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Where does your gas come from?

Chicago Tribune reporter Paul Salopek spent the last year on "an energy safari," working backwards from the customers and night-shift clerks at a single Marathon gas station in exurban Chicago (and the downstate refinery that supplies it) to the exact fields where the oil first left the ground. Last September, for instance, 71% of its gas came from the U.S., 20% from Africa, and 10% from Saudi Arabia.

The eight stories and related multimedia (photos from Iraq, Louisiana, Nigeria, and Venezuela, and a 12-part video documentary) neatly tie together the disparate lives on both ends of the petroleum pipe: an angry gang recruit in Itak Abasi, Nigeria, an oilfield manager in Basra living under what amounts to solitary confinement, fiercely Chavista village elders in Venezuela, the gas station manager who spends a third of her pay on gas, and a "concerned" Hummer-driving realtor in St. Charles, Illinois. The Tribune calls our "globe-spanning energy network" "so fragile, so beholden to hostile powers and so clearly unsustainable, that our car-centered lifestyle seems more at risk than ever" -- a bit out of character for a Republican newspaper with a suburban circulation base.

Checklist liberalism

It's slightly off topic for this blog, but what with all the environmentalist exhortations to "form coalitions" and whatnot, I thought it would be a public service to link to Mark Schmitt's typically wise words on the subject of "checklist liberalism."

Does this Shahtoosh shawl make my butt look big?

Ever wonder why warthog fur coats never caught on? Infinitesimal progress is being made to control the illegal wildlife trade (outpaced only by the illegal drug and weapon trades). According to this article in the Independent, 250 "shahtoosh" shawls and four tons of ivory were intercepted just this summer. Some elements in Japan are starting to irritate me no end. In addition to undermining whaling bans and paying $50K for a tuna, they now want to resume the ivory trade.

The role of government in environmental protection

There is an ongoing debate about the appropriate role of government for solving environmental problems, with many environmentalists calling for increased government intervention and many people more predisposed to individual responsibility calling for less.

Jim Moriarty, president of Surfrider Foundation, answers questions

Jim Moriarty. What work do you do? I work at an environmental, action-sports-oriented nonprofit called Surfrider Foundation. What does your organization do? We exist for the protection and enjoyment of oceans, waves, and beaches. Two examples: we fight for clean water and beach access. How do you get to work? Mini Cooper S or telecommute. […]

Partisanship

This is why I worry about global warming becoming a partisan issue:

Some Portland skepticism

In re: the post below on Kristof's obsession with Portland, David Appell writes to say that the main claim -- that Portland has reached pre-1990 GHG levels -- is probably false anyway. The Portland Office of Sustainable Development apparently all but admitted as much.

See "Portland's Compliance with Kyoto: The Birth of an Urban Myth" (Word doc) for details.

From Sea to Declining Sea

Oceans are really messed up, L.A. Times reports in special series The Los Angeles Times is running a snazzy multimedia series on the distressing decline of the world’s oceans, with photos, video, and depressing statistics galore (for example, 97 percent of elkhorn and staghorn coral off Florida’s coast have disappeared since 1975). In part one […]

Kristof vu

Nic Kristof, last July:

"Kyoto would have wrecked our economy,'' Mr. Bush told a Danish interviewer recently, referring to the accord to curb carbon emissions. Maybe that was a plausible argument a few years ago, but now the city of Portland is proving it flat wrong.

Newly released data show that Portland, America's environmental laboratory, has achieved stunning reductions in carbon emissions. It has reduced emissions below the levels of 1990, the benchmark for the Kyoto accord, while booming economically.

Nic Kristof, this July:

But all across the country, states and local governments have chipped away at those arguments for delay -- actually, pretty much demolished them -- by showing that there are myriad small steps we can take that significantly curb carbon emissions and that are easily affordable.

A leader of that effort has been Portland, earnestly green even when it is wintry gray. In 1993, the city adopted a plan to curb greenhouse gases, and it is bearing remarkable fruit: local greenhouse gas emissions are back down to 1990 levels, while nationally they are up 16 percent. And instead of damaging its economy, Portland has boomed.

Kristof really likes Portland. Or else he's having trouble finding other good news.

Corn-fed NASCAR

OK, so I'm a little behind on my NASCAR news. But I was at the gym today when I saw up on the TV cars whizzing around the track followed by ... a bucolic scene of corn blowing in the wind. "NASCAR," the the closed-captioning read, "is helping save the environment." Here's CBS's coverage of the matter

One statement in particular is highly misleading:

According to Argonne National Laboratory, the use of only 10 percent of the clean-burning fuel reduces gas emissions by 12 to 19 percent compared to conventional gasoline.

No way does this figure take into account the carbon emissions from growing the corn and manufacturing the ethanol. This is just the tailpipe savings.

Could the first Indy car sponsored by the Sierra Club be far behind?

Doubt it. But maybe an Indy-sponsored Archer Daniels Midland car.