Uncategorized

Looks good

File under "why elections matter." After listening to this, I was struck by two things:

1. It feels great to know that even though I might not agree with everything the Democrats are going to do with respect to the environment, at least now there are people in charge with the public interest in mind.
2. With the Democrats' current momentum, if they can win the presidency in 2008 and increase their Congressional majorities, the next 3-5 years could be truly monumental for environmental progress. This could be an era like the early 1970s that defines a generation.

Arizona State and other universities plug sustainability

The Christian Science Monitor brings word that Arizona State University will launch a School of Sustainability in January -- the first of its kind in the U.S. ASU leads a pack of similarly green-minded schools, some of which have begun to spend in the millions wooing specialists, building green, and offering sustainable curricula.

Sign up for a Grist phone survey

Have you signed up to take part in Grist's phone survey? Inquiring ears want to know: What would you like to see from Grist in the new year? More of this, less of that? We did a rootin'-tootin' job on this, but that left something to be desired? Think we're great? Think we're mediocre? Just need someone to talk to? Get on the horn!

He foresaw the problem

Former U.S. President Gerald Ford died yesterday at 93.

At the bottom of this post is a long section on energy from Ford's 1975 State of the Union speech. In it he noted that America's surplus oil -- and its attendant ability to stabilize world oil prices and prevent the emergence of a petroleum cartel -- had vanished in 1970; we had become net importers of oil. He worried about our loss of energy independence and recommended a crash course in energy production.

You will recall that President Carter took those concerns seriously and put in place programs to address them.

But the cartel that formed after we lost our energy independence, OPEC, quite enjoyed our dependence. Rather than use it to hurt us, it plied the world market with cheap oil, upon which floated enormous U.S. prosperity. Ronald Reagan abandoned all pretense of fighting for energy independence and instead cruised on cheap-oil-driven economic growth to "Morning in America."

Robert Novak thinks poor industry is getting beat up

I'm in D.C. for the holidays, so I have the pleasure of reading the Washington Post in its entirety, instead of just sporadic links.

I can report back to the rest of the U.S.: rest easy. You are not missing much.

Robert Novak rings in some Christmas cheer with an op-ed, "Losing it to to the greens."

Apparently, thanks to "environmentalists' well-financed propaganda operation," there are supporters for carbon legislation in even the Bush administration, and industry is "utterly helpless" and "utterly clueless as to how to respond."

So unfair, with all the cards stacked up against industry that way. Tell you what, Mr. Novak, environmentalists are nothing if not fair -- and what the hell, it's Christmas -- so here's what we'll do.

We'll swap budgets with your industry pals.

Yes, I know, it seems almost suicidally generous, but we wouldn't want to win unfairly. We'll take Big Oil, Big Coal, Big Utility, and Big Auto's dough, and you and your friends can laugh all the way to the bank on Sierra Club's famous riches. I'll even throw in Vote Solar's private island as a personal gesture of apology.

Say bye-bye

Check this out.

The population of mountain gorillas is so low now that the next human disease they catch may wipe them out. This is probably how most of the megafauna extinctions happened. A warming climate pushed a species into small pockets with low populations. Then people arrived with their novel diseases that finished it off. TB has been found in the bones of mammoths -- the same disease that may finish off the last mountain gorillas.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I read stories on the destruction of our biodiversity reluctantly and with a groan because it is so depressing, enhanced by a feeling of total helplessness. I may post soon on a brainstorm session to try to flush out novel ideas to stop this -- with help from commenters and a poll or two.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all the Gristmill readers who celebrate it. To those who celebrate proximate holidays, merry ... those. And to those who celebrate nothing at all, well, here's hoping you make it through the season with your sanity intact.

Now I'm off to play with my kids' new StompRocket.

But yes!

I was reading this month's Scientific American last night and came upon an article on ethanol. You can't read it without a subscription, so, sorry about that. Matthew Wald, a reporter for the New York Times, wrote it. Interestingly enough, not everyone at the NYT appears to have the same opinion on corn ethanol.

I was expecting the usual: inaccurate, incomplete, and pseudo-neutral. However, it turned out to be quite good. The article was long (which is a necessity with complicated topics), and the author made no pretense of neutrality.

Coal and cars, two great tastes that … gack!

...you might want to hurt yourself:

"A clean car that runs on coal!"

A more appropriate headline:

"A car on coal. Run!"

From Stern to Al

My editors have always told me: if you want to reach the biggest audience, publish late on the Friday before Christmas weekend.

Mission accomplished!

My list of the top 10 environmental stories of 2006 is available here. I hope all three of you enjoy it.