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Man Hatin’ Transfer
EPA declines to regulate polluted water transfers Corporate farms and other businesses would not need to obtain a Clean Water Act permit in many water-transfer cases, under a rule proposed by the U.S. EPA yesterday. The rule would apply regardless of how polluted the water is — but hey, corporate farming always produces clean water, […]
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Sulfur, So Good
EPA is jazzed about new rules on ultra-low sulfur diesel New federal clean-air rules came into effect yesterday, requiring sulfur content to be cut by 97 percent in at least four-fifths of U.S.-refined diesel fuel. The new “ultra-low sulfur diesel” will hit service stations in the fall. The U.S. EPA estimates it will raise the […]
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Wal-Mart and Beyonce
If you're interested, Wal-Mart is webcasting its 2006 shareholders meeting. American Idol's Taylor Hicks will be performing. And Beyonce. Freaky. (CEO Lee Scott is talking about sustainability as we speak.)
(Live performances archived here.)
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Americans and Climate Change: Diffusion of responsibility I
"Americans and Climate Change: Closing the Gap Between Science and Action" (PDF) is a report synthesizing the insights of 110 leading thinkers on how to educate and motivate the American public on the subject of global warming. Background on the report here. I'll be posting a series of excerpts (citations have been removed; see original report). If you'd like to be involved in implementing the report's recommendations, or learn more, visit the Yale Project on Climate Change website.
This chapter is about the fact that no organization or institution bears responsibility for taking action on climate change. Everyone assumes someone else will do it. I've put the first section, which describes the problem, below. Tomorrow I'll post the proposed solutions.
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The $36,000 baby rebate
Robert Samuelson has written a birth dearth article for the Washington Post, as has Daniel Gross for Slate. Birth dearth articles appear on a fairly regular basis and are almost indistinguishable from one another. Typically they are initiated when some industrialized nation with low fertility rates announces a game plan to goad its women into having more babies, or when another book on the subject hits the market. In this case it is Vladimir Putin who has proposed that Russia pay women a lump sum bribe of $36,000 to have a child.
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Skeptics
One problem with being a slacking blogger is that by the time you get around to writing about something, everyone else has already covered it. So I don't have much new to say about Joel Achenbach's crucial Washington Post piece on the remaining climate-change skeptics.
Some folks are angry that Achenbach gave the skeptics a microphone and refused to pass judgment on them. Others say that by simply giving the skeptics room to make their case in their own words, he skewers them better than any direct attack could, since these wackjobs discredit themselves.
Matt McIrvin and Brad Delong are in the former camp. John Quiggin and Kevin Drum are in the latter camp. As, I suppose, am I. I never trust my perceptions of these articles in the popular press, though. To folks who have followed the debate, these skeptic outliers look like clowns, yes -- we don't need that pointed out. But what about "normal people"? I have no idea.
(See also Achenbach's discussion of the piece and his segment on bloggingheads.tv wherein he discusses it.)
One thing I will say: I don't think it will matter much if the far right's token scientists are finally and totally discredited (much in the way I don't think it matters much that conservative intellectuals have abandoned supply-side economics). These token experts are useful but not necessary. The far right has built a completely insulated, impervious alternate media universe (FOX, talk radio, etc.) through which information is filtered. It doesn't matter if global warming is accepted by all the experts; as long as conservative commentators, radio hosts, and talking heads are willing to spread disinformation -- and have we found any limits yet? -- the disinformation will keep circulating. If experts could quash this stuff once and for all, it would have happened long ago.
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More Gore lies!
Details here.
(Yes, you need to have seen the movie to know what I'm talking about.)
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Americans and Climate Change: Incentives: Environmentalists
"Americans and Climate Change: Closing the Gap Between Science and Action" (PDF) is a report synthesizing the insights of 110 leading thinkers on how to educate and motivate the American public on the subject of global warming. Background on the report here. I'll be posting a series of excerpts (citations have been removed; see original report). If you'd like to be involved in implementing the report's recommendations, or learn more, visit the Yale Project on Climate Change website.
Ah, now it gets personal! Below is what I consider an extremely astute diagnosis of the reasons professional environmentalists haven't engaged the subject of climate change very well.
