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'Minimalist' cooking master connects the dots between food, climate, and bad health

The great Mark Bittman -- whose new book I am eager to get my paws on -- delivers a powerful spiel connecting the industrial food system with climate change and the health-care crisis. Watch it.

Obama's Labor pick expected to champion green jobs

President-elect Obama's Labor Secretary nominee, Congresswoman Hilda Solis (D-Calif.), will face a Senate confirmation panel on Friday morning headed by one of her most ardent fans, the ailing but powerful Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee.

Longtime GOP lions Orrin Hatch (Utah) and Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) could also be on hand to grill her, but the presence of Kennedy at the gavel, who presented Solis with the "Profile in Courage" award in 2000, is tangible proof that after a career spent battling Republican governors, presidents, industry lobbyists and even moderate Democrats, she could now be in the cat bird's seat. [UPDATE: News from the hearing.]

"No one else was even going to fight for the stuff that she's fought for her whole career. Now it's not about fighting, it's about governing, and I've seen Hilda Solis, she's effective at governing," said Ian Kim, director of the Green Collar Jobs Campaign at the Ella Baker Center in Oakland.

As Labor Secretary, Solis would in fact be in charge of implementing the Green Jobs Act she fought to "smuggle through" a hostile Congress and Bush administration in 2007, said green jobs guru and best-selling author Van Jones.

The act authorized $125 million annually to train 30,000 workers in environment-friendly jobs such as installing solar panels or weatherizing homes. But it went unfunded in 2008, due to opposition from manufacturers and other industry groups angered by its mandate to include organized labor.

Fast forward to a year later, with a tanking economy and a new president, and matters look decidedly more green. Obama made clear in his economic policy speech Thursday that such jobs will be a key component of his massive stimulus package. And no one is better qualified to make that happen than Solis, say her fans.

"She is the 21st century, Hilda Solis represents the future of this country both demographically, and in terms of her vision," said Jones, who shrugged off criticism by some that the appointment was minor compared to other Cabinet posts. "We need new, clean, green jobs for the 21st century, and in her we've got somebody who connects both those things."

The real cost is the cost of doing nothing

That's always the mantra: Serious climate policy is too pricey, especially in this economy.

To that I say: Watch this excellent video from King 5 News. (It's almost 16 minutes long, but well worth it.) The impacts of climate change, such as flooding, carry a very steep cost. And judging by the video, the costs aren't mostly borne by the rich -- they're paid for by those who can least afford it.

I want to be perfectly clear.The floods in Western Washington -- this year and in several recent years -- are completely consistent with what the climate science has been predicting for the Northwest. It doesn't really matter whether these particular floods are the direct result of global warming (that's an untestable hypothesis),what matters is that this is exactly what we should expect in the future. If the scientists are right, get ready for more.

So if you think carbon pricing is too expensive, just wait until you see the bill for failing to put a price on carbon.

'Climate change' is climate change by any other name

In his famous essay, "Politics and the English Language," George Orwell wrote: "The English language ... becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts." He warns that "Political language ... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." The importance of language and rhetoric is a subject near to my heart.

This post is by ClimateProgress guest blogger Bill Becker, executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project.

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Washington, D.C., is to the English language what Paris is to fashion. Every season, perfectly good words go out of style and new ones are trotted out on the national runway of rhetoric. Some words are considered so worn out, politically incorrect, or laden with baggage that they can no longer be used in public discourse. When that happens, people like me find ourselves scrambling for suitable synonyms.

That was the case a few years ago with "sustainable development." I operated the Center of Excellence for Sustainable Development at the U.S. Department of Energy, helping communities understand and apply the practice. Before long, signals came down from Capitol Hill that the words "sustainable development" had become the kiss of death for any program that used them. The term "smart growth" was invented to take "sustainability's" place.

More recently, Congress has avoided using the word "climate" in legislation that clearly is meant in part to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions -- legislation such as the "Energy Security and Independence Act of 2007." The Bush people call torture "enhanced interrogation" and call kidnapping "rendition." Healthy Forests and Clear Skies became the titles of the Bush Administration's programs to cut trees and pollute the air, respectively.

Our elected leaders aren't alone in manipulating the English language. Lobbyists and extremists, left and right, regularly play the game too, to obscure facts, incite emotions, insult opponents, or get attention from the media, where conflict is red meat.

Coal executives try to persuade us there's such a thing as "clean coal" and oil executives talk about "energy independence" when they really mean more drilling. In 2003, Orwell protégé Frank Luntz counseled in a confidential memo that the Administration and conservatives should stop using the term "global warming" because it was too frightening. Luntz suggested that Republicans refer to themselves as "conservationists" rather than "environmentalists," since the latter term, in Luntz's view, is associated with tree-hugging and extremism.

Burger King launches film Whopper Virgins, simplifies U.S. to land of fast food

In the past year or so, I have had the opportunity to meet and experience a vast variety of inspiring food, environmental, and agricultural people and places. I met small-farmers in Ethiopia experimenting with pit composting instead of synthetic fertilizers. I shared meals with activists and writers in the sustainable food movement like Tom Philpott and Anna Lappé. Perhaps most exciting has been the increasing interest in sustainable food and agriculture throughout this country and among my family and friends. Helping my parents start composting, sharing books with friends, and watching the enthusiasm for a "Farmer in Chief" left me hopeful and excited at the end of 2008.

My vision came to a screeching halt when I saw a television ad during the holidays that left me laughing: Burger King trounces around the world feeding Whoppers to unsuspecting indigenous peoples in hopes of spreading the gospel of fast food. What a great parody, I thought! Who could have thought up such an ironic idea? And as the website for Whopper Virgins flashed on the screen, I had a sinking feeling that, like those high-fructose corn syrup ads, perhaps this Burger King film was no parody.

It turns out that the ad was actually an excerpt of a longer seven-minute film. The very concept of this idea -- flying around the world, feeding hamburgers to people who have never eaten hamburgers -- is in itself strange. For the first half of the film, the crew travels to Romania where they feed utterly confused people Whoppers and Big Macs from nearby restaurant locations. Strangely enough, it seems like the same number of people has no preference or prefers the Big Mac as compared to the Whopper.

Enviro and labor leaders welcome four new, green House members

The Natural Resources Defense Council and the Blue Green Alliance today hosted a meeting with several newly elected Democratic members of the House, welcoming the "next generation of green leaders."

The four new members the groups touted come to the House with experience working on green issues in their home states: Debbie Halvorson (Ill.), Steve Driehaus (Ohio), Tom Perriello (Va.), and Mark Schauer (Mich.). At the presser, each spoke about likely committee assignments and goals for the first year in Congress.

Perriello has a background in environmental and human rights issues, and previously served as the assistant director of the Center for a Sustainable Economy (which is now part of Redefining Progress) and as a consultant on youth and environmental campaigns. This summer, he could be seen campaigning on a float pulled by a biofuel-powered tractor, as his opponent cruised by in a Hummer. Perriello, who has been assigned to the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said the economic crisis should fuel the desire for an overhaul of the energy system.

"Now is the time to look for game changers. We have to get people to work right away but we have to get them to work on things that are going to make America competitive again," Perriello told Grist. "We are getting out-competed, and we are being made incredibly vulnerable by our energy dependence."

Consumer Reports knocks plug-in hybrid Hymotion L5 conversion kit on efficiency, value

Is a product doomed if the highest praise its evaluators can offer is "viable"?

In the February issue of Consumer Reports, CR editors tested a 2008 Toyota Prius equipped with a Hymotion L5 conversion kit sold by A123 systems of Watertown, Mass. The conversion kit failed to deliver its promised 100 mpg, but did spike the prius' average efficiency of 42-mpg up to 67 mpg for the first 35 miles of driving. But at a $11,000 a pop, CR concluded that the kit "won't save the consumer money overall."

For the truly plugged-in, however, Hymotion's lithium-ion battery conversion kit is only one of the first forays into the world of commercial plug-ins. Here in the states, 3Prong Power of Berkeley, Calif. offers a conversion with old-fashioned lead-acid batteries that promises a 10-mile all-electric range for a more affordable $6,700. And around the Pacific Rim, Chinese automaker BYD Auto presented the world's first mass-produced plug-in hybrid in December of 2008.

(h/t: autobloggreen)

Wherein I praise the mainstream media from the back of an airborne porcine vehicle

I was bashing on Newsweek the other day, and in general that magazine really is weak on climate/energy issues.

Lest you think I'm just a hater of old media, however, I should point out that Newsweek competitor Time has been doing fantastic stuff on green issues lately, mainly thanks to the tag team of Michael Grunwald and Bryan Walsh.

Commentary Magazine warms to Obama

Jennifer Rubin, Commentary Magazine:

So let's get this straight: Robert Gates will be the Defense Secretary, we're ramping up U.S. forces in Afghanistan and providing a reasonable period of time for a hand-off in Iraq, there isn't going to be a windfall oil profits tax or income tax hike but there is going to be a huge set of business tax cuts -- and Rick Warren is giving the invocation at the Inauguration. Who won in November?

Black lung is back!

"After a couple of years, something changed. I began to see the type of disease that was only in the textbooks -- this massive fibrosis, where the lung is basically destroyed. It's nothing but black scar tissue. I was incredulous. And it was young people. It wasn't the older miners. I thought, something is wrong here. We decided we'd better do some research."

-- Dr. Edward L. Petsonk, head of the black lung program for the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, on the recent resurgence of the disease, once a scourge among coal miners but virtually eliminated in the 1970s