Whale Watching in Santa Barbara

I'm posting this just for fun. The LA Times has an article about whale watching off the Santa Barbara coast. Apparently this is a particularly good year for whale watching, because the humpback and blue whales are here at the same time, which is unusual. Also, krill are close to the surface, so the whales can be seen opening their mouths and scooping up a bunch of krill.

I'm also posting this as part of my campaign to reward the LA Times when it does something right, particularly on its Website. There's a good video associated with the story. I've been critical of the LA Times for not doing enough with video on its Website - hello, this is the filmed entertainment capital of the world - but this time, they got it right. It's a very good video, basically a mini-documentary. Good job, LA Times. I'm not even going to post it on this Website, I am going to encourage readers to actually click on the link above and watch it at latimes.com.

Obama's gives California a waiver for emissions

President Obama (damn do I like writing that) plans to a directive to grant California and several other states waivers to set standards for tailpipe emissions fuel efficiency that are higher than those of the federal government. This is not unusual; California gets these waivers all the time.

Or at least it used to get these waivers all the time. Not so much under the Bush administration. This is just one more example of Obama overturning an idiotic Bush administration policy. Of course, since most Bush administration policies were idiotic, Obama still has a lot of work to do.

The car companies, of course, are not happy about this waiver. They would like more time to develop these fuel efficient cars. They also don't want to build cars to two different standards in the US. The states involved represent about half the cars sold in the US, which effectively makes it a national standard.

I can see the car companies' perspective; it would be a logistical nightmare to build cars to two different standards.

But I have no sympathy for the car companies. None. They have known that this day would be coming for years, if not decades. They've been in denial for years, too.

The auto companies could challenge them in court, but they have been unsuccessful in previous lawsuits.

So I doubt that they will be successful in any lawsuit brought against this waiver. But more important than any legal courtroom, they would lose decisively in the court of public opinion. After asking for a massive bailout, it would take a spectacular act of hubris to fight the Obama administration on this one. Of course, this is the Big Three, so it's possible that they could be that stupid.

And how do environmentalists feel about this turn of events? I like this comment from someone at the Center for American Progress:

“This is a complete reversal of President Bush’s policy of censoring or ignoring global warming science,” Mr. Weiss said. “With the fuel economy measures and clean energy investments in the recovery package, President Obama has done more in one week to reduce oil dependence and global warming than George Bush did in eight years.”

So just think what Obama can do in eight years!

Good news on the environment in LA

From the LA Times, there are a couple of stories today about good news for the environment. First, there is a new park in downtown. That's great. Los Angeles, for all its reach and beaches and mountains and sunshine and dedicated environmentalists, actually suffers from a severe shortage of good parks. The national average for park space is six to 10 acres per 1,000 people. LA has 3.4. We haven't had our Frederick Law Olmstead. So this is inspiring. The article has lots of good stuff about kids being able to play outside.

The second article is about a restored wetlands that has become a habitat for lots of birds and fish. The Bolsa Chica wetlands are a great success story of environmentalism working.

Just wanted to share some good news about the environment on a Sunday morning.