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Even with the proposal as low as 4 percent per year

This sad but predictable. The UAW has consistently been one of the most anti-environmental unions in the country. What excuse they can come up with now that climate change is an established fact and U.S. automakers are getting creamed by Toyota is beyond me. It is simply myopic thinking in the extreme. And Bush's proposal is only for a 4 percent increase in fuel efficiency per year! This is one of those issues that don't break down neatly across the political spectrum.

Hard sell? Maybe not

Last week, The New York Times published an article that rhetorically posed this question: If the 11 coal-fired power plants proposed by TXU are kaput, and the state continues to experience record growth, where is the new energy going to come from?

The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy has one answer: energy efficiency.

We've got another: Solar. And we have a plan to make it happen. My colleague JP Ross is the primary drafter of legislation for a $500 million solar program, enough to jumpstart the state's solar industry and turn the fossil fuel state on to the renewable energy path. It's been introduced as HB 2226 by Representative Coleman, and Sen. Rodney Ellis filed a companion bill in the Senate.

Food and Punishment

Colorado’s inmates-as-farmworkers plan says plenty about our food culture Last summer, Colorado cracked down on illegal immigrants and the businesses that hire them, causing lots of folks to flee the state. But now that spring is rolling around, farmers are finding themselves out of luck when it comes to labor. Who will replace the poorly […]

Maybe They Should Just Call It LNG Beach

Natural-gas terminals canceled, pursued, and potentially dangerous In a great victory for greens (we love saying that!), Chevron Corp. has announced that it will not build a $650 million liquefied-natural-gas terminal off of Mexico’s Coronado Islands, rewarding years of protests about the risks to marine life. But farther north, the seas aren’t so smooth. Even […]

Biodiversity loss accelerating

Mongabay has posted an interview with Dr. Peter Raven, one of the world's preeminent biodiversity experts. It's a real good read. Although too long for most American's to tolerate, Grist readers should have no problem with it.

The interview is at the bottom of the article. I suggest going straight to it. If you read the prologue first you may commit suicide before the interview, which is upbeat and hopeful. Then go back and read the prologue because it is informative.

Setting a standard for other candidates, perhaps?

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards announced this week that his campaign is going carbon neutral. “Global warming is an emergency and we can’t wait until the next president is elected to take action,” said Edwards in a press release. “Each of us can take responsibility in small ways to make a big difference. I encourage […]

A step closer to trains replacing plane journeys

A Morocco-Spain Chunnel will provide a land rail link between Africa and Europe.

John McGrath asks if a China-Africa link will follow, and then a railway across the Bering Strait.

Maybe in the long run we can link most of the world by rail, and save plane journeys for Australia, New Zealand, other islands, and major emergencies. That would be a nice end run around the difficult problem of air travel emissions.

Two things that aren’t green, but rule

Just to give you some respite from all the, you know, earth-this earth-that:

A new Gore idea

Short but intriguing: Former US Vice-President Al Gore called on Tuesday for Kyoto countries to bring forward by two years the start date of a new global warming treaty, to 2010, given the urgency of the global warming problem. ….. The United States pulled out of the pact on the basis of the possible costs […]

Public divided over whether costly steps are needed

From the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA):

An international poll finds widespread agreement that climate change is a pressing problem. This majority, however, divides over whether the problem of global warming is urgent enough to require immediate, costly measures or whether more modest efforts are sufficient.

Read the rest at their website. One data point: 39 percent of Americans think global warming is an important threat, 46 percent think it is a critical threat, only 17 percent think it is not important at all.