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It’s not a moral health club

One of the subtlest and most dangerous flaws haunting environmental analysis is the tendency to view the world as some sort of moral health club. The world is not a series of tests; it is an imperfect place we do our imperfect best to make better.

Bjørn Lomborg, for example, loves to point out you can save more lives per dollar by funding clean water or mosquito netting than by fighting global warming. Economists and statisticians deal with the hard choices -- for other people anyway. I notice Lomborg never suggests that people would be better off donating money to UNICEF than buying copies of his books, or paying his speaking fees. I've never heard of a study comparing the benefits of funding economics departments at universities to mosquito nets; maybe we could get by with one-third of the economists, and use 66 percent of the money we currently spend on various types of economics to help save the lives of poor people.

Same as it ever was

A right-wing think tank called the Tennessee Center for Policy Research has been selling this gimmicky horseshit to the blogs and mainstream media. It’s everywhere; Drudge picked it up, and a friend of mine saw it on the local news here in Seattle just last night. Jim Henley nails it so perfectly I just have […]

Save your work

Funny story. Yesterday, I had two posts I’d been working on for hours open in my HTML editor (Dreamweaver). One was a long analysis of Cheney’s recent craziness. The other was one of my periodic link posts, where I dump about 20 interesting stories from the last few weeks, with a few sentences on each. […]

Skills shortage in Alberta

From the unfolding saga of "how Canada can suck ever more oil from the ground" we get this little news item:

Canada and Mexico should accelerate efforts to import temporary Mexican energy workers to alleviate the skills shortage in Alberta and other provinces as oil sands development ramps up, top North American CEOs will recommend today.

An Inconvenient Truth triumphs at the Oscars, and more

Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: Texas Fold ‘Em Martin Who? They’ve Had Their Filament Kenya Screw Me Now? Anything You Can’t Do I Can’t Do Better Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: On Track Betting Bad Wrap Boots Camp A Winter’s Trail

No, it’s not a disease

Gesundheit.

I know biofuels are terrible and will starve us, but check out this Newsweek article on Jatropha. When I was in the Peace Corps in Guinee-Bissau, we used this to grow living fences to keep the goats out of our gardens. It's the growingest plant I've ever seen -- whack off a branch from your neighbor's hedge with a machete, stick it in the ground, and presto, it sprouts like a weed, no irrigation needed.

Laugh. Groan.

And the Oscar-recount jokes keep on coming ...

Surprisingly hip

Because the world demands it, here is Al Gore’s (surprisingly hip) iTunes playlist (via Ecorazzi): Track One: I Need To Wake Up, by Melissa Etheridge (From An Inconvenient Truth) "There are many of Melissa Etheridge’s songs I could choose to be a part of my list but this one is more meaningful to me than […]

Probably not, despite rumors

Rumor’s going around that Arnie, term-limited from continuing in the governor’s manse after 2010, may run for Senate against Barbara Boxer. A long discussion by Paul Hogarth examines all the angles and concludes that, eh, probably not. (hat tip: reader LL)

Gore parties with the glitterati

Sean Hannity’s not going to be happy about this.