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Ford Motor Co. CEO says everything's going to be juuust fine

The kick-off discussion here at Eco:nomics was with Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally. (Which you'd know if you were following my tweeteriffic tweets!)

Last year's kick-off session was with GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt, who was 50 percent drunk and 100 percent entertaining -- frank, blunt, and occasionally profane. The contrast this time around could not have been more stark. Mulally, looking like Mr. Rogers in his sleeveless red sweater vest, murmured the corporate line in soothing tones, assuring us all that Ford is great, its new goal is to make great cars that get greater every year, and that the future is great, also filled with greatness.

He's got that lilting PR voice that releases your endorphins, but afterwards you can't remember a thing he said, except about how everything is great. For instance, he answered a question about California's fuel efficiency waiver with a torrent of won't-you-be-my-neighbor filler that you had to concentrate on really hard to realize that he, just like the other Big Auto executives, opposes granting it. The answer, basically, was "we don't want to have to make make cars to meet two standards, even though we're already making our cars more fuel efficient every year." Well, why not make them fuel efficient enough to meet the stronger standard? Then you only have to meet one.

Nothing Mulally said would begin to explain why Ford's valuation is tanking.

Talking about the future, it was clear that although Mulally sees some ethanol and electric cars in the mix, his true love and focus is the internal combustion engine, which he said Ford engineers could improve by 20-30 percent efficiency. He said ICEs will be the dominant vehicle technology for at least the next 10-15 years. Compact disc manufacturers are probably saying the same thing.

A couple of notable moments from the audience Q&A:

T. Boone Pickens got up and asked him about making cars that run on natural gas -- for "energy independence," you know. Mulally was polite, but basically said, um, no. That's dumb fracking idea and nobody wants those cars. It was pretty hilarious.

Another man got up and said that Ford had basically lost his whole generation. Mulally said, "I want to come up to your room later." I know the car companies are desperate, but I didn't know their executive were literally prostituting themselves!

Anyway, it was largely a nothingburger with happy talk sauce. Pretty much what you'd expect from an American auto company. Meanwhile, later in the evening I ran into Bill Gross of IdeaLab, who took me out to the parking lot to show me this:

That's the Aptera, a safety tested, super streamlined, fully electric two-seater, made entirely of carbon fiber, with a 100-mile range. (Tons more pictures here.) It will soon be available in California for $30,000. It's what car companies make when they're innovating instead of lobbying.

Is a payment cut real reform or just tweaking with the numbers?

Tom Vilsack has certainly got farm-state legislators talking. The buzz generated by the Obama administration's proposal to cut "direct payments" to farmers continues to grow. Unfortunately, all the sturm and drang may be for naught. And not necessarily because the cut to this particular agricultural subsidy will fail, but because it's not really reform.

The original budget language certainly seemed promising as it linked the cut in government subsidies to a new market in "ecological services." Farmers could use this new revenue to offset the losses from the subsidy cut (and would also have a new incentive to farm more sustainably). But based on recent comments from Vilsack, that whole angle seems to have gone out the window. Instead, Vilsack appears to have decided that the best course of action is to pit farmers against hungry kids. According to Reuters:

U.S. lawmakers will need to choose between supporting rich farmers or feeding more hungry children amid a slumping economy and a surging deficit, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said on Monday.

Vilsack said he already has heard concerns about the Obama administration's plan to redirect subsidy payments for large farmers into nutrition programs as a way to help end hunger by 2015 and stem the rising tide of childhood obesity.

"We will do our best to frame this discussion in that way, so that people understand: 30 million children, 90,000 farmers," Vilsack told Reuters after speaking to people who work with the nation's food banks and anti-poverty groups.

"It is a tough choice, but it's a choice that folks are going to have to make," he said.

Leave aside the fact that the middle of a severe recession isn't the time to start getting stingy. More importantly, I didn't see anything in the budget that suggested the subsidy savings would go to nutrition -- the stated rationale for the cut was environmental. And it's surprising that Vilsack would go there in the first place. It's no accident that anti-hunger programs are legislated within the Farm Bill -- the better to balance demands from farm state and urban representatives. It's true that, as food writer Michael Pollan has long observed, this marriage of convenience helps perpetuate subsidies. But it's not at all clear that explicitly pitting farmers against hungry children is the way to go.

While a cage match between 30 million children and 90,000 farmers would certainly meet the Hobbsian ideal (nasty, brutish, and short), the legislative process isn't about whose side enjoys a numerical advantage. The only measures of consequence in Congress are the size, strength, and acumen of your lobbying team -- and in that area Big Ag is hard to beat.

Obama says there’s no need to choose between sustainability and the economy

“Throughout our history, there’s been a tension between those who’ve sought to conserve our natural resources for the benefit of future generations, and those who have sought to profit from these resources. But I’m here to tell you this is a false choice. With smart, sustainable policies, we can grow our economy today and preserve […]

Waterkeeper Alliance unveils anti-coal campaign

The essay below was written by Steve Fleischli and Scott Edwards of Waterkeeper Alliance.

Right now the coal industry is engaged in a multi-million-dollar campaign propagating the lie that coal and so-called clean-coal technology are the answer to America's future energy needs. Nothing could be farther from the truth. There is no such thing as clean coal.

Waterkeeper programs in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Utah, and West Virginia have been fighting the coal industry for years. Now, they have joined together with the nearly 200 programs of Waterkeeper Alliance in a grassroots campaign called "The Dirty Lie" -- because none of us can afford to wait another minute to start creating a new national energy policy that frees us from a reliance on fossil fuels.

You don't have to live in the coal fields or in the shadow of a coal-fired power plant to be affected by this filthy industry -- coal causes acid rain, pollutes our water and food chain with mercury, and is grossly accelerating climate change. From mining it to the disposal of ash after it's burned, there is no part of the coal industry that is good for the environment, good for people, or good for America.

Every year, the 1,100 coal-fired power plants in America spew 48 tons of toxic mercury into our air, poisoning hundreds of square miles of rivers, lakes and streams, accumulating in fish, and entering our bodies through fish consumption.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that one of every six women of childbearing age now has unsafe mercury levels in her blood and, potentially, breast milk, putting more than 410,000 American children born each year at high risk for neurological damage and a grim inventory of illnesses.

And while coal-fired power plants generate about half of America's electricity, they contribute 80 percent of the total greenhouse gases from electricity production that cause global warming. Yet, even if carbon capture and sequestration technology existed to remove these emissions, it still wouldn't make coal clean.

Reps reintroduce Clean Water Protection Act, aiming to curb mountaintop-removal mining

It's official: The first shot has been fired in the legislative battle to end the devastating practice of mountaintop-removal coal mining in central Appalachia.

With the quickly growing and extraordinary nationwide support of 117 cosponsors, including 17 members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Rep. John Yarmuth (D) from the embattled coal state of Kentucky joined Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) in reintroducing the Clean Water Protection Act on Wednesday.

The act was introduced originally to challenge the outrageous executive rule change by the Bush administration to redefine "fill material" in the Clean Water Act, which has allowed coal companies to blast hundreds of mountains to bits, dump millions of tons of "excess spoil" into nearby valleys, and bury hundreds of miles of streams. An estimated 1,200 miles of waterways have been destroyed by this extreme mining process.

The end result: Toxic black waters and poisoned aquifers that have denied American citizens in the coalfields the basic right of a glass of clean water.

‘Clean coal’ flack won’t say whether coal contributes to global warming

CNN aired a segment on Wednesday morning on the “clean coal” debate. Highlights include commentary from Sierra Club coal guy Bruce Nilles, footage from the big Capitol Power Plant protest on Monday, and a clip of the Coen brothers ad that debunks the notion of “clean coal.” But the real treat is Joe Lucas, vice […]

The International Polar Year: 'Arctic sea ice will probably not recover'

Some of the top polar scientists in the world have concluded (boldface in original):

Our main conclusions so far indicate that there is a very low probability that Arctic sea ice will ever recover. As predicted by all IPCC models, Arctic sea ice is more likely to disappear in summer in the near future. However it seems like this is going to happen much sooner than models predicted, as pointed out by recent observations and data reanalysis undertaken during IPY and the Damocles Integrated Project. The entire Arctic system is evolving to a new super interglacial stage seasonally ice free, and this will have profound consequences for all the elements of the Arctic cryosphere, marine and terrestrial ecosystems and human activities. Both the atmosphere and the ocean circulation and stratification (ventilation) will also be affected.

This is what U.S. experts have been saying for a while (see here). Though not every scientist got the memo (see here). And this is just one in a long line of climate impacts coming up faster than the models projected (see here for a list).

But what I think is quite interesting is that this is the first time I've seen such leading polar scientists elaborate so bluntly the potentially dire consequences of an ice-free arctic:

Sierra Club partners up to make green … luggage?

"We look forward to increasing the presence of eco-friendly travel and accessories in the luggage and travel industries."

-- Johanna O'Kelley, director of licensing for the Sierra Club, on the organization's new partnership with Ricardo Beverly Hills

Sue Tierney withdraws her name as candidate for deputy secretary of energy

I am sorry to report that Sue Tierney will no longer be a candidate for deputy secretary of energy. She sent out an email today to friends indicating that was her decision. She would have been a first rate deputy (see here).

The email was private, so I won't discuss its contents. I will say that just months as acting assistant secretary in 1997 was pretty much all I could take of that unbelievably demanding and stressful job. And the workload -- and travel -- gets more demanding and stressful the higher up you go. Deputy is two levels above assistant secretary, so I honestly don't know how anybody manages those jobs -- and it is no surprise to me that anyone ultimately decides it isn't right for them.

I don't think it will be particularly easy to replace Tierney's multiple skill sets and talents -- but it is absolutely critical that Steven Chu pick someone who is an energy expert, preferably someone with some DOE experience, and preferably someone who can help on the crucial issue of transmission (see here).

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Your intrepid blogger heads to yet another green conference; promises to twitter some tweets

I'm at the airport, getting ready to head out to Santa Barbara for the second annual Wall Street Journal Eco:nomics conference. (Yes, flying on planes makes me a big fat hypocrite earthf*cker -- I eagerly await my NYT profile.)

The WSJ conference is interesting, mainly due to the contrasting influences of the top-notch WSJ news team and the WSJ editorial board, world headquarters for unrepentant far-right fruitcakes. So you get Al Gore and Amory Lovins, but then you also get Bjorn Lomborg and Vaclav Klaus. (Klaus gets the last word, with his session titled "Global Reality Check: From Europe to China to the U.S., how realistic is a big green push amid an imploding economy?" Anybody care to guess his answer in advance?)

In between you have an interesting mix of truly innovative and green-minded business leaders and ... business leaders primarily concerned with positioning themselves to profit from whatever happens next. Thus you get sessions like the hilariously titled, "Power Play: What will keep the lights on: nuclear energy or 'clean coal'?" Whee!

The really big news here -- and you'll want to notify all your friends and family about this ASAP -- is that I'll be twittering from the conference.

OMG! you say. OMFG! you add. Yes, it's true. I'll be delving into the brave new world of 2008, because clearly the main flaws of blogging are its excessive length, depth, and grammatical exactitude!

I don't even know enough about Twitter to tell you how to follow my twittering. But if you happen to know how, it's all going on under the name david_h_roberts.

Again: david_h_roberts. Feel the Future!

[Note from more tech-savvy editor: David's Twitter feed is here. And right below.]