Time to clear out the backlog!
CNN has a whole package of stories and interactive info widgets under the banner "Fueling America." Great work — really valuable.
The U.S. State Department has a series of electronic journals called Economic Perspectives. The latest edition is called Clean Energy Solutions, and if you’re looking for the official gov’t line on energy, it’s a good snapshot. On the upside, see Amory Lovins’ piece on how to build hyper-efficient cars. On the less upside, James A. Lake shills for the nuke industry.
Judith Lewis has a sharp piece in the L.A. Weekly on the DIY electric-car crowd.
In The Nation, Mark Hertsgaard discusses the G8’s plan to spread nuclear across the globe, driven by newly enthusiastic support from, of all places, the U.K. Here’s the punchline: The Brits claim they won’t subsidize nukes. They’ll just let the industry blossom like a lotus in the desert. Back here on Planet Clue, there’s no nuclear industry without subsidies — never has been, never will be. So they’re either lying about wanting nukes or lying about the subsidies. One guess.
Speaking of the U.K. and nukes, The Guardian has a special section devoted to the issue. See especially George Monbiot’s anti-nuke piece.
A fellow named Jason Godesky is doing fantastic writing on energy issues over at Anthropik. In particular, check out "The Other Fossil Fuel," about the illusion that coal could scale up to cover our current energy demand. Also see "Do You Believe in Magic?" about the illusion that biofuels could scale up to cover our current energy demand, and "Splitting the Atom," about the illusion that nuclear power could scale up to cover our current energy demand. (See a theme?)
According to Jan Lundberg, protests against coal are spreading.
2006 is already very hot. Technically, the hottest.
In a radio interview, Bill Clinton reveals some fascinating tidbits about what he did and didn’t know about global warming and peak oil while he was in office.
Unfortunately it’s behind the dread Times $elect wall, but the NYT had a stellar backgrounder on the global-warming basics a couple weeks back.
Treehugger draws our attention to a long and extremely interesting piece in the Augusta Free Press about the battles being waged over a proposed wind farm in West Virginia, the heart of coal country. Right-wing think tanks are involved. The same author also has a long follow-up piece, responding to various feedback.
Writing in The American Conservative — the house mag for old-school, isolationist paleoconservatives — Kevin Phillips points out the obvious: U.S. military intervention in the Middle East is, in fact, about oil. (Phillips is the author of American Theocracy: The Perils and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money.)
World Jump Day is only three days away!
Carl Pope on offshore drilling.
Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper outlines an ambitious "Greenprint Denver" plan to remake his city along green lines.
Jeremy Faludi has a nice essay on Worldchanging about the Natural Step process for making organizations and communities more sustainable.
The Canary Project documents global warming with before-and-after pictures. Grimly beautiful.
The Bush administration, apparently stung by a critical editorial in the Washington Post, responds by detailing all its many accomplishments on global warming. You couldn’t ask for a better case study in Bush’s MO: A wide variety of industry pork, interspersed with wan half-measures and "voluntary initiatives," coated with a thick smear of BS.
