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• World population to reach 7 billion in 2012. • More big businesses call for climate action. • Anti-whaling activists arrested for whale-meat theft. • Satellite to track sea level rise launched.

NYT Magazine’s fawning piece on Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers

There's no doubt about it: Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers is the most adept figure in corporate America at making himself look better than he is.

He's proven it again in an extremely flattering profile in The New York Times Sunday Magazine.

The piece refers to Rogers as "one of the electricity industry's most vocal environmentalists." Indeed, the piece reports that many "prominent environmentalists" are his "friends" and quotes in particular Eileen Claussen, head of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, saying, "It's fair to say that we wouldn't be where we are in Congress if it weren't for him," and that "he helped put carbon legislation on the map."

That legislation, the Lieberman-Warner bill, sputtered apart when the Senate took it up. (Even though we're told Barbara Boxer staged a post-failure victory celebration. Never underestimate the power of self delusion in Washington.) And one reason for its demise was the active opposition of Rogers, who mobilized numerous businesses to complain about the costs.

Americans drove less in April 2008

April 2008 saw another sharp drop in vehicle miles traveled (VMT) according to the Federal Highway Administration's monthly report on "Traffic Volume Trends" (PDF). This follows, "the sharpest yearly drop for any month in FHWA history" in March (see here).

I was compelled to blog on this because of the incredibly astute media coverage by AFP, "worldwide news agency," which wins the "Duh!" award for the month:

Observers surmise a possible link between the declining number of miles driven and rising US gasoline prices.

Greenland can warm 2-4°C in one year

A new article in Science Express (PDF)($ub. req'd), "High-Resolution Greenland Ice Core Data Show Abrupt Climate Change Happens in Few Years," examines, "The last two abrupt warmings at the onset of our present warm interglacial period." The article explores the underlying causes of ...

... abrupt shifts of northern hemisphere atmospheric circulation resulting in 2-4°K changes in Greenland moisture source temperature from one year to the next.

The article concludes that

... polar atmospheric circulation can shift in 1-3 years resulting in decadal to centennial scale changes from cold stadials to warm interstadials/interglacials associated with astounding Greenland temperature changes of 10°K. Neither the magnitude of such shifts nor their abruptnesses are currently captured by state of the art climate models.

The time to act is yesterday.

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

A weekly roundup of greenish news from the Capitol

A few of this week’s environmental happenings that I’ve been meaning to point out: • Oilman-turned-clean-energy-evangelist T. Boone Pickens came to town to testify about the country’s transmission problems that are preventing wind from becoming a major source of power. Pickens, who is attempting to build the world’s largest wind farm in Texas, joined experts […]

Solar proponents in the Empire State eagerly await new legislation

My colleague, Shaun Chapman, of our New York City office, offers this update on solar policy progress in the Empire State:

Friday music blogging: Jamie Lidell

Jamie Lidell gained some renown in the late ’90s as a producer of electronic music. In particular, Super_Collider — his project with Christian Vogel — achieved full-on cult status. But in 2005, Lidell took a sharp left turn with Multiply, an album of pure blue-eyed soul and funk. (For the record, Lidell is a skinny […]

Carmaker knows most efficient freight system: trains

Interesting presser from Honda this week:

Norwegian fuck-tivists on VH1

I’m not saying that I happened upon, and then proceeded to watch, half of the truly classy Freakiest Concert Moments of All Time on VH1 last night. But if I had, I would have been delighted to see our favorite eco-porn activists in the top slot. Yes, Tommy and Leona’s on-stage antics were #1 on […]

Now’s the time for scapes and green garlic

Food headlines hardly bring comfort these days: tales of lost harvests, hunger riots, agrichemical runoff, tainted pork and tomatoes.  A society’s foodways surely reveal something about its quality of life. From studying the industrial-food system, as I do, it’s easy to conclude that we live in a brutal culture: content to destroy the ecosystem, exploit […]