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Snippets from the news
• Kansas governor again vetoes a coal plant. • Houston and Los Angeles are the top-polluting cities in the U.S. • Time considers “how to win the war on global warming.” • Formaldehyde exposure is linked to Lou Gehrig’s disease. • Biofuels aren’t evil, says Brazil’s president. • Dogs and cats are found to be […]
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Judge denies Humane Society injunction, OKs sea-lion trapping
Denying an injunction sought by the Humane Society, a federal judge has given the go-ahead to Oregon and Washington state officials to trap and kill salmon-gobbling sea lions near the Columbia River’s Bonneville Dam. The animal-rights group sued after the National Marine Fisheries Service OK’d sea-lion culling last month. An official hearing on the Humane […]
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Saving ourselves means trench warfare, not waiting for breakthroughs
On online wag recently noted that at Bell Labs -- one of the most productive, innovative places the world has ever seen -- the slogan was "Never Schedule Breakthroughs." A breakthrough is just that: a radical and unpredictable reorganization of understanding. Waiting for one is like trying to solve one of those elaborate circular garden mazes by assuming a teleporter to take you straight to the center.
We might well need some breakthroughs to survive the climate crisis, and it will be nice if we get them, but I'm much more impressed by things like this, a serious incremental step, than I am by the wondertoys we're so often told to ogle. The FLOX work is a great example of the trench warfare of science and technology. It can help buy us time to radically reduce our energy demands and switch off fossil fuel use entirely -- time to aggressively apply every off-the-shelf idea and practice we have now, without hypnotizing ourselves with the need for "breakthroughs."
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Snippets from the news
• United Nations urges major agricultural countries to balance feeding poor with saving the environment. • Army Corps suggests Southeast water-sharing plan that’s likely to harm threatened species. • Critics slam federal agencies for favoring dirty power in proposed energy corridors. • Nicholas Stern says he underestimated the threat posed by climate change. • Cato […]
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The gasoline tax is regressive, but only for upper-income groups
After I argued against McCain's summer gas-tax freeze, I received an email, the basic thrust of which was, "but everybody knows a gasoline tax is regressive, so how can progressives endorse it?" Well, as we will see, everybody doesn't know a gasoline tax is regressive. In fact:
- The poor are more likely not to buy any gasoline (i.e., to not own a car at all),
- poor families own fewer cars (and much fewer of the fuel-inefficient SUVs and minivans), and
- the poor tend to walk and use mass transit more.
Maybe the best description [PDF] of the situation is from a Dec. 2003 study for the state of California:
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Beaches strewn with a lot of trash, says report
Six million pounds of trash were picked up in a one-day global beach cleanup last September, according to a new report from the Ocean Conservancy. In one day, beachcombers covering 33,000 miles of shoreline in 76 countries found an average 182 pounds of trash per mile. That was comprised of 7.2 million items of garbage […]
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Snippets from the news
• Sea levels will rise even more than you thought, says new research. • The U.S. Supreme Court will hear an important Clean Water Act case late this year. • Tesla Motors sues the designer of a green-car competitor. • Japan may raise the price of whale meat. • Oil prices hit a new record […]
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Chevron runs ad attacking Goldman Prize winner
I attended the Goldman Prize presentation last night, and it was, per usual, a spectacular celebration of uncommonly dedicated individuals working to make this world a better place. The stories of their struggles and triumphs wetted every eye in the house, and they serve as a beacon of inspiration to all who care about the future of planet Earth.
Unless you are Chevron.
This morning, Chevron ran a full-page ad in the San Francisco Chronicle attacking one of the recipients, Pablo Fajarado. "Mr. Fajarado is a front man for a group of Ecuadorian and American trail lawyers pursuing a claim against Chevron."
No! Not trial lawyers! Chevron would prefer that anyone bringing suit against them be represented by fishmongers, not trial laywers. Or something.
I've met those trial lawyers -- and they are, as you might expect, incredibly overworked and underpaid individuals doing this work not for love of lucre but desire for justice. And, if I may project some of my own feelings at this very moment, righteous anger against asshole oil companies.
The rest of the ad is unforgivable character assassination and innuendo.
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