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I couldn’t do it

While I was wandering around on YouTube I stumbled across a segment from CNBC featuring Ana Unruh Cohen, Director of Environmental Policy at the Center for American Progress and periodic Gristmill contributor, squaring off with Ben Lieberman from the Heritage Foundation. The subject was possible changes in energy policy under the new Democratic Congress. Watch it:

Is Western time on the outs?

"The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness," wrote John Muir (in a posthumous collection of his notes called John of the Mountains).

Yes, but why? Why does a wild forest take us into the universe more surely than the open sea? Or a vast metropolis teeming with people?

This month in Orion, critic and novelist John Berger takes a crack at that question in an essay called "Between Forests" (not online, unfortunately). Berger takes the forest photographs of Czech photographer Jitka Hanzlová as a point of departure. A glance at one of Hanzlová's mysterious photographs from her Forest series gets across Berger's essential point -- they have been taken "from the inside" of the forest. He writes:

Brace yourself

Discover magazine deems Silent Spring the 16th greatest science book ever published. Brace yourself for a flood of misinformed invective from the "DDT rulez and enviros kill African babies" crowd (about whom Tim Lambert is the authoritative source).

Also of note is No. 25: Gaia, by James Lovelock, who has recently sold his soul to the nuclear lobby.

Cause it’s nasty

As the Japanese prepare to herd thousands of dolphins into coves and stab them with spears and bash them with clubs until the sea is bright red with blood, many groups, including environmentalists, are uniting to oppose the slaughter.

A nice old-fashioned polemic

Reader WH sent along a link to this CBC Fifth Estate documentary -- "The Denial Machine" -- about the scientists and industries working to obfuscate basic global warming science. You can watch the full hour on their site.

As far as I can tell, it's a full-on polemic. The Pielkes of the world will no doubt tsk-tsk, lament the lack of proper qualifications and hedges, and scold it for being shrill. But I say: more polemic, please.

Hopefully tenacious butt kicking will ensue

Eliot Spitzer's eco-lieutenant to be made executive director of NRDC:

Rubber Ducky, You’re Not the One

San Francisco set to enact first-in-nation ban on toxics in baby toys Next week, San Francisco will become the first U.S. city to ban the manufacture, distribution, and sale of baby toys containing chemicals linked to cancer and developmental delays. The prime targets — bisphenol A and phthalates — have been found in everything from […]

Flipping the Bird

Experts say risk of a bird-flu pandemic has lessened The world is safe from a bird-flu pandemic. Maybe. Last week, researchers said they’d isolated the mutations that could turn the virus into a human-to-human juggernaut, while another team unveiled an “MChip” test that identifies the distinctive flu strain, which has caused 153 human deaths since […]

For those concerned about the blogger’s floor

So, last Friday and this whole weekend, I've been moving. Moving with two small kids is so fun! I wish I could do it every week! [Beats head on desk.]

Anyway, it reminded me that a while back I wrote a post soliciting flooring advice. I thought I'd do a quick follow-up for the vanishingly small number of you who care.

So we can transition to renewables without cost

You are going to see me posting a lot about ways we can increase efficiency -- for example, CyberTran and electric cars.

If you transition to carbon-free sources of energy without adding efficiency, energy as percentage of total GDP increases -- carbon-free sources of energy still cost (on average) more than carbon-emitting ones. This leaves less for everything else (food, clothing, shelter, medical care).

Sufficient efficiency improvements let us phase in non-fossil-fuel sources at no net cost. If we increase GDP per unit of energy, we can pay more for that energy.

To paraphrase Amory Lovins: We don't burn fuel for its own sake; we want warm toes and cold beer.

In homes, for example, if efficient use of power can still run appliances and provide heat and light, we sacrifice nothing and save money. That money will pay for more expensive clean energy. The price per kWh will be higher, but the electricity bill will be the same.

Even at high prices, the potential of renewable energy is great -- more than we are likely to need this century. Still, efficiency would let us take advantage of costlier sources without economic damage.