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Public investment can stop emissions faster than relying on private sector

David Roberts comments ruefully on the lack of a clean energy coalition for progressives to join, and on the lack of common talking points on clean energy -- which allows the right eat our lunch on drilling.

I've argued in the past that links between greens and progressive are more effective than trying to win the conservative movement over (though individual conservatives should be welcomed). The truth is, there is no solution that will lower oil prices below $100 a barrel: not drilling, not nuclear, not solar or wind, and not even massive efficiency. We have to replace oil, and anything that will do this (which does not include more drilling or nuclear) will take time to implement.

What we can offer are programs that help people's pocketbooks in other areas. We can't lower the cost of oil, but we can lower the cost of living in the short run -- and get the oil monkey and the greenhouse gas monkey off our nation's back in the long run. We won't come up with slogans as pithy as "drill everywhere" -- the disadvantage of basing a campaign on workable solutions is you can't just make stuff up. Our slogan would have to be along the lines of: "Nobody can make more oil; but we can put money in your pocket." (Someone better than I am at slogans please condense this.) What actual policies could lie behind this slogan?

If environmentalism was really a movement and tied to a larger progressive movement, we could support universal health care. I would favor single-payer, but at least something that would provide decent coverage to everybody and lower costs. (This, umm, comes back to single-payer, since incremental reforms tend not to actually control costs.) Health care reform would not lower the price of a single tank of gas or drop one utility bill, but it would save enough money that higher gas prices and utility bills would not hurt so much until the problem is solved.

Hurricane Dolly hits land, skirts oil and gas facilities

Hurricane Dolly hit land in Texas Wednesday as a Category 2 storm. No deaths have been reported and the storm had a minimal impact on oil and gas operations; it largely missed offshore oil and gas facilities, but did cut production 10 to 20 percent at some refineries and by 5 to 8 percent overall. […]

It’s the fossil fuel crowd that’s against American jobs

Reading around on reactions to the latest oil shale hubbub, I keep seeing conservatives saying that greens against dirty energy development are opposing "American jobs." It’s important that everyone involved in fighting oil shale — and other drill-and-burn energy policies — understand something simple: the U.S. energy sector has very low "labor intensity." That is […]

Blockbuster Teamsters announcement rejects oil drilling as an energy solution

For years, the Teamsters have supported opening the Arctic Refuge and other protected areas to oil drilling; they ran ads bashing John Kerry on it in 2004. So it is a Very Big Deal that the Teamsters have just come out and rejected drilling as a solution to the energy crisis. At an event in […]

Poll indicates Brits harbor doubts on climate change

U.S. conservatives aren't the only ones who are easily duped. When 1,039 Brits were asked "To what extent do you agree or disagree that ... Many scientific experts still question if humans are contributing to climate change," a remarkable 60 percent agreed whereas only 22 percent disagreed.

Congrats to the British deniers out there -- yes, even you TVMOB, who apparently qualifies as a scientific expert in the U.K. because he wears a Nobel prize pin made of gold recovered from a physics experiment presented to him by the Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Rochester, New York.

The poll also asked for responses to "I sometimes think climate change might not be as bad as people say." Some 42 percent agreed while 41 percent disagreed. I am going to (optimistically) ascribe that less to the U.K. airing of the The Great Global Warming Swindle than to the fact that this statement is true when it comes to one particular famous British person.

Oil spills into Mississippi River after tanker-barge collision

Some 420,000 gallons of fuel oil spilled into the Mississippi River early Wednesday, after a 600-foot chemical tanker collided with a fuel barge. The collision split the barge in half; thick, slow-to-evaporate fuel has traveled at least 12 miles downriver. The Coast Guard closed a 29-mile stretch of the river around New Orleans, and residents […]

Umbra on clean coal

Dear Umbra, I noticed that several of the presidential primary debates were sponsored by clean coal. This was announced during breaks and several commercials aired. I have since seen several more commercials and online advertisements. Is clean coal an oxymoron? Is this a PR stunt or are there any real environmental benefits to clean coal […]

From fossil fuels to manufacturing for wind and solar energy

A couple of years ago, Al Gore made the case, in a film called An Inconvenient Truth, that we have a big problem called global warming. But the film was not effective at pointing to a solution. Humans evolved to consider a crisis as a challenge, as long as a solution is readily available. Otherwise, panic or resignation sets in.

Now, Gore has moved a significant step further by arguing that all sources of electricity should be carbon-free -- in other words, all of our electricity should be generated using wind, solar, or geothermal power, instead of coal, natural gas, or oil.

The next step should be to explain how we move to a fossil fuel-free electrical system. Gore continues to advocate a revenue-neutral carbon tax, but it feels like he's searching for something else, something that would be part of the effort to clean up the energy system.

He might consider the idea that rebuilding the manufacturing economy by building solar and wind equipment would not only lead to a carbon-free system, but also would revive the national economy and the middle class.

Smart economic development policy for the 21st century

The following is an elaborated version of the brief talk I gave at my Netroots Nation panel. The U.S. economy is in serious trouble, mired in a period of slow growth and high prices — i.e., stagflation. Worse, high prices can largely be traced to escalating fossil fuel costs that are almost certain to continue […]

Javatrekker and God in a Cup on the culture of coffee production

When I jumped on a plane one year ago and headed off to Guatemala with Seattle-based coffee roaster Caffé Vita, there was little more than the occasional blog post telling "the story behind coffee." The majority of the writing about coffee I could find was focused on the history of the bean-like-seed: stories of cunning Dutch merchants, over-caffeinated whirling dervishes, and besieged Austrians, but nothing talking about the places and people that presently grow the second most valuable crop on the planet.

When Vita and I dropped down in Guatemala City, I didn't know a damn thing about the bean: where it was grown, the politics that drive it, the human factor that shapes it, let alone the variety of ways it is processed, tested, sold, shipped, and ritualized. I simply knew that I adored the stuff when it was prepared in a careful manner. Now, with trips to farms in Ethiopia, Brazil, and Guatemala and with several thousand of my own words under my belt I can honestly say -- I still really don't know a damn thing about the bean. But I am happy to refer authors who do. Here are a couple of books that might not make The New York Times' bestsellers list, but certainly will give you a slight peek inside the dynamic world of coffea arabica.