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Bush wants to ride his bicycle bicycle bicycle

Via Chris, a pointed column from Marc Fisher in the Post today makes the point that Bush's blithe bicycle rides through wilderness refuges are ironic in light of the fact that he's consistently cut funding for them. Do you think he sees the disconnect? As with so many questions regarding this administration's environmental policies, it's hard to decide which answer would be worse.

Is there tension between them?

I am an atheist.

I wouldn't call myself a "militant" atheist, as I don't consider being an atheist a big part of my life or my self-image. I don't believe there are furry three-eyed ghosts floating behind me at all times, but I don't get militant about that either. Why bother?

However, in these times we live in, there's a strange pressure to show extreme deference to religious proclamations, however expressed, no matter how absurd the content. Witness, for instance, the global media lovefest when the pope died, during which I read a quote from a bishop who said, "papal infallibility doesn't mean you get it right every time." Oh? Gosh, that sounds kinda dumb to me. But I'm not allowed to say so.

I'm allowed to say that I have a "difference of values" with far-right religious folks about homosexuality, but I'm not allowed to say that finding justification for discrimination in a millennia-old Jewish holy book is %$@#! stupid and irrational.

But whatever. Most of the time, I can live with this -- I reside in a secularist blue-state bubble anyway, and I figure the current wave of backwards medieval religious sentiment will pass in due time. Live and let live, I say.

But Richard Dawkins, author of celebrated evolution masterwork The Selfish Gene, does not share my attitude. He shows no deference and hedges no bets. This interview with Dawkins in Salon is, in that way, utterly refreshing. It reminds you how few people, despite the perpetual delusions of persecution on the part of modern-day right evangelicals, are willing to openly criticize the religious -- despite their complete lack of restraint in criticizing us atheists.

My point? Glad you asked. The one thing I would ding Dawkins for is this exchange:

Buying a Prius has benefits, but don’t forget the costs.

A reader of the Cascadia Scorecard Weblog had this question: What do we think about this piece of advice from the May-June Sierra Club magazine's "Hey Mr. Green" column?

Hey Mr. Green,

What's best for the environment, continuing to drive my perfectly fine 1990 Honda Accord, or trading it in for a new gas-sipping Prius? -- Heath in Los Angeles

Well, Mr. Green hates to say this because you might be bonded to your trusty old Accord, but she burns twice the petrol and wheezes out twice the global-warming gas of a Prius or similar hybrid model. Being a conscientious environmentalist, though, you're also worried about the energy and pollution involved in building a new car -- the equivalent of 1,000 gallons of gas. But by the time the Prius hits 50,000 miles, its energy savings will have made up for its own construction. So unless you drive very little, a new hybrid is the way to go.

That's not necessarily the advice I'd give.

Kunstler

There's recently been a flurry of ecoblogospheric attention paid to James Howard Kunstler and his new book The Long Emergency. (We'll have an interview with Kunstler on Grist in the next week or so.)

Kunstler gained an audience by writing several books about the evils of suburban sprawl, and then hooked up with "the kids" via a long excerpt from TLE published in Rolling Stone.

What prompted the outpouring is this interview in Salon, which contains such juicy tidbits as this:

It’s cool.

I went to the grand opening of the Ballard branch of the Seattle Public Library this afternoon (the old Ballard branch, a boxy, ugly blight, was replaced by a brand new one two blocks from my townhouse, oh happy day). It was a madhouse, with screaming, apple-juice-stained kids everywhere (I brought three myself), long lines at the desk, Bavarian folk music coming from one room and a chamber trio playing in another ... we had to flee fairly quickly.

However!

Although that other branch gets all the attention, the Ballard building is just awesome. A full list of its environmental features can be found here, but the coolest are the green roof, which visitors can look at through a periscope (!), the "notch and tab" furniture, each piece of which is cut from single sheet of laminated wood and fitted together (with a very hip modern aesthetic), and the solar panels. And check this out:

Rooftop scientific devices that measure wind speed and direction, sunlight and the sound of rain. The artwork - LED (light-emitting diode) displays and an audio composition of Ballard-area sounds - is derived from the weather data.

Art and music derived directly from the surrounding environmental conditions. Now that's cool.

(More from the Seattle Times.)

The moms are organizing. Go join them!

I would be remiss not to mention that the idea -- mothers organizing on behalf of the environment -- started by this story and continued in this discussion thread has found a home at the Green Life google group.

All you moms, head over there and see if you can chip in. And keep us posted!

 

Bill McDonough, movies, websites, heroes

As my unseemly gushing has no doubt made clear, I heart Bill McDonough. Someone (I forget who) pointed me a while back to this video, on a very cool site called BigPicture.tv, which is packed to the gills with short videos of nifty activists.

I couldn't get it to work the first time -- despite attempts on three different browsers -- but Alex linked to it again today, which prompted me to give it another go and what do you know, magically it worked.

So anyway, if you can get it working, it's short but worth watching, about how he envisions cities meshing with ecosystems.

Stats on the biggest kid on the Asian block.

Our fascination with China around these parts is well-known. However, we're not so fascinated that we want to read long, number-filled reports about it. I mean, it's Friday fer chrissake.

So, we let Joel Makower do that work for us. He waded through WorldWatch's just-released "Vital Signs 2," a compendium of info on worldwide environmental trends, and found lots of tasty (and, okay, some terrifying) tidbits on the world's fastest growing big economy. Read his summary and be enlightened.

Here's a taste, from WW:

Weekend reading

The Senate Energy Committee released some of the titles of their draft energy legislation today. So what are you waiting for? Start reading!

Are greens jumping the gun by bashing GE’s new ecomagination?

Over on TomPaine.com today, Frank O'Donnell of Clean Air Watch takes on GE's "ecomagination." Frank makes some compelling arguments -- similar to comments made on gristmill earlier in the week -- as to why this is just a bunch of greenwashing.

As strange as it makes me feel to ask this question, I'll do it. Aren't we jumping the gun here, gang? Shouldn't we want a polluting corporation to have an "Extreme Makeover"? Or are we saying "Mission Impossible" to any attempts to change because of past environmental sins?

Call me naive (and you probably will in the comments), but it seems like we have to actually give GE a chance to fulfill their "ecomagination." So what do you think? Extreme makeover or mission impossible?

(I'll admit they are not off to a good start with this appropriation rider shenanigans.)