On the LAKE Front

What's a Green Job?

Green money is pouring into Austin, Texas, which now has to decide how to spend it. Sandra Zaragoza, writing in Portfolio.com, looks into what to do with it:

Last week, American Youthworks, a nonprofit aimed at at-risk youth, received $1.4 million in federal funds to build a green charter high school that will prepare students for jobs in solar-panel installation, green facilities management, and other jobs.

In the last few years, Austin Community College received $99,031 from Workforce Solutions for solar and weatherization training and, more recently, $59,800 from the Department of Labor to increase the number of women in green job training programs.

And ACC is hoping to bring more funding to Central Texas in federal grants. ACC is part of a group of Texas community colleges that have applied for $3.5 million in funding to build solar-energy training programs.

Education, solar, weatherization; who could argue with those things?

But do those functions create new jobs?

VSU-TV Rebroadcasts of AAUW Forum

Dennis Marks notes that VSU-TV's rebroadcasts of the AAUW Forum of 15 Sep 2009 will include the two-minute statements of unopposed candidates who showed up. Those are not in the LAKE videos of the event which are already on YouTube, but pretty much everything else is. Maybe VSU-TV will also put their videos online.

According to email from Walter Rollenhagen:

The Lowndes Co. Political Forum, or as we label it, VOTE 2009, will air on VSU-TV cable channel 20:

Sunday, Oct. 4th at Noon

Saturday, Oct. 10th at Noon and Midnight

Saturday, Oct. 17th at Noon and Midnight

Sunday, Oct. 18th at Noon

Saturday, Oct. 24th at Noon and Midnight

Sunday, Oct. 25th at Noon

Saturday, Oct. 31st at Noon and Midnight

Sunday, Nov. 1st at Noon

Lowndes County Political Forum, AAUW, 15 Sep 2009

By Kenny R. Bush and John S. Quarterman, with videos by Gretchen Quarterman.

On Sept 15, residents of Lowndes County gathered inside VSU’s Whitehead Auditorium for a political forum concerning the upcoming 2009 General Municipal Elections. It was the competing Mayberrys, Hahira and Dasher, in the shadow of the big city of Valdosta with its council and school board. The 100 or so people who watched learned about the candidates. You can too, by watching the videos of each speaker provided by LAKE on YouTube. Perhaps VSU can also be encouraged to release online the videos it took, which are probably of higher quality.

Update: VSU TV rebroadcast schedule for this forum.

Perhaps VSU can also be encouraged to release online the videos it took, which are probably of higher quality.

The event was sponsored by the American Association of University Women (AAUW) and moderated by Jim Peterson, chair of the Political Science Department at VSU. Before the forum began, the audience was provided note cards and encouraged to write questions for forum participants. A three person committee then decided which four questions that would be asked on stage for each set of candidates.

Valdosta City Council District 2

The forum began with the five candidates competing to be the newest councilman of Valdosta’s 2nd district. Willie T. Head, the incumbent, is not running, but five other people other are: David G. DeMersseman, David L. Dempsey, Rodney R. Flucas, Deidra A. White, and Dr. L. W. Williams.

(All the other LAKE videos of this AAUW forum are also available online.)

The first question of the night concerned annexing land neighboring Valdosta and if candidates believed it to be a good idea or not.

Biomass: Twice the CO2 of Coal?

Dr. Thomas D. Bussing, Ph.D., former mayor of Gainesville, Florida, is among the numerous signatories of a Letter to the U.S. Senate from Environmental Groups (including SAFE) Regarding Biomass, which says in part:

When compared to coal, per megawatt, this burning [biomass and the like] emits 1.5 times the carbon dioxide (CO2), 1.5 times the carbon monoxide (CO, a toxic air pollutant), and as much particulate matter.

Georgia already has the country's dirtiest coal plant, at Juliette, near Macon. Do we need still more CO2?

Maybe the Wiregrass biomass plant planned for Valdosta is somehow more efficient than the one near Gainesville. If so, it would be good to hear about that; I don't recall the topic coming up at the Lowndes County Commission meeting in which this plant was approved.

Dr. Bussing elaborated in a recent letter:

The fallacy is in believing that plants take up all CO2 emissions. In fact plants absorb some, the ocean absorbs more (and as a consequence is becoming more acidic by the year), but a portion just stays and builds up in the atmosphere. That buildup is associated with global warming, and it doesn't matter if the CO2 comes from coal, gas or biomass.

Thanks to Seth R. Gunning for bringing this up.

Where and why flooding happens

Michael E. Kanell and Ty Tagami, writing in the AJC about More than 16,000 flood-related claims filed in Atlanta area, quote Robert Klein, professor of risk and insurance at Georgia State University:

Moreover, the maps that set out those high-risk areas are “woefully inadequate,” he said.

Maps should be recalibrated to account for continued development and sprawl, he said: destruction of trees, paving of roads and parking lots, addition of new homes to older areas and landscaping all change the way water drains — or doesn’t drain.

And maybe somebody should do something about that continued development and sprawl.

New Stories of Lowndes County

Here's the Lowndes County Commission (most of it), posing about the new StormReady County designation:

We love the Valdosta Daily Times (VDT), WCTV, and WALB, but if they published anything about that, we missed it. They have space constraints, and we don't. Local governments do a lot of good things (and other things) that don't get reported in the traditional press. This is where LAKE comes in.