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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. talk

This evening I saw Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speak at Seattle's Paramount theater, thanks to Foolproof's excellent "American Voices" program.

The guy is pretty amazing. For one thing -- and I'm not sure why this is the first thing that struck me -- he looks like a Kennedy! It's a little strange, like some PBS documentary or Discovery channel special come to life. And he speaks like a Kennedy too, obviously erudite but completely at ease with the kind of aspirational, inspirational rhetoric for which his father and uncle were known.

It's one of the more substantive one-hour public talks I've ever seen. His pleasantries lasted about 30 seconds (with a quick shout-out to local eco-hero Rep. Jay Inslee), and he was off and running full tilt -- few personal anecdotes or attempts at humor, no sugar, just fiber. That style might not be everybody's cup of tea, but I love it. There was no slack.

The basic theme of the talk was less environmental stuff than corporate power. Here are a few random notes and reflections, off the top of my head, in no particular order (all this stuff will, of course, be familiar to those who have seen him speak or read his book):

Go “Geo-Green”

Environmentalists need to seek new allies and new rationales, according to the raging debates spurred by the "Death of Environmentalism." This country's most important foreign affairs column is increasingly giving voice to one such argument.

Tom Friedman in The New York Times once again bangs the drum for energy efficiency, renewables, and lowering oil consumption as a means to spur reform in the Middle East. He does throw in a call for nuclear power, an argument that won't sit well with many greenies.

But Friedman dubs himself a "geo-green," explicitly promoting green behavior for geopolitical ends. He wants to deprive the undemocratic regimes of the Middle East the huge petro dollars that allow them to buy their way out of facing realm reform.

You give me $18-a-barrel oil and I will give you political and economic reform from Algeria to Iran. All these regimes have huge population bubbles and too few jobs. They make up the gap with oil revenues. Shrink the oil revenue and they will have to open up their economies and their schools and liberate their women so that their people can compete. It is that simple.

Environment and forgotten humanitarian stories

Doctors Without Borders, or Medecins Sans Frontieres, has published its top ten underreported humanitarian stories of 2004. Many are from active conflict zones such as Chechnya, Colombia, Northern Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Conflict is a recent memory and simmering threat in others like Liberia and Burundi. Still another is a disease -- resurgent tuberculosis. Ethiopia and North Korea present tragic tales of malnutrition and suffering.

So where is the environment in these stories? In too many of these places ...

Crichtonomania

Michael Crichton gave a talk at the American Enterprise Institute today -- you can watch the video here. Sadly, I was not able to attend and ask him why the eco-terrorists in his book use small, poisonous octopi as their primary weapons. I get that octopi are natural and everything, but given that to use them you've got to get right up next to your victim and hold him or her still for a few seconds -- or get a friend to do it while you fumble with the sandwich baggies in which said octopi are contained -- it seems like the opportunity costs in terms of time, energy, and range speak in favor of going with a more traditional tool of evil, like say guns.

Also, via Chris Mooney, a response to Crichton from Brookings Institute environmental scholar David B. Sandalow. And while you're at Mooney's, check out this wackiness from Crichton's talk and this wackiness from Crichton's website.

You can look for my better-late-than-never review of Crichton's book early next week. Mark it on your calendar!

Hmm.

Two and a half centuries ago, early economists in France postulated that all wealth springs from the earth: farming, timber harvest, mining, and fishing were the sole sources of value, value that then circulated throughout the rest of the economy. It was not a coincidence that the ruling landed gentry who controlled the dominant resource, agricultural land, supported this theory. In England, at about the same time, a different theory dominated: All wealth results from exports that bring in the outside income that circulates through the economy. It was not a coincidence that the rising commercial trading class strongly supported that theory.

Economics as we know it, starting with Adam Smith, developed as a critical attack on such self-serving narrow conceptions of the "origins of the wealth of nations." But two and a half centuries later we still have self-interested parties flogging these theories rather than treating them as long discredited and abandoned historical curiosities. The Urban Futures, Inc. consulting group's "Regions and Resources: The Foundations of British Columbia's Economic Base" is the latest example. It argues that the BC economy continues to be almost exclusively dependent on natural resource industries operating in the rural areas of British Columbia. The greater-Vancouver metropolitan economy is simply an avaricious parasite living off the wealth being generated by the hardworking folks in the hinterland.

Wacky energy

On Treehugger, a round-up of the most bizarre new sources of energy.

After Kyoto

Two good pieces on the fight to cut CO2 emissions post-Kyoto (and post-reelection of Bush, who will never sign it), one from The Guardian and one from Environmental Science & Technology.

Update [2005-1-28 16:7:48 by Dave Roberts]: It's a little old, but this piece over on GreenBiz is also on the same theme.

Mississippi

Is it me, or is the transition between the first two paragraphs of this NYT story rather jarring?

PORT GIBSON, Miss., Jan. 20 - Facing the possibility that a utility company would try to build a new nuclear reactor here, the City of Port Gibson and surrounding Claiborne County moved swiftly last month to protect the interests of their residents.

"We're willing to do whatever it takes to do to make this happen," said Amelda J. Arnold, the city's mayor. Last month, city aldermen voted unanimously to urge the Entergy Corporation, which already operates one reactor here, to build a second. The County Board of Supervisors did the same.

Yet another reason to move to Mississippi!

Chlorific

Chlorine factories a major source of mercury pollution, report says A new study suggests that the chlorine industry may be releasing dangerously high amounts of mercury into the environment, more even than the coal-fired power plants usually pinpointed as major emitters. Although most chlorine plants use a production process that does not involve mercury, there […]

Arctic Power

I can't believe how many mind-boggling things are packed into this short story on Arctic Power, the lobbying group devoted to getting oil companies access to ANWR.

Let us begin.