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China announces Renewable Portfolio Standard

Everyone needs a China strategy. Even China.

With a burgeoning population rapidly growing in number and affluence, and a manufacturing sector serving the world as well as driving infrastructure development at home, China's sheer mass demands that it be accounted for in every field. Of special concern are energy and the environment: What will be the impacts of all the new energy resources required?

That's why China's new commitment to a federal Renewable Portfolio Standard is such good news. Fifteen percent by 2020 may not offset the new carbon emissions produced by its spectacular growth, but it's sure better than the U.S. federal RPS (0% by never). And the investment -- estimated to be U.S. $184 billion -- will help build the economies of scale key to bringing down costs in renewable industries.

Here's hoping China's investment means the same for renewables as it has for t-shirts, tchotchkes, and damn near everything: What was once expensive now made dirt cheap and plentiful.

CBS fills Sunday-night hackery gap left by FOX

While Fox moves toward sanity, the rest of the news biz moves toward Fox.

Exhibit A: On Sunday, while Fox is educating its viewers on global warming, CBS's 60 Minutes will be producing a breathless piece of hype on "Eco-Terror's Growing Threat."

Growing according to who? Why, the FBI, of course, and far be it from a group of journalists to do anything but pass on the FBI's latest talking points.

Eco-terrorists have never killed or even hurt anybody, so it's a bit tricky to try to make them look like the nation's biggest threat. Here's one way to do it: Dig up some fruitloop who says they ought to kill people.

A spokesman for extreme animal rights groups believes killing humans is justified. "I think people who torture innocent beings should be stopped," says Dr. Jerry Vlasak, a California trauma surgeon. "If they won't stop when you ask them nicely, they don't stop when you demonstrate to them what they're doing is wrong, then they should be stopped using whatever means are necessary."

Eco-terrorists: The Nation's Biggest Hypothetical Threat!

Ask yourself this: If you put white-supremacy groups up against "eco-terror" groups and compared property damage done, lives lost or hurt, and willingness of spokespeople to say batshit crazy things on TV, who do you think would come out ahead? Why do you think the FBI is focused so intensely on one and not the other?

Could it have something to do with whose interests are threatened?

Let Freedom Sting

Thousands of sites in Iraq contaminated with chemicals, uranium, more Donald Rumsfeld wasn’t kidding when he said freedom is messy. More than 20 years of war and neglect have left Iraq with serious chemical spills, heavy-metals contamination, and widespread pollution from depleted uranium — and the cleaning bill could run up to $40 million. The […]

Fox runs non-BS documentary on global warming

Check out this hilarious article on the right-wing news site CNS News. It seems the wingnut faction is upset that Fox News is running a documentary on global warming -- and it's not even pretending the science is controversial! They're only presenting the "liberal" -- that is, scientific -- side! Worse yet, there are some actual environmentalists involved.

A Fox News Channel documentary on "global warming," set to air Sunday night, provides only the liberal take on the controversial issue and was approved after environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. reportedly "dragged" Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes to a lecture by former Vice President Al Gore, "kicking and screaming."

Love the scare quotes around "global warming."

It seems that Laurie David got to Roger Ailes, Fox News president (as revealed in our own Amanda Griscom Little's article in Outside). Amazingly, he seems to have seen the light on warming.

Even his own producer is a bit confused:

And the Emmy for best environmental news pod goes to …

If you haven't been sold on the whole "create your own video short" thing I keep going on and on about, the stakes have just been raised. Now, you could win an Emmy. Seriously:

The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, best known for handing out the Daytime Emmy Awards, is expected to announce on Tuesday that it has created an award category to recognize original video content for computers, cellphones and other hand-held devices, like the video iPod and PlayStation Portable.

(Via PSFK)

Congress strips Arctic Refuge drilling from budget legislation; still has to delay vote

Let me make us the last political blog on the planet to note events in the House yesterday, wherein an outbreak of spine among moderate Republicans triggered an almost total meltdown of the Republican command structure.

Empowered by Democratic unanimity, Rep. Charles Bass (R-NH) led a group of 25 moderate House R's (anybody got a list of these folks?) in demanding that Arctic Refuge drilling be stripped from the budget-reconciliation bill.

Bass' group is insisting the deal last "through conference," meaning they won't vote for it if it reemerges from conference committee with drilling reinserted.

But remember, for some in the House, refuge drilling is the white friggin' whale. It's Moby Dick. So of course a group of Ahabs put their foot down when they heard their precious whale might escape.

Thus, even after this pained concession, Republican leadership and unity broke down and the vote was delayed until next Tuesday.

(Meanwhile, in the Senate, Olympia Snowe put the kibosh on the Bush administration's treasured extension of tax cuts for dividends and capital gains.)

Fireworks will resume next week. It's been pretty good drama so far, but if these House moderates stay strong, and the budget reconciliation bill dies, it will be a major story -- a very public knee to the groin of the House Republican leadership, legendary for its ability to twist arms.

You know how it works for a bully -- once he gets his first ass kicking, he can never recapture the old mystique.

Stay tuned.

(Good thoughts from Carl Pope, Matt Yglesias, and Mark Schmitt.)

Uh oh

Dover, PA's in big trouble!

On today's 700 Club, Rev. Pat Robertson took the opportunity to strongly rebuke voters in Dover, PA who removed from office school board members who supported teaching faith-based "intelligent design" and instead elected Democrats who opposed bringing up the possibility of a Creator in the school system's science curriculum.

Rev. Robertson warned the people of Dover that God might forsake the town because of the vote.

"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover. If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city. And don't wonder why He hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that's the case, don't ask for His help because he might not be there."

(Via Pharyngula)

Public lands: Mine, all mine

In an ominous new development, Congress may soon authorize private "patents" of public land, a wildly outdated and abused provision of an 1872 mining law. The patents are functionally equivalent to fee-simple purchases of the land, which raises the distinct possibility that private individuals and corporations could stake mining claims -- and then buy the land -- in national forests, wilderness areas, and even national parks.

Mining, as it is currently practiced, is so ecologically disastrous there are too many examples of environmental degradation to mention here. But the new Congressional legislation would actually worsen matters. Not only would it make it easy for mining corporations to snatch up public land at bargain-basement prices -- and never pay royalties on their profits -- but there's nothing preventing the buyer from dropping plans to mine and then re-selling the land as real estate. If mining doesn't pencil out, there's always the possibility of ski areas, amusement parks, condos ...

At risk are roughly 20 million acres of public lands. Already, nearly 900 patents have been staked inside national parks and that number is almost certain to rise under the new legislation. It's hard to imagine a worse deal for the American public, not to mention our ever-more fragile natural heritage that public lands safeguard.

Read the coverage in the Christian Science Monitor and the Seattle Times.

House moderates: Little, late

Lest you start feeling twinges of fondness for Republican moderates thanks to their recent move to save the Arctic Refuge, remember that a) they've been totally passive in the face of five years of monstrosities, and b) the very legislation they've stripped refuge drilling out of itself remains a monstrosity. Sam Rosenfeld puts it well:

The House leadership's decision to rescind the ANWR drilling measure from the reconciliation bill is being spun as a sign of the new power of the erstwhile pitiful Republican moderates. There's a tiny bit of truth to that. But really, the fact that enough of them are now saying explicitly that removing that provision is sufficient to ensure the bill's passage is more pathetic than impressive. The ANWR provision is in the Senate version of the spending bill; leadership assurances to the House moderates that the measure won't return in a conference report should be taken with a grain of salt. Much more importantly, the rest of the bill is nearly unchanged, and is loaded with atrocities that moderate Republicans have spent plenty of time wringing their hands over but show little inclination to take action against.

This is another example of what I was talking about yesterday: For some reason it's become safe or convenient for righties to start making concessions or taking stands on the environment. But this budget reconciliation bill still contains drastic spending cuts for kids and poor people. Do greens stand down now that they got what they wanted? Or do they continue to fight on behalf of other elements of the progressive coalition?

Editorial hope springs eternal

What's with the editorial writers at the New York Times and the Washington Post? What does it take for political reality to sink in?

An unsigned NYT editorial bashing Bush on global warming -- particularly for his opposition to mandatory emissions limits -- says this:

Meanwhile, Mr. Bush's staunch and patient friend, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, has once again - this time in The Observer - appealed to the president to join in a global effort to limit greenhouse gases.

Well, not exactly. Blair's Observer editorial is notable precisely because it marks his rather conspicuous break from the Kyoto (read: mandatory emission limits) crowd. He's pleading with Bush to join a worldwide effort to develop clean-energy technology. His "staunch and patient" friendship continues to consist entirely of him attempting to accommodate Bush in exchange for ... nothing.

The WaPo editorial board thinks, well gosh, here's the chance Bush has been looking for to abandon his retrograde position on climate change and hop aboard the multilateral train:

What is clear is that Mr. Blair's initiative offers an excellent opening for Mr. Bush. The president, who has benefited from Mr. Blair's support, should say he supports the prime minister's initiative, wants to leave the Kyoto dispute behind and is ready to address climate change issues, actively and enthusiastically, in an international forum once again.

They argue earnestly that this is the right thing to do, because climate science has made it indisputable that warming is a problem.

Bush should reciprocate Blair's friendship. He should join a multilateral agreement. He should admit he's been wrong about climate change.

Meanwhile, back on planet earth ...