the word subsidize. Ever since the deregulation of electricity in Michigan there has been much subsidizing going on already. The public was warned that deregulation would cost a rise in consumer electricity bills.
“As predicted, all the benefits of deregulation are going to investor-owned utilities in the form of multi-billion dollar bailouts, and to large industrial and commercial customers who have the clout to negotiate lower electricity prices. Meanwhile, residential and small commercial customers are receiving few if any benefits as electricity in many deregulated states is still more expensive than the national average.”
There is basically no free market system. It is still a monopoly but is now unregulated. The larger investor-owned utility holding companies offer lower rates to the big block buying power of larger consumers affiliated with them. These utility holding companies cross subsidize their unregulated subsidiaries with revenues from us. We are unable to realize really low and fair pricing elsewhere. This is the control I complain about. “In short, state-led deregulation has created unregulated monopolies to the detriment of consumers, competitors, workers, and the environment.”
A good example of buying power by big business and offsetting costs to consumers was the rise in gasoline prices last time when America’s own oil reserves were opened but foreign oil was not cut off. The idea of opening our reserves is to bring relief to all consumers. Foreign oil imports are stopped or slowed during this time so that their cost to us drops because of lower demand. It is the first time any administration opened our reserves but did not cut off foreign oil imports. The result was that the lower priced American oil reserves were given or allotted to big industry, which may or may not have been a company like DTE, while you and I paid dearly for the expensive imported foreign oil instead. We literally paid for the reduction of costs to the big guys who did not pass that reduction of cost onto us in the form of lower bills.