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Some juicy questions at issue

If Justin hasn't sated your hunger for blogging about today's Supreme Court case, check out this series of posts from Jonathan Adler. Lots of good discussion beneath as well.

(NB: below the fold I speak about legal issues, about which my ignorance is boundless. You've been warned.)

They must be supplemented with gov’t intervention

Jason D Scorse agrees with the Reason article arguing that the way to phase out fossil fuels is to tax them -- to make their price reflect some or all of their social costs (referred to by economists as "Pigovian" tax). Fossil fuels will become more expensive, low-carbon technology will become competitive, and everybody will do the "happy happy joy joy" dance.

Unfortunately, a strategy based mainly on price increases will work ineffectively, if at all -- a position for which we have both historical evidence and good theoretical grounding. (This is not to say that Pigovian taxes have no place, but as a supplementary measure, not a primary one.)

And I’m checking it. Twice.

People like to number things. They like to make lists. But I'm always impressed by the seeming randomness with which organizations decide to publish decisive lists. Why choose Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2006 to publish your top 100 green campaigners of all time? Why not?!

Not quite at the end of the year and a little late for the turn of the millennium, the U.K. Environment Agency released their "Earthshakers" list today, just in time for ... well, I'm sure it's in time for something.

Do you pod here often?

Speaking of incremental improvements, Grist will be launching a weekly podcast shortly. Before we officially roll it out to the entire Grist audience, I'm hoping you Gristmillians could take a listen and provide some feedback. Specifically, we'd like to make sure that the RSS feed is working, the podcasts are downloading and playing fine, and the sound quality is good.

If you're an iTunes user, click here to find our weekly podcast in the iTunes store. If you'd prefer to use another RSS reader or podcatcher, use this:

http://www.grist.org/rss/weekly_podcast.xml

Please email feedback to me at podcasts [at] grist [dot] org. Thanks, and enjoy!

Al Gore out, Big Oil in for public schools

Gristmill readers have been knocking at our proverbial door to make sure we've seen Laurie David's article from Sunday's Washington Post. It details the National Science Teachers Association's (NSTA) rejection of 50,000 free copies of An Inconvenient Truth for use in science classes across the country, and it's definitely worth some Gristmill grinding.

Techno-hotness!

Grist is in the early conceptual stages of a comprehensive redesign -- or as they call it in the entertainment industry, a reimagining. It's going to kick ass. Your mind will be blown. You'll never see web media the same way again. You will be spiritually renewed. Your love life will perk up. Your breakfast cereal will taste better.

Oil imperialism is going to be the end of us

Via Political Animal, this little nugget got me thinking:

In other words, the bill to bring Army and Navy battalions back to the status they were in before the invasion ... [will be] $50 to $100 billion. "The next president will face a staggering bill," Wilkerson says, not even counting the costs of further efforts in Iraq.

So, not counting the cost of the war itself, just returning U.S. armed forces to the fighting condition they maintained back in ye olden dayes of Feb. 2003 will cost as much as $100 billion. The estimates for the total cost of the war have been pegged as high as $2 trillion.

We talk a great deal about the "externalities" of oil. It's important to remember that one of its costliest externalities -- probably No. 2 behind climate change -- is American military spending in the Persian Gulf, and at least two major wars.

Show Us Your Titanium

Smog-eating mineral added to buildings and roads in Europe, Japan Why do buildings just stand there when they could make themselves useful? Some companies have a solution: coating buildings and roads in Europe and Japan with a “smog-eating” mineral, titanium dioxide, that cleans surfaces and nearby air. The coating can reduce some pollutants by 20 […]

Best Feet Forward

Two takes on the box-office smash Happy Feet For the last couple of weeks, a moving musical about a dance-happy penguin has been romping through U.S. box offices, shoving even suave operative James Bond out of the way. What’s the key to the movie’s success, and does its environmental message ring true? Andrew Sharpless of […]

The Hunter is a Lonely Heart

Christian Coalition leader-to-be resigns over climate change, poverty stance We remember when evangelical leaders served time before stepping down in disgrace — hello, fabulous Bakker boy — but the latest kerfuffle involves a figurehead who hadn’t even assumed his position. And this time the scandal isn’t sexual, it’s environmental. The Rev. Joel C. Hunter, a […]