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Get smart
This is a bit far afield, perhaps, but the British press is reporting that new drivers in the UK will soon have to take an "eco-driving" test in order to get their license. The UK initiative is modelled after a Dutch program that claims that smarter driving habits -- slower acceleration, less braking, lower top speeds -- can shave gas consumption by a third or more.
Last year, after a brief (and undeserved) flap over they Toyota Prius's worse-than-advertised mileage, ardent hybrid enthusiasts began circulating advice about how to maximize the vehicles' efficiency. So it's good to see some effort to do the same thing for the 99+ percent of cars on the road that aren't hybrids.
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We can expect to see much more of this
A different take on the energy issue:
If America is to continue to climb the curve of technological advance, hopefully culminating in a society powered by the ultimately cheap, clean and flexible source of energy -- nuclear fusion, which would give us transmutation of the elements as a "spinoff" -- we must continue to seek out, extract, and refine the petroleum gifts of the Earth. As the prices of oil and gas advance, and ordinary people find it increasingly difficult to heat their homes and drive their cars, they will grow very tired of the self-righteous pseudo-moralizing of the save-the-Earth crowd. At some point, when hundreds or thousands of Americans have died of exposure to the cold and the shortfall of petroleum has precipitated a nationwide depression, anyone who dares to suggest that further energy exploration, extraction, or refinement is unacceptable for some moss-and-dirt-worshipping reason will find himself ornamenting the end of a rope.
And you thought idle eliminationist rhetoric was only directed at the anti-war crowd!
(via Wolcott)
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Roger Mustalish, Amazon researcher and protector, answers questions
Roger Mustalish. With what environmental organization are you affiliated? I’m president of the Amazon Center for Environmental Education and Research Foundation, a U.S. nonprofit with offices in West Chester, Penn., and in Iquitos and Puerto Maldonado, Peru. What does your organization do? ACEER’s mission is to promote environmental conservation by being a catalyst for awareness, […]
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The Songhua Remains the Same
Pollution from November spill in China still taints downstream waterways Months after a factory explosion in China dumped benzene and other chemicals into the Songhua River, thawing ice is releasing a second wave of toxins into downstream waterways near Khabarovsk, Russia. More than half a million residents of the city have been advised not to […]
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Roger That
Roger Mustalish, Amazon researcher and protector, answers Grist‘s questions Imagine strolling along a walkway that weaves through the treetops of a lush Amazonian cloud forest in Peru. Construction on this canopy classroom will begin this summer, thanks to Roger Mustalish and the nonprofit he runs, the Amazon Center for Environmental Education and Research. As InterActivist […]
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Curious George and Jack Johnson
A little while back, on a whim, I downloaded Sing-A-Longs & Lullabies for the Film Curious George, a set of songs by crunchy-mellow-surferdude Jack Johnson. I haven't seen the movie and I don't own any other Johnson albums, but my kid went through a Curious George phase, so I figured he might like it.I'm somewhat embarrassed to reveal that he's not the only one. In the shower the other day I found myself humming:
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Farmers markets
We're all fairly familiar with the environmental and economic benefits of farmers markets -- they prevent food from traveling long distances, they keep money in the regional economy, they encourage organic farming, they keep land in the hands of local farmers and out of the hands of sprawly developers, etc. etc.
But as I strolled around the Ballard farmers market today, I was most struck by the social benefits.
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Insuring pork
Two articles in the Washington Post jumped out at me this morning. Neither is explicitly "green," but both have important environmental implications.
The first, "Insurers Retreat from Coasts, Katrina Losses May Force More Costs on Taxpayers," was front-page, above the fold -- even in my waffle-deprived state I couldn't miss it. What the story missed was any mention of the idea that perhaps the role of governments -- local, state, and national -- was not as an insurance backstop for development exposed to high risk of natural catastrophes, but as preventer of such development in the first place. Insurance policy is not my forte, and after reading the article I can't say which competing proposal would be better, but I'm sure a better policy than either would be preventing development in some these areas. Better policy, for sure, but more difficult politics ...
And as Michael Grunwald makes clear in his "Pork by Any Other Name," in this day and age politics beats policy every time. To quote him, "Congress often seems to have devolved into a policy-free zone, where pork not only greases the wheels of legislation, but is the very purpose of legislation."
