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Toxic 100 corporate polluters

The Political Economy Research Institute has updated its Toxic 100 list of the biggest corporate polluters. All your faves are represented -- DuPont, Exxon, ADM, etc.

Congrats to the big winners!

Protecting the ethanol industry

Recently, a bipartisan group of 32 members of Congress led by John Thune (R-S.D.) sent a letter (PDF) to U.S. EPA administrator Stephen Johnson asking him to loosen clean-air regulations on coal-fired ethanol plants -- the recommended change would increase allowable emissions from 100 tons to 250 tons annually.

The purported rationale is to "bolster ethanol production across the country," and it would no doubt do so. After all, it's much easier to built a coal-fired plant when you don't have to spend extra money on the best available pollution-control technologies.

But of course, this makes sense only if ethanol production is an end in itself. If the point of increasing ethanol use is to reduce pollution and GHG emissions, then this regulatory change makes no sense.

This, in a nutshell, is my concern about ethanol: The impetus has shifted seamlessly from finding solutions to our energy problems to subsidizing big ethanol-related industries. Those two goals overlap a little, but only a little.

Local and state air-pollution officials express their dismay here.

Oh, and on a related note: Check out this completely daffy statement from Grassley and Thune on why tariffs on ethanol imports should remain in place. Brazil doesn't have enough to export to us anyway! The oil companies would benefit! Etc. The real reason, obviously, is that the domestic ethanol industry would suffer. Again, we seem to have lost sight of the larger goal ... if we ever had sight of it.

(via dKos)

Lock, Stalk, and Barrel

Ethanol or high-fructose corn syrup, ADM can’t lose Agribiz giant Archer Daniels Midland is making a killing on high-fructose corn syrup, despite rising concern about its health effects. How? Believe it or not, it’s connected to Brazil’s successful sugarcane ethanol production. Tom Philpott traces the long, sordid string of tariffs and insider deals that allows […]

It’s funny ’cause it’s true

Ah, The Onion. How do they do it?

Interview with Mike Davis

There's some pretty shocking stuff in this Tom Engelhardt interview with Mike Davis, author of City of Quartz and, most recently, Planet of Slums. It's about the extraordinary growth of urban slums filled with people unconnected to the global economy, and with no prospect of connecting. He calls it "urbanization without urbanity."

It's part one of a two-parter. Here's a little taste:

Kyoto is a bargain

Amusing column in the Washington Post today. (And I mean "amusing" in a bitterly ironic sort of way.)

The U.S. has spent roughly $300 billion on the Iraq war, with the final figure estimated to be in the ballpark of $500 billion to $1 trillion. Implementing the Kyoto Protocol, on the other hand, is estimated to cost the U.S. somewhere in the neighborhood of $300 - $350 billion (though those figures are speculative and, some would argue, inflated).

By the way, the Kyoto Protocol was rejected by U.S. lawmakers because it would harm the economy too much.

White tags

Hey, this is kind of cool. A company called Sterling Planet has created what they're calling "white tags." Just as green tags are based on the creation and use of clean energy, white tags are awarded based on targets for saving energy. In other words, they're energy-efficiency credits.

I hope this takes off. Energy efficiency is a huge source of free, clean energy, and some well-targeted incentives could kickstart a process that would eventually take on a life of its own.

Climate coverage in the NYT

Maximum Leader Chip flagged this defense of the New York Times' climate coverage by science editor Laura Chang. He thinks it's very lame; I tend to think it's just medium lame.

The NYT's climate coverage is actually quite good relative to other U.S. media, but, as a reader points out, a little tepid compared to, say, the BBC's.

The fact is that no media has figured out how to cover the climate crisis well. As the NYT's Andy Revkin is always quick to point out, it's "the antithesis of traditional news." But here's a suggestion, one Chang and Revkin both skip over: How about moving climate coverage off the science pages?

Even conservative estimates of average-global-temperature increase would mean substantial effects on all of society -- the economy, security, health, and so on. Project the issue past the science geeks, I say. Get it out into the real, day-to-day world.

Marine mammals face myriad dangers thanks to humans

Yo-ho-ho mateys! Today we celebrate the many ways man has pillaged marooned f**ked over plank-walked marine mammals everywhere.

Off Hawaii, boats have hit a record number of humpback whales (go team human! high score, baby!), including some of the 1,000-or-so calves born this year. Though some say the increase in "hits" is due to a growing population of the endangered whale [happy face here], I ask, what about the growing population of whale-watchers, which now totals some 300,000 every year in Hawaii alone? [Reality check here]

Then there's the story about the "dozens" of dolphins found dead on Bulgaria's Black Sea shore after being tangled in fishing nets. "Dozens" sounds like maybe 24 or 36 dead dolphins ... but we're actually talking 55 found within a span of 10 days near the town of Shabla (clearly the hometown of Bob Loblaw). And last month, the death of 11 dolphins on a nearby Romanian shore was blamed on poaching. Don't even get me started on the whaling happening off the coasts of Japan, Norway, and Iceland.

NYT/CBS poll results

Bush haters will find much to celebrate in the latest NYT/CBS poll (write-up here; full results in PDF form here). Bush's approval ranking is tanking, overall -- 31%, the third lowest of any president in 50 years, behind Nixon and Carter -- and on virtually every individual issue, including the war in Iraq and terrorism.

Enviros, however, have reason for glumness. Question three is: "What do you think is the most important problem facing this country today?" 14% chose the cryptic "heating oil/gas crisis." The equally vague "environment" garnered an underwhelming 1%. And global warming? Wasn't even on the list. The big winner was "war," with 19%.

Even more glumly, a majority approves of plans to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, by 48-45%.

On the subject of global warming, how much do I hate this question?