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12 November 2008

Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR YOU

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Dot Earth: Will the Next Ice Age Be Permanent?

Wheels: Truck Sales Rebound (It’s Complicated)

NOV 12, 2008 10:23PM

NOV 12, 2008 10:23PM Will the next ice age be permanent? Here, the ice sheet on Greenland. (Credit: Andrew C. Revkin for The New York Times)

On Tuesday, The Associated Press reported that gas prices fell for the 17th straight week since July 4. In some states, prices are now below $2 a gallon.

A new analysis of the dramatic cycles of ice ages and warm intervals over the past million years, published in Nature, concludes that the climatic swings are the gyrations of a system poised to settle into a permanent colder state — with expanded ice sheets at both poles.

Which makes one wonder if vehicle loyalties are about to change. After all, if ricocheting gas prices led to a frenetic demand for smaller, fuelefficient cars, then by the same logic lower gas prices should reverse that trend.

In essence, says one of the two authors, Thomas J. Crowley of the University of Edinburgh, the ice age cycles over the past million years are a super-slow-motion variant of the dramatic jostlings recorded by a seismograph in an earthquake before the ground settles into a new quiet state. He and William T. Hyde of the University of Toronto used climate models and other techniques to assess the chances that the world is witnessing the final stages of a 50-million-year transition from a planet with a persistent warm climate and scant polar ice to one with greatly expanded ice sheets at both poles.

Ford trucks. (David Zalubowski/Associated Press) “Since June and July, we’ve been seeing data showing a gradual movement back toward bigger vehicles,” said Tom Libby, an analyst with J.D. Power & Associates. “Loyalty in the large pickup segment has been steadily rising since June,” he said. The large pickup share in September and October was healthy, up substantially over May and June. And the percentage of vehicles sold with 4-cylinder engines — more than 50 percent of the total in May and June — declined to 42.6 percent in October.”

Their findings have stirred a lot of skepticism in the community of specialists examining ancient records of past climate changes and how they might relate to variations in Earth’s orbit and orientation toward the Sun and other factors. I’ll be adding some of their reactions overnight (I’m on the road).

History is repeating itself, Mr. Libby explained. Americans began buying smaller cars as a result of the Arab oil embargo of 1973-74 and the second price shock that followed the 1979 Iranian revolution. After both gas spikes “there has been a movement back toward mid-sized and larger vehicles in the U.S. market,” Mr. Libby said.

The Nature paper goes on to propose that humans, as long as they have a technologically powerful society, would be likely to avert such a slide into a long big chill by adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. That doesn’t obviate the need to curb such emissions and the prospect of dangerous climate warming in the short run, Dr. Crowley said. But it is more evidence that like it or not, the future of conditions on Earth is likely to be a function of human actions, whether chosen or not.

Still, he does not think that consumer interest in hybrids and other fuelefficient vehicles will evaporate. “People still think that prices will go back up, and they want to be part of the general movement to get away from imported oil,” Mr. Libby said.

The idea that human actions can dominate the climatic influence of things as grand as shifts in a planet’s orbit is hard to grasp, but quite a few climate specialist say it’s pretty clear this is the case. In 2003, I wrote an article exploring when scientists think we’ll slide into the next ice age (the conventional variety). James Hansen of NASA echoed Dr. Crowley, saying that as long as we’re technologically able, we’ll be able to keep the big ice at bay. Strange, wonderful stuff, climate science.

But consumer preferences are only one piece of the puzzle, said David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research. “Because of last year’s energy bill and its stronger Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, there can’t be that much regression on the part of the industry,” Mr. Cole said. “The companies are taking out a lot of capacity to build large pickups and S.U.V.’s, and nobody’s going to build it back in.”

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR YOU

12 November 2008

Charles Territo, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, also thinks fuel efficiency is here to stay. For 2009, he said, there will be 140 models with fuel economy of more than 30 miles per gallon on the highway. And that doesn’t seem likely to change, despite the recent shift to larger vehicles.

Charles’ Southern Style Kitchen, in business since 1977, also failed a city health inspection. It has been closed since last month. The owner of Mobay, a popular spot on 125th Street near Fifth Avenue that serves healthy soul food-inspired dishes, declared bankruptcy last month, although it remains open. Sheron Barnes, the owner, has blamed layoffs among Harlem’s Wall Street employees for the slowdown at the restaurant, and has vowed to introduce lower-priced items to the menu, which has several entrees that cost more than $20.

General Motors is basing future product on projected oil prices that are higher than they are today. “We are looking at gas prices being low because of the depressed global economy,” explained John M. McDonald, a G.M. spokesman. “When the recovery starts, we expect to see demand start to come back and oil prices rebound.”

Other survivors include Edmonds’ Cafe, Margie’s Red Rose Diner, Billie’s Black, Londel’s Supper Club, Sylvia’s and various branches of Manna’s.

Mr. McDonald also cautioned against seeing a simple cause-and-effect between lower prices and higher light-truck sales. He attributed some of that rise to “dramatically higher” incentives for large trucks this year compared to last year.

The current economic downturn seems to be hitting Harlem businesses particularly hard. On some blocks of Frederick Douglass Boulevard, closed storefronts outnumber businesses that remain open.

Given the dire straits of some automakers, however, it’s inevitable that some very fuel-efficient models, even much-anticipated ones, will be delayed or suspended. Such is the fate of the Saturn Vue plug-in hybrid, which will now appear in 2011 instead of 2010.

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City Room: Paterson Calls for $5.2 Billion in Budget Cuts

“When we revealed it, we said it could come out as early as 2010,” said Rob Peterson, another G.M. spokesman. But 2011 is “where it’s landing at this point in time.” The Chevrolet Volt, he added, remains on track.

NOV 12, 2008 10:06PM

Earlier:

Gov. David A. Paterson announced major budget cuts during a news conference at his office in Midtown Manhattan. (Photo: James Estrin/The New York Times)

As Gas Prices Go Down, Driving Goes Up

Gov. David A. Paterson dropped the budget hammer on Wednesday, proposing $5.2 billion worth of cuts over the next 16½ months, with Medicaid and education, the two largest pieces of the budget, bearing the brunt of the pain.

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City Room: Stick a Fork in Harlem Soul Food?

The governor said he would not seek layoffs, but state workers are being asked to forgo a previously negotiated 3 percent pay raise for next year, a move that would require the labor unions to reopen their contracts. Labor leaders have already expressed reluctance to make such a move. The governor is also proposing to make state workers pay for a greater part of the bill for their health care benefits.

NOV 12, 2008 10:23PM M&G Diner, famed for its fried chicken, has been closed since the summer. (Photo: Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times) As recently as 15 years ago, there were few dining options available in Harlem aside from soul food.

The governor said during a press conference on Wednesday morning that Wall Street had “bailed us out” for years, but “now the well has run dry” amid Wall Street’s turmoil and the state must halt its free-spending habits.

But the neighborhoods’ collection of soul food restaurants has long been dwindling — as tastes change, health concerns intensify and costs rise — and recent weeks have yielded yet more bad news.

“We’re not going to get out of this quagmire we’ve built until we reduce our spending,” he said.

M&G Diner, opened in 1968 and famed for its fried chicken — and a neon sign that reads, “Old Fashion’ But Good!” — closed for its annual July sabbatical this summer and has not reopened.

But hospital and teachers’ unions, and unions that represent state workers, have already started to lay the groundwork for a fight over the budget cuts.

Louise’s Family Restaurant, opened in 1964, has been shuttered since it was ordered closed by the city health department in late summer.

Danny Donohue, president of the Civil Service Employees Association,

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR YOU

12 November 2008

rejected reopening the contract talks this week, saying “the governor knows, or should know, that reopening contracts is not acceptable to C.S.E.A.”

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Motherlode: Should Parents Go to School?

“Any serious businessperson knows that a contract is a contract,” Mr. Donohue said.

NOV 12, 2008 8:28PM

The cuts come as the state faces a $1.5 billion deficit in the current budget, for the fiscal year that ends on March 31, and a $12.5 billion deficit next year. Lawmakers return in a week for a special session in Albany, where they will take up the governor’s proposed cuts and, no doubt, counter with their own proposals — Senate Republicans have already rejected the idea of school aid cuts.

Illustration by Barry Falls In the schools of Jericho, L.I., teachers and administrators are wondering where the parents are. As reported today by my colleague Winnie Hu, as the district’s cultural populations have shifted — the district is now 30 percent Asian students, most of them recent immigrants — the presence of parents at everything from back-to-school night, to orchestra concerts, to PTA meetings has gone down.

Legislators must approve any cuts, though state law requires that the budget be balanced. The governor’s plan is only a prelude to far steeper cuts the state will have to make to bring next year’s budget in balance. Even if the Legislature signed off on the governor’s proposals, the state would still have an $8.8 billion deficit next year. The governor has already said there will be billions of dollars in health and education cuts to come.

Contrast this with a study that was released last month by Civic Enterprises and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which found that parents of students in low-performing schools feel shut out and uninformed about what goes on during their children’s school days. Among the findings of the report, called “One Dream, Two Realities: Perspectives of Parents on America’s High Schools,” while 85 percent of parents in high-performing districts (defined as a school where most students go on to college) felt those schools were doing a good job encouraging parents to be involved, only 47 percent of parents in lowperforming districts (where most students do not go on to college) felt similarly involved.

Teachers unions and educators are sure to recoil at the cuts. Under the governor’s plan, there would be midyear reductions in school aid for the first time since the early 1990s, with $585 million cut from aid in the current fiscal year and another $844 million next year. The plan would reduce aid to school districts across the state and also reduce spending on math and science grants, libraries, arts grants and special teacher mentoring programs. The cuts to state education aid are laid out in detail in a 39-page Deficit Reduction Assessment released by the governor’s office, below.

Jericho is not one of the low-performing districts. Last year 13 percent of graduating seniors were off to the Ivy League. It a place to which parents move because of the qualities of the schools, and the barriers to participation there seem to be cultural, with Asian families believing parents only go to school if something is wrong.

Students at the State University of New York and the City University of New York would see tuition increase by $300 in the spring session and by $600 next year. Cuts to the State University of New York and the City University of New York would total $348 million over this year and next year.

How much parental involvement in school — particularly as children get older — is the right amount? I don’t think it’s as simple as “more is better.”

Medicaid and other health care programs would be cut by $572 million this year and $1.2 billion next year under the governor’s plan. The governor is proposing to reduce the amount of money the state reimburses health care providers for a variety of procedures and also to eliminate the annual inflation adjustment made to Medicaid reimbursements. The state will also increase taxes on health insurers.

The problem uncovered by the Civic Enterprises study was that parents felt kept in the dark. Only half of parents in the low-performing schools felt “welcomed” into the building, compared with four out of five parents in the high-performing schools. And while half of parents in the highperforming schools felt the school kept them informed about academic and disciplinary problems with their children, only 25 percent of parents in the low performing schools felt similarly informed.

Aid to New York City would also be cut by $41 million this year, to $205 million.

The problem being addressed in Jericho, on the other hand, is that parents seem to prefer a more “hands off” approach. And the reason that is a problem, administrators say, is because a school is more successful when the parents are involved.

School Aid by District Get your own at Scribd or explore others:

But is that really true? Or does the Civic Enterprises study suggest that what makes a school successful is when parents feel like they are welcome to become involved should that be necessary. And when parents are involved behind the scenes, but not necessarily in the school

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR YOU

12 November 2008

building. Maybe, though, when things are going just fine, they should be a little less present. Back when my children were younger it sometimes felt like I was going to school with them. I was there for parent-reading days, and Halloween parade days, and field trips to planetariums and post offices, and Mother’s Day tea. I loved the window into their new lives, even though some days it made it hard for me to actually get any work done. As they get older, I see a value to backing off. While I agree with the 85 percent of the 1,006 parents of all socioeconomic stripes who told Civic Ventures researchers that it’s a parent’s job to advocate for their child, I don’t necessarily agree with Jericho administrators that the definition of advocacy is showing up every time the doors are opened. I have met my children’s teachers, and have interceded once in awhile when things have gotten rocky, but each year I sit on my hands and bite my tongue more and more. I fear become one of “those parents” who fight their children’s battles before those battles even start. So maybe the lessons here are twofold. On one end of the spectrum schools are obligated to make parents feel connected and welcome. On the other end, parents are obligated to know when to stay away.

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