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Did NBC squash PETA corn-porn?

This bit of "news" may or may not be another brilliant PETA stunt (damn, they're good) -- but supposedly NBC nixed a luscious Super Bowl ad claiming that "vegetarians have better sex." I was going to write another poem, but then I came across PETA's list of NBC's purported editing requests -- pure poetry of its own:

• licking pumpkin
• touching her breast with her hand while eating broccoli
• pumpkin from behind between legs
• rubbing pelvic region with pumpkin
• screwing herself with broccoli (fuzzy)
• asparagus on her lap appearing as if it is ready to be inserted into vagina
• licking eggplant
• rubbing asparagus on breast.

Keats couldn't have said it better. Yeah, go ahead, watch it:

'Veggie Love': PETA's Banned Super Bowl Ad

Obama names clean-energy proponent as acting head of FERC

With so much news in Washington this week, we almost forgot to mention big news at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). On Friday, President Obama appointed Jon Wellinghoff to be the acting chairman of the agency, where he will oversee interstate electric transmission, gas transportation, and opening wholesale markets to renewables.

The 59-year-old Nevadan is considered the front-runner for a nomination to the top spot at the agency. "I thank President Obama for the opportunity to lead FERC at a time when our nation faces the challenge of providing consumers with access to clean, renewable energy and ensuring that our nation can deliver that energy in the most efficient, smart and technologically sophisticated manner possible," said Wellinghoff in a statement.

This is exciting news for greens, who are big fans of Wellinghoff, an energy law specialist who has been with FERC since 2006. In December 2007, the U.S. Senate reconfirmed him for a full five-year term. While at the agency he has helped create a new division -- the Energy Innovations Sector -- to investigate and promote new efficient technologies and practices.

In his first full day on the job as acting chief, Wellinghoff stressed the need for automobile manufacturers and electric utilities to work together to integrate electric vehicles into the national grid, according to a Dow Jones report.

Exiting chairman Joseph T. Kelliher praised Wellinghoff's appointment: "Jon has the intelligence, experience, judgment and independence to lead FERC as the agency discharges its historic responsibilities and confronts new challenges." Kelliher, who drew fire during the Bush administration for his involvement with Vice President Dick Cheney's secret energy task force, stepped down earlier this month.

Skeptics hope D.C. snow will put the freeze on Gore's testimony

The nation's capital is currently in the grips of Snowpacalypse '09 (meaning, in D.C. parlance, we have about 2 inches of snow on the ground).

Climate skeptics are already giddy about the fact that a) clearly this demonstrates that global warming is a ginourmous lie; and b) it may mean Al Gore's scheduled testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee tomorrow gets put on hold.

There's a reason Republicans stump for a carbon tax, and it ain't to reduce emissions

This may piss off some people I respect a great deal. Nonetheless, after hearing it in several off-the-record conversations in D.C. last week, I believe it's something that needs to be said publicly:

The 111th U.S. Congress is not going to pass a carbon tax. Calls for a carbon tax, to the extent they have any effect, will complicate and possibly derail passage of carbon legislation.

It's possible that a carbon tax (and/or cap-and-dividend) bill will be introduced. One or both might even make it to a full vote, though I doubt it. But they won't pass. If you want carbon pricing out of this Congress, cap-and-trade is what you're getting. It follows that your energies are best spent ensuring that cap-and-trade legislation is as strong as possible.

Them's the facts.

Through some process I find truly mysterious, the carbon tax has become a kind of totem of authenticity among progressives, while cap-and-trade now symbolizes corporate sellouthood. Across the interwebs, lefties now proclaim with absolute confidence and no small sanctimony that we should entrust our children's future to economists (whose historical contribution to environmental policy has been hostility, doomsaying, and an unbroken record of error) and the Congressional committees that control tax policy (climate champions all). "Pay to pollute," once the scourge of the green movement, is now the sine qua non of keepin' it real. It is baffling.

It doesn't seem to daunt these folks that their hostility toward cap-and-trade and support for carbon taxes has been taken up by a growing cadre on the far right, including Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson, economist Arthur Laffer, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), and yes, even climate wingnut Sen. James Inhofe (R-Gamma Quadrant). Hell, throw in a refunded gas tax and you get America's Worst Columnist© Charles Krauthammer too. Are we to believe that these folks understand the threat of climate chaos, want to reduce climate emissions the amount science indicates is prudent, and sincerely believe that a carbon tax is the best way to accomplish that goal?

How Obama can get a better climate bill in 2010

Update: The Center for American Progress has the post "Timeline: A Fight for State Fuel Efficiency Standards, President Obama Moves on Issue After Years of Roadblocks."

My new Salon piece is out: "Real science comes to Washington: Myopic conservatives and the media still don't get global warming. But if anybody can preserve a livable climate, Obama's amazing energy team can."

Besides exploring how the media clearly doesn't get the dire nature of the climate problem (duh) and how Obama's amazing team of radical pragmatists clearly do, I discuss what Obama needs to do in 2009 to justify not passing a major climate bill this year.

I am trying to make lemon out of lemonade here. I can't find a single reporter, staffer, or wonk who thinks we're going to have a climate bill this year. As the NYT reported earlier this month, "advisers and allies have signaled that they may put off ... restricting carbon emissions." Noting that many in Congress "question the pace at which lawmakers will be able to move on a climate legislation," Climate Wire ($ub. req'd) even quoted the uber-progressive Chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works committee, Barbara Boxer, as "acknowledging this" and saying, "If that doesn't all come together within a year, I would expect EPA would act."

Boxer's comment gets at one of the two key issues, namely, what does team Obama need to do in 2009 to make up for the fact that there won't be a climate bill? The other issue is, what does team Obama need to do in 2009 to get a better bill next year than they could get this year? I have already blogged on one part of the answer to the second question -- they need to get China onboard with a hard emissions cap (see "Part I, Does a serious bill need action from China?").

Here is my answer to both questions from the Salon piece:

Jamming coal subsidies into every conceivable spending vehicle

"He wants it as big as possible. He's going to just keep working for more and more and more money for this."

-- Jamie Smith, communications director for Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), who's busy trying to get even more "clean coal" subsidies into the stimulus bill

Grist seeks volunteers for top-secret Facebook project

Do you waste untold hours spend time on Facebook? And enjoy a casual obsession with the latest environmental news? Do you like top-secret projects?

If you answered "yes" to any of the above questions, consider volunteering for one of the highly coveted beta tester spots for Grist's top-secret Facebook project. We'll need virtual volunteers during the first two weeks of February. If you want in, shoot an email with your full name and age to abraun@grist.org.

To the curious, non-Facebook folk out there, sorry to leave you hanging for now, but all will be revealed later in February.

And in case you didn't realize how much fun Grist is already having on social networks, fan/friend/follow/Digg us on these sites!

• Become a fan of Grist on Facebook
• Friend Grist on MySpace
• Follow Grist on Twitter
• Subscribe to GristTV on YouTube
• Friend Grist and digg our stories on Digg.com
• Join Grist's Flickr group (for the chance to land your photos in Grist stories!)

The Gates Foundation's techy vision for African ag

In his first annual letter on the doings at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates devotes a page to his foundation's efforts to boost agriculture in Africa.

Like the software wizard he once was, Gates identifies a problem and conjures up a solution. The problem is that African food production has stagnated while population has grown; the solution is to develop "new seeds" and make available "other inputs like fertilizer" so that farmers can "increase ... output significantly."

That, in a nutshell, is what happened in the U.S., Western Europe, and to a lesser extent India over the past half-century with the rise of industrial agriculture. Gates wants to repackage it for Africa, in what he calls a "new Green Revolution."

The document never considers the complex history of agriculture in Africa; nor does it mull the social and ecological effects of industrial-style agriculture in the West and India. Are we still so enamored of our food system that we feel compelled to export it to Africa?

A more robust vision for that continent's food future is laid out by the United Nation's Conference on Trade and Development and U.N. Environmental Program. Called "Organic Agriculture and Food Security in Africa" [PDF], the report emerged in 2008 with the support of more than a dozen civil-society organizations throughout Africa.

The report concludes that organic and near-organic agriculture is ideally suited for millions of marginalized smallholder farmers in Africa -- and build food security and soil fertility in unison.

The model of development that Gates favors -- essentially moving in the direction of nearly post-agricultural Western societies -- may be a relic of an era of cheap fossil energy and low awareness of ecological costs. Other ways of progress exist -- and I wish our most influential and best-funded foundation would explore them.

What gas taxes don't do

Surprising: state gas taxes appear to have very little effect on either driving habits or fuel consumption. More precisely, there's no correlation between a state's gasoline tax and the amount of fuel its residents use or the amount of driving they do.

Don't believe me? Feast your eyes on these babies:

And:

Those are big, fat, completely uncorrelated blobs. What you're seeing is all 50 states plus D.C. plotted to show a relationship between state gas tax rates and per capita fuel consumption (in the first chart) and per capita miles driven (in the second chart). There is essentially no relationship whatsoever.

When to change that light bulb

"Often when I'm on TV, they'll ask what are the three most important things for people to do [to stop global warming]. I know they want me to say that people should change their light bulbs. I say the number one thing is to organize politically; number two, do some political organizing; number three, get together with your neighbors and organize; and then if you have energy left over from all of that, change the light bulb."

-- writer and activist Bill McKibben