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Shark-fin soup, anyone?

Somewhere off the coast of Australia, a boat filled to the gills with illegally obtained shark fins was boarded in a manner reminiscent of the good old days when pirate ships sailed the high seas. Straining the limits of the power of positive thinking, the crew used machetes and anti-boarding poles (burning ones at that) in an attempt to ward off machine gun toting enforcement officers. Life is complicated. Deep poverty in Indonesia, combined with China's growing economy, has created demand for shark-fin soup, causing an ecological disaster.

Japanese dolphins on Primetime

If you found my post about the plight of dolphins in Japan interesting upsetting, ABC News' Primetime will be covering the issue this Thursday:

[T]he popularity of dolphin parks is booming, with visitors lining up to get up close and personal with the adorable animals. But a "Primetime" investigation finds that there's a dark side to the dolphin park industry.

For more information, read the press release from the Earth Island Institute.

An elaborate proposal to raise money and spend it

Well, I managed to wade through Hillary's whole speech to the Cleantech Venture Forum, and let's just say ... she's no Barack.

The vast bulk is a fairly tepid summary of current conventional wisdom: energy crisis, get free from foreign oil (grr), promote clean energy and clean cars and energy efficiency, etc. This is all boilerplate stuff, but it's worth celebrating, I suppose, that it is conventional wisdom now. As much as environmentalists lament their own failures, it's pretty remarkable how quickly the green line on energy has taken over and become centrist -- and believe me, despite her reputation in wingnut circles, Hillary wouldn't say it if it wasn't safe and centrist.

Unfortunately, the conventional centrist wisdom is not translating into action, as illustrated by Hillary's attempt to list her accomplishments on these issues. This is typical:

Quite a few of us in Congress have worked to bridge the gap and put forward proposals for a better energy future. We passed, albeit not as much as we would have wanted, a 10 percent renewable energy standard in the Senate, but the White House rejected it.

Huzzah!

The one new, "bigger and bolder" (her words) idea is the " Strategic Energy Fund." The SEF would be funded through a tax "alternative energy development fee" on oil companies. This tripped me up:

“Foreign oil” redux

Reading Hillary Clinton's recent speech (more on that later) reminded me of an old hobbyhorse: As faithful readers will recall, the term "foreign oil" irritates me to no end. Decrying our dependence of foreign oil is just a way of decrying our dependence on oil, period -- with the extra macho credibility that comes with jingoistic, xenophobic overtones. For that reason it's probably politically necessary. But it adds nothing to our substantive understanding of America's energy situation. For a host of geological, economic, social, and environmental reasons, we could never conceivably produce enough "domestic oil" to satisfy our demand -- and anyway, what domestic oil we do produce goes out on the world market like any other oil. The problems that come with dependence on foreign oil and the problems that come with dependence on oil are one in the same. It would make as much sense to decry "liquid oil" or "underground oil."

So if you hear the term "foreign oil" from a politician, assume it's accompanied by a wink and a nod. If you hear it from a pundit, assume it's accompanied by confusion.

Update [2005-10-25 14:0:34 by David Roberts]: Oh, the whole point of this post was supposed to be: The term "foreign oil" suggests that domestic oil would be okay, and thus supports the scumbags in Congress who are trying to build new refineries on military bases and neuter environmental protections. It doesn't matter that in her speech, Clinton says "a few more refineries and drills won't solve the problem" -- the very term she's using to frame the problem works against that point. Framing, people. Look it up.

Wealthy ‘family farmers’ in California wage PR campaign to maintain their subsidies

We're happy to present this guest essay from Lloyd G. Carter, an attorney and former journalist who has written about California water issues since 1969. Carter is president of the California Save Our Streams Council.

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Remember the family farmer?

He was immortalized in Grant Wood's 1930 painting "American Gothic": a grim, hardscrabble stoic in overalls, grasping a pitchfork. Guess what? It wasn't really a farmer. It was Wood's dentist posing as a farmer.

Fresno County's own philosopher/farmer, Victor Davis Hanson, announced years ago that the family farmer was a figment of the urban imagination. Hanson wrote that the multi-generational family farm has all but disappeared and that soon the only thing left will be "broke serfs and thriving corporations."

But now a coalition of western San Joaquin Valley agribusiness interests have launched a multi-million dollar media blitz to convince Californians that the modern "family farmer" still exists -- and needs to keep consuming colossal amounts of California river water. The statewide ad campaign includes television spots, full page newspaper ads, bus stop billboards in big cities, and even sponsorship of the "California Report" on National Public Radio. The word "family" is repeated ad nauseum.

Reefer Badness

Caribbean corals bleaching at unprecedented rate This year’s notably warmer-than-usual Atlantic waters — fuel for 2005’s intense hurricane season — have been devastating some life below the waves as well. Water temperatures have remained elevated for about 15 weeks, causing coral reefs to bleach from the Florida Keys to Puerto Rico to Panama. The micro-algae […]

Cleanup on Aisle Six

Wal-Mart unveils specific, ambitious environmental goals After weeks of scattered signs and announcements, today Wal-Mart issued a far-reaching set of concrete environmental goals. CEO H. Lee Scott Jr. announced that the company would invest $500 million in technologies to reduce its stores’ greenhouse-gas emissions by 20 percent in seven years, increase its truck fleet’s fuel […]

Must read

Dave Pollard on the avian flu pandemic.

TIME and energy

TIME magazine has a package of stories on energy and related matters (The Watt links to all of them). I only read the "Peak Oil: Yes it is! No it isn't!" bit, and it was distinctly unenlightening. But maybe the rest of it is good.

Wicked-smaht grids

I'm at that blissful point vis-a-vis "smart grids" where I know enough about them to think they're bitchin', but not enough to know why they're never gonna happen. Whee!

So I was happy that eternal optimist Joel Makower flagged this report (PDF) from the Center for Smart Energy. (Who's against smart energy, huh?)

The report says there are boatloads of money -- around $45 billion -- waiting to be made by the folks who get to this stuff first. Whenever I hear a stat like that, I think, hm, are businessfolk in this industry just retarded? If there's $45 billion on the table, why is no one grabbing it? What do the think-tankers and the pundits know that the business types don't? Same think with peak oil -- if oil's going to cost $200 a gallon in 10 years or so, why does anyone who has any oil sell it? As opposed to, say, holding onto it for 10 years and raising their profits by some 150%. Maybe a reader can enlighten me.

Anyhoo, of particular interest are these seven key markers of smart grids: