GlobeNews 11/2000 FALL SPECIAL Vol.2, No.11 Global citizen! Keep on top of events worldwide: politics, travel, society, environment, technology. Not your nine o'clock news. GlobeNews by Kahl Consultants. STOP! Add a friend to the mailing list: subglobenews-@-kahl.net CONTENTS -------------- MARYLAND IS FOR BIKERS WORTH MORE THAN A 1000 WORDS RELIGIOUS FANATICS GO ONLINE CORRECT LINK TO WETLAND ALBUM DAVID BROWER: 1912 - 2000 CARBON COPY ENVIRONMENTALIST? DIGITAL ANGEL OR BIG BROTHER? HOG WASH! BIG FAT WELFARE MOMMAS TRAVEL FAQS TRAVEL AGENT STORIES ============== THE GOOD NEWS ============== MARYLAND IS FOR BIKERS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Maryland commuters know a thing or two about traffic. The Washington D.C. area has the second worst congestion in the country, after Los Angeles. But now Maryland is taking steps to increase the use of mass transit and promote smart growth. Drafted by Environmental Defense transportation director Michael Replogle, the recently adopted COMMUTER BENEFITS ACT of 2000 is the most far-reaching commuter choice law in the nation. Under the law, employers who pay for employee transit costs or add income in lieu of a parking space at work can receive a 50% tax credit against their expenses, up to $60 per employee monthly. Non-profit organizations such as schools and hospitals will also be eligible. "This is a cheaper and faster way to reduce congestion and pollution than building new highways," said Replogle. "And it benefits both employers and employees." The commuter benefits "are an especially tangible incentive for lower-paid workers," said our transportation specialist Scot Spencer. To pass the law, Environmental Defense formed a coalition of business, environmental and labor groups called Friends of Maryland Commuter Choice. "Our goal is to establish commuter choice as a standard employment benefit across the country over the next five years,"noted Replogle. ========== GLOBESITES ========== WORTH MORE THAN A 1000 WORDS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The United Nations Environment Programme, or UNEP, organized another International Photographic Competition on the Environment this year. The theme is "Focus on Your World". The winners were awarded during the Millennium Assembly of the United Nations this month in New York. Focus on this: http://www.unep-photo.com/english/prize/prize.htm RELIGIOUS FANATICS GO ONLINE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We all get our fair share of "spam" junk mail, right? Get rich quick, make money fast, win, win win! Free girls, free toys, all kinds of freebies for everyone and their mother. But the latest barrage of unsolicited emails contains something new. Racists and religious fanatics are now knocking on your cyberdoor!! At first you have no idea who you are dealing with. They talk about "learning the full truth" and "conspiracy theories" and abolishing the "new world order" and "government domination"... you get the idea. But dig a little deeper and their true colors come out. To get a kick out of seeing what kind of "unusual" thoughts are being spread on the internet and how they are being presented, look at their websites. Just for fun, try to figure out (1) who is behind them, (2) what they are officially supporting, and (3) what is their hidden agenda. http://www.newnetizen.com http://www.centrexnews.com http://www.mathaba.net CORRECT LINK TO WETLAND ALBUM ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Previously we listed the wrong URL for the Santa Venecia Open Space Album. Care to see photos of the wetlands in our neighborhood? Alex Kahl's Photo Journal of Santa Venecia Open Space Preserve, located in Marin County, CA, USA is here: http://www.onlinephotolab.com/go/opl.album.album?view=images&albumId=1452 HOME IMPROVEMENT - AMAZON STYLE ---------------------------------------------------- Amazon.com is now in the HOME IMPROVEMENT business. No more endless mazes and lines at Home Depot. Go online and get your tools (how about a handy leatherman as a gift?) and home renovation products (time to prepare your lawn & garden for summer?)! PLEASE SUPPORT GLOBENEWS by only using this link: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/kahlconsultants ========= GlobeNews ========= DAVID BROWER: 1912 - 2000 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dave Brower, environmental activist extraordinaire, has passed away at the ripe old age of 88. Dave was a wilderness enthusiast since 1926 and engaged in conservation battles since 1938. Brower joined the Sierra Club in 1933, became a member of its board of directors in 1941, and was its first executive director from 1952 to 1969. He was re-elected to the Sierra Club board again in 1983, 1986, 1995, and 1998. In 1969 he founded Friends of the Earth, along with the League of Conservation Voters, and initiated the founding of independent FOE organizations in other countries. FOE is now multi-national and operating in sixty-three countries. Dave was also the founder and Chairman of the Earth Island Institute. Dave has had a profound impact on the state of America's wild lands by helping to create national parks and seashores and battling dams. His contributions will be sorely missed. More about the "Archdruid" (as he is called by his colleagues): http://www.earthisland.org/brower/browerweb.html ============= FUTURE IS NOW ============= CARBON COPY ENVIRONMENTALIST? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A committed environmentalist at 18, Ryan Buckley has raised money, made speeches and joined protests to show concern about the planet. But nothing has given him as much satisfaction as buying 50 TONS OF HOT AIR. Paying $150 the High School graduate bought the rights to take 50 metric tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide gas out of the atmosphere. By doing so, he joined what could become a multibillion-dollar market that may also save forests and combat the leading cause of global warming. The quickly emerging TRADE IN CO2 is a product of the historic 1997 global conference in Kyoto, Japan, in which the world's industrialized countries agreed to reduce their emissions of so-called greenhouse gases. It is based on the notion that the strange new commodity will increase in value. It thus combines new-age philanthropy with old-fashioned greed. Environmentalists are divided as to whether investments like Buckley's can help avert climate change, but those in favor stress the power of self-interest. ``It reminded me of Wall Street,'' said the lanky honors student, who owns no stocks but has watched affluent friends check their portfolios on the Web. ``I felt that anyone, even individuals like me, could take some control of this market.'' In effect, Buckley bought permissions to pollute. It's a relatively new concept with an important precedent. For several years, at the Chicago Board of Trade, U.S. power firms and speculators have been able to buy and sell the rights to emit one ton of acid-rain-causing sulfur dioxide or nitrogen oxide pollution. A power company struggling to meet its mandated Clean Air Act POLLUTION LIMITS can buy permits from another, perhaps more efficient, company that can afford to cut back far below its limit. Although the evidence is in dispute, the market has apparently helped reduce pollution at a relatively low cost, while growing to more than $1.7 billion in annual volume. Brokers familiar with the U.S. sulfur dioxide trade expect a GLOBAL MARKET IN CO2 EMISSIONS rights to dwarf that figure. Presumably, the value of the rights would grow as the opportunities to cut back emissions are claimed, and become scarcer. ``We think the market could grow as large as $88 billion a year, estimating conservatively,'' said Neil Cohn, a greenhouse gas broker at Natsource, in New York, which sold Buckley his credits. There's still no legal definition of a carbon emissions credit in the United States, so buyers have no guarantee of any value beyond public relations points. Buckley said he won't sell his emissions rights, even if their value goes sky-high. He bought them, from Natsource's new Environmental Action Desk, not for himself but on behalf of his school's Environment Club with money raised at a raffle. The intent was to withdraw the rights from circulation, making it that much harder for power firms to avoid cutting emissions at the source. ``This way, the real polluters, the very inefficient companies, will probably just have to go bankrupt,'' Buckley said. His tiny purchase was unusual in that it did not involve a trade of emissions from one company to another. Instead he will get credit for the actual removal of 50 tons of carbon dioxide emissions by newly planted teak and mahogany trees, which can never be cut down, in a tropical forest in Panama. The absorption is measured by an independent company in Costa Rica. The use of forests to remove carbon dioxide through photosynthesis -- the process by which all plants take in carbon dioxide and emit oxygen -- is a controversial but intriguing part of the new market. International negotiators have been debating whether to allow investments in planting and preserving trees to count as credits toward the Kyoto targets. The Clinton administration publicly supports the tactic. Leading conservation groups have begun to raise questions about this novel market approach. Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund and the Sierra Club are among several organizations that oppose depending on forests as carbon ``sinks'' to any degree, saying it gives corporations a chance to buy their way out of what they say are urgently needed reductions of fossil fuel emissions AT THEIR SOURCE. They add that forests are hard to monitor, as well as vulnerable to changing conditions such as disease outbreaks and invasions by settlers. ``There's a danger in that you could get more trees being protected but more pollution,'' said Daniel Becker, a climate-change expert at the Sierra Club. The system under which pollution rights are traded is known as ``cap and trade,'' with the cap, or limit, motivating the trade. In contrast with the sulfur dioxide market, there's still no cap on carbon dioxide, but many experts believe there will be soon, regardless of whether Kyoto is approved. Carbon dioxide is emitted when animals and humans breathe and when we burn fossil fuels -- coal, gasoline and oil -- to run vehicles and factories. It's the No. 1 ``greenhouse gas'' that most scientists say is slowly but surely causing the atmosphere to heat up. The United States, one of more than 100 countries to sign the Kyoto Protocol, has pledged to cut back its own emissions to 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2008. Were the Kyoto treaty ratified, big utility companies, which emit vast amounts of carbon dioxide, would face similar caps, enforced by law. That's not likely soon, because of strong political opposition. Some business leaders are concerned about the cost of switching over to new forms of energy. In addition, the majority of the U.S. Senate has voted against the treaty, raising objections that developing countries -- especially China and India -- are not yet bound by any reduction targets. Yet as concern about climate change grows throughout the world, many firms are starting to take voluntary actions, preparing for what they see as inevitable future regulation. At the same time, there's growing support for a market in carbon dioxide emissions. Both the United Kingdom and Denmark plan to start trading the pollutants next year. In the United States, meanwhile, financial innovator Richard Sandor, known for inventing interest rate derivatives, recently received a grant from the $1 billion Joyce Foundation in Chicago to design the possible terms of a carbon emissions trade in this country. At the same time, several U.S., European and Japanese power firms have gone ahead over the past few years and spent more than $75 million on investments in forests for their carbon storage, according to Trexler & Associates, a Portland-based firm that tracks the deals. In one such investment last year, for instance, in southeastern Brazil, Central & Southwest Utilities of Dallas paid $5.6 million to buy degraded land and restore it to forest, storing an estimated 1 million tons of carbon dioxide. ``It's not altruism -- we're thinking of the carbon credits, and trying to get in early to get the best projects at the cheapest prices,'' said CSW environmental services director Jay Pruett. The incentive for investments in forests could have special meaning for California woodlands, of which 77,000 acres disappear each year, according to Laurie Wayburn, president of the Pacific Forest Trust in Boonville. Redwoods, in particular, may play a giant role. ``They're world champions in carbon storage,'' Wayburn said. ``They grow fastest, largest and longest.'' ``The bottom line is we could finally start to have incentives for private companies to protect forests instead of destroying them,'' said Mike Coda, director of the Climate Change Program for The Nature Conservancy, which has brokered several investments by utility companies. [Source: Katherine Ellison, SJ Mercury News] DIGITAL ANGEL OR BIG BROTHER? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A working prototype of an implant designed to monitor the physiology and whereabouts of human wearers, known as Digital Angel, was recently unveiled in New York City by Applied Digital Solutions. The device is said to be the first-ever operational combination of bio-sensor technology and Web-enabled wireless telecommunications linked to global positioning satellite location-tracking systems. Chairman Richard Sullivan said "This technology relates directly to the exploding wireless marketplace. We'll be demonstrating for the first time ever that wireless telecommunications systems and bio-sensor devices -- capable of measuring and transmitting critical body function data -- can be successfully linked together with GPS (global positioning satellite) technology and integrated with the Internet." Digital Angel is intended to serve a number of functions: locate missing persons, monitor physiological data, and verify online consumer identity. Similar to microchip ID tags for pets, Digital Angel is a dime-sized implant, inserted just under the skin. When implanted within a human body, the device is powered electromechanically through the movement of muscles and can be activated either by the "wearer" or by a monitoring facility. Applied Digital Solutions is also exploring avenues for utilizing Digital Angel without implanting it, by placing the device on the back of a watch or a cell phone, transmitting bio-sensor information when carried by the user. A miniature sensor device -- smaller than a grain of rice and equipped with a tiny antenna -- captures and wirelessly transmits a person's vital body-function data, such as body temperature or pulse, to an Internet-integrated ground station. In addition, the antenna also receives information regarding the location of the individual from the GPS satellite. Both sets of data -- medical information and location -- are wirelessly transmitted to the ground station and made available on Web-enabled desktop, laptop or wireless devices. Dr. Peter Zhou, Chief Scientist at DigitalAngel.net, is "particularly excited about Digital Angel's ability to save lives by remotely monitoring the medical conditions of at-risk patients and providing emergency rescue units with the person's exact location." Digital Angel, said Zhou, "will be a connection from yourself to the electronic world. It will be your guardian, protector. It will bring good things to you." He added, "We will be a hybrid of electronic intelligence and our own soul." Despite the excitement over an early working model, concerns have been raised as to personal privacy. With the integrated technology, a person's location, health status and other personal data will be transmitted and available via the Internet. ADS claims, however, that privacy concerns are misplaced, since the device can be turned off by the owner. As the technology becomes more commonplace, the debate, as well as sales, are likely to continue growing. See for yourself: http://www.digitalangel.net/ BLATANT ADVERTISEMENT: If you are also interested in space, astronomy and extraterrestrial news, subscribe to ASTRONEWS, another free newsletter from Kahl Consultants. Visit us: http://www.kahl.net/astro Beam your request to: subastronews-@-kahl.net ============ !!GLOBALERT!! ============ HOG WASH! ~~~~~~~~~~ North Carolina's 2,400 hog farms produce more waste than all the people in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston combined. What's worse, factory hog farms store this waste in open-air lagoons and then spray it on fields, regardless of whether the fields actually need it. Inevitably, these lagoons and sprayfields contaminate surface waters and leach into groundwater. With bacteria levels 100 to 10,000 times higher than what's allowed in treated municipal waste, hog waste poses an unacceptable public health risk. North Carolina's citizens are footing the bill for environmental damages by the pork industry. Alternative technologies that outperform lagoons and sprayfields are already available and affordable. But few factory farms have installed these new systems. The EPA is preparing to limit factory farm discharges nationwide. BIG FAT WELFARE MOMMAS ----------------------------------- Goodyear, Texaco, Colgate-Palmolive, MCI WorldCom and eight other large corporations earned more than $12.2 billion in profits in 1996 through 1998, but none of them ended up owing corporate income taxes during that period. This according to a study conducted by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a Washington research organization associated with Citizens for Tax Justice, a nonprofit group supported in part by labor unions. ============= SAVE ON CALLS ============= Long Distance Tips --------------------- LIVING IN THE USA? Get the VoiceNet GOLD plan! ANY domestic US calls from ANY phone for only 6.9 cents/min! No more expensive calls! It's the best deal we could find! Check out this offer AND MANY MORE! Visit GlobalCom: http://www.kahl.net/global ====== NetTips ====== TRAVEL FAQS ~~~~~~~~~~~ You travel by air quite a bit? These FAQs provide an amazing amount of info that will help make flying easier, cheaper, and less confusing for you! Airline information on-line on the Internet FAQ: http://www.landfield.com/faqs/travel/air/online-info/ Air Traveler's Handbook (there is so much good stuff here it is split into 4 sections!) http://www.landfield.com/faqs/travel/air/handbook/ More Travel FAQs http://www.landfield.com/faqs/travel/ TRAVEL AGENT STORIES ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Funny anecdotes from Travel Agents... I had someone ask for an aisle seat so that their hair wouldn't get messed up by being near the window. A client called in inquiring about a package to Hawaii. After going over all the cost info, she asked, "Would it be cheaper to fly to California and then take the train to Hawaii?" I got a call from a woman who wanted to go to Capetown. I started to explain the length of the flight and the passport information when she interrupted me with "I'm not trying to make you look stupid, but Capetown is in Massachusetts. "Without trying to make her look like the stupid one, I calmly explained, "Capecod is in Massachusetts, Capetown is in Africa." Her response ... click. A man called, furious about a Florida package we did. I asked what was wrong with the vacation in Orlando. He said he was expecting an ocean-view room. I tried to explain that is not possible, since Orlando is in the middle of the state. He replied, "Don't lie to me. I looked on the map and Florida is a very thin state." I got a call from a man who asked, "Is it possible to see England from Canada?" I said, "No." He said "But they look so close on the map.'' Another man called and asked if he could rent a car in Dallas. When I pulled up the reservation, I noticed he had a 1-hour lay-over in Dallas. When I asked him why he wanted to rent a car, he said, "I heard Dallas was a big airport, and I need a car to drive between the gates to save time." A nice lady just called. She needed to know how it was possible that her flight from Detroit left at 8:20am and got into Chicago at 8:33am. I tried to explain that Michigan was an hour ahead of llinois, but she could not understand the concept of time zones. Finally I told her the plane went very fast, and she bought that! A woman called and asked, "Do airlines put your physical description on your bag so they know whose luggage belongs to who?" I said, "No, why do you ask?" She replied, "Well, when I checked in with the airline, they put a tag on my luggage that said FAT, and I'm overweight, is there any connection?" After putting her on hold for a minute while I "looked into it" ( I was actually laughing) I came back and explained the city code for Fresno is FAT, and that the airline was just putting a destination tag on her luggage. I just got off the phone with a man who asked, "How do I know which plane to get on?" I asked him what exactly he meant, which he replied, "I was told my flight number is 823, but none of these darn planes have numbers on them." A woman called and said, "I need to fly to Pepsi-cola on one of those computer planes." I asked if she meant to fly to Pensacola on a commuter plane. She said, "Yeah, whatever." A business man called and had a question about the documents he needed in order to fly to China. After a lengthy discussion about passports, I reminded him he needed a visa. "Oh no I don't, I've been to China many times and never had to have one of those." I double checked and sure enough, his stay required a visa. When I told him this he said, "Look, I've been to China four times and every time they have accepted my American Express." A woman called to make reservations, "I want to go from Chicago to Hippopotamus, New York" The agent was at a loss for words. Finally, the agent: "Are you sure that's the name of the town?" "Yes, what flights do you have?" replied the customer. After some searching, the agent came back with, "I'm sorry, ma'am, I've looked up every airport code in the country and can't find a Hippopotamus anywhere." The customer retorted, "Oh don't be silly. Everyone knows where it is. Check your map!" The agent scoured a map of the state of New York and finally offered, "You don't mean Buffalo, do you?" "That's it! I knew it was a big animal!" Thanks to all who wrote in! Send us your questions for the next edition of GlobeNews. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Email: globenews-@-kahl.net SUBSCRIBE: subglobenews-@-kahl.net Unsubscribe: unsubglobenews-@-kahl.net GlobeNews online: http://www.kahl.net/globenews ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ THE PLUG ======== How's your small biz performing? Happy with work? Technology. Use it appropriately. Put it in our hands. Kahl Consultants. Visit us: http://www.kahl.net You got this far - you obviously enjoy GlobeNews. Pass it on! Please forward to a handful of friends. Remember, the best things in life are free. THE PUNCH LINE ============== [Thanks Pops] Once upon a time there was a shepherd looking after his sheep on the edge of a deserted road. Suddenly a brand new Jeep Cherokee screeches to a halt next to him. The driver, a young man dressed in a Brioni suit, Cerrutti shoes, Ray-Ban glasses, and a YSL tie gets out and ask the sheperd: If I guess how many sheep you do have, you give me one of them? The shepherd looks at the young man, then looks at the sheep which graze and says: All right. The young man parks the car, connects the notebook and the mobile, enters a NASA site, scans the ground using his GPS, opens a database and 60 Excel tables filled with algorithms, then prints a 150-page report on his high-tech mini-printer. He then turns to the shepheard and says: You have exatly 1586 sheep here. The shepherd answers: That's correct, you can have your sheep. The young man takes the sheep and puts in the back of his jeep. The shepheard looks at him and asks: If I guess your profession, will you return my sheep to me ? The young man answers: Yes, why not. The shepherd says: You are an Arthur Andersen consultant! How did you know? asks the young man. Very simple, answers the shepherd: First, you come here without being called. Second, you charge me a sheep to tell me something I already knew. Third, you do not understand anything about what I do, because you took my dog!