From ENN.com:

Greenhouse gas emissions increased by a record amount last year, to the highest carbon output in history, putting hopes of holding global warming to safe levels all but out of reach, according to unpublished estimates from the International Energy Agency.

The shock rise means the goal of preventing a temperature rise of more than 2 degrees Celsius — which scientists say is the threshold for potentially ‘dangerous climate change’ — is likely to be just ‘a nice Utopia’, according to Fatih Birol, chief economist of the IEA.

The Japanese government now acknowledges that potentially dangerous levels of radiation may have leaked from one of the damaged reactors.

It’s tough not to wonder whether the Japanese government is being totally up front with its people, or is downplaying the truth to avert panic.

As one of those homeowners…whew.

MMSD’s intent was good. It wants to keep storm water out of sanitary sewers. But the decision of its commissioners to force homeowners to install sump pumps, disconnect foundation drains and repair laterals seemed to come out of nowhere really fast without much thought of the real-world impact on said homeowners.

Hey: guys and gals on the commission — there’s an unemployment problem out here. A lot of people have taken pay cuts or had their pay frozen. Inflation is heating up and, finally, many of us just didn’t budget for MMSD to deliver that kind of bill.

MMSD now is considering a voluntary approach that would help willing homeowners fund the kinds of repairs MMSD originally was going to require. Mandates may be necessary down the line,  but this is the right way to go for now.

Composting would work, too

A friend took this near the Menomonee River. Not sure this is an approved disposal technique. Is pumpkin pollution a threat to Our Way of Life?

Gov.-elect Scott Walker wants to put bigger freeways closer to schools. Who needs healthy kids, anyway?

It could be the Republican tidal wave means no climate change legislation.

From Construction Law Developments:

The Republican sweep to power in the House virtually assures that the unfinished business on the Obama administration agenda will not be finished any time soon. Most important to the construction industry is reauthorization of the federal highway trust fund, which Congress could not accomplish while both houses were under Democrat control. Now, unless the lame ducks get their tails in gear and pass a six year $500 billion reauthorization before Republicans take over in the House, it seems unlikely that anything good will come out of the next Congress for the construction industry.

Other construction related legislation likely to languish under Republican House leadership includes the Clean Energy and Security Act – also known as cap and trade, a public option for health insurance, the DREAM comprehensive immigration reform bill, and two bills designed to redirect unused TARP funds to infrastructure building: the Jobs for Main Street Act and the Small Business and Infrastructure Jobs Act. Any second infusion of federal stimulus dollars into the construction industry seems completely imaginary now.

“That I-90 (expansion) from Madison to the state line is ridiculous,” Grothman said. “They’re building that thing for a bunch of Illinois people on Sunday afternoons. The only way I’m going to vote for that is if they do it with toll roads.”

So wasteful spending and environmental degradation is OK if  the revenue is collected in a Grothman-approved way? He  continues to amaze, but not in a good way.

(There’s a good chance, unfortunately, that conserving water would lead the Milwaukee Water Works to seek even bigger rate breaks for heavy water users in an effort to encourage water use because the utility has too much capacity. Yeah, I know it defies logic and common sense, but it is exactly what is happening in a case before the Public Service Commission.)

The story was reported by the JS’ Patrick Marley rather inadequately, uncritically and without not a single question about details. Like, um, Scott, do you support Lexus lanes in addition to the Milwaukee-area freeway expansion recommended by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation and the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission?

If so, do you think the additional debt service required for the fifth lane will harm the state’s bond rating? How much damage to neighborhoods and the environment around freeways are you willing to cause so that certain people can drive faster?

If the intent of the new toll lane is to allow those who can pay to travel faster than everybody else, then obviously the tolls have to be set high enough to discourage everybody from using the toll lane. If you are not planning to expand the freeways from three to five lanes and intend only to expand from three to four lanes and limit the fourth lane to toll-payers, how will you ease congestion in the other three lanes? Or are you suggesting the reality — that Milwaukee-area congestion is not bad enough to warrant construction of a fourth toll-free lane?  In that case, until the toll question is settled, shouldn’t the freeway expansion projects underway and being planned be cancelled?

If Walker simply wants to go ahead and build a fourth lane for rich people, the health and environmental impacts likely will be worse than if he builds a fourth lane for everyone. Under the toll scenario, there will be three lanes of stalled traffic belching out poisons and additional drivers zipping along emitting bad things, but perhaps at a lower rate. All the bad things associated with freeway expansion, like loss of wetlands and increased flooding, will occur, but any benefits will accrue to a much smaller group of drivers.

Walker’s idea is really pretty atrocious. A few folk reap the benefits, the public writ large pays the cost. Maybe that formula is now so common it’s not newsworthy any more.