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Big Three automakers get plug-in funding from feds

The U.S. Big Three automakers will get $30 million over three years for plug-in hybrid R&D, the Department of Energy announced Thursday. While less than automakers wanted — last year they pushed for $500 million — each welcomed some funding for various aspects of plug-in research. Chrysler plans to build a test fleet of 80 […]

Boucher and Upton introduce bipartisan legislation to invest in carbon sequestration technology

House Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher (D-Va.) and ranking minority member Fred Upton (R-Mich.) introduced industry-backed legislation on Wednesday to invest billions of dollars in carbon capture-and-sequestration (CCS) technology. The bill [PDF] is intended to “accelerate the development and early deployment of systems for the capture and storage of carbon dioxide emissions […]

As corn and soy fields drown in rainwater, the food crisis deepens

A cornucopia of bad circumstances. Here in the United States, we grow 44 percent of the world’s corn crop, and 38 percent of its soy. For the great bulk of that massive harvest, we rely on a single region: the Midwestern farm belt. And over the past couple of weeks, torrential rains have hammered that […]

Low-income nabes lead the way in urban farming

The Garden of Hope -- the new community green space I covered this week on Grist -- is just one facet of Brooklyn's community gardening scene.

While writing this story I spoke with Susan Fields of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's GreenBridge program, which reaches out to neighborhoods all over Brooklyn to encourage and to support many levels of gardening -- from the "Greenest Block in Brooklyn" contest all the way to the Urban Composting Project. "There's a growing focus on urban food production," she told me.

Deep-sea squid and octopi full of human-made chemicals

Human-made chemicals have snuck on down into the ocean depths, showing up in the tissues of deep-sea cephalopods, says new research. In a study to be published in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin, researchers found various persistent organic pollutants — including PCBs and DDT — in nine species of octopi, squid, cuttlefish, and nautiluses. “The […]

Peter Barnes’ carbon policy proposal would not spur the economic changes we need

I should preface by saying that I am a fan of Peter Barnes. He's an emeritus board member of Redefining Progress. He's a smart and thoughtful guy. But I'm not a fan of his cap and dividend idea, mostly from an economic perspective.

First, the idea that a price on carbon would be transformative, and that we should do that first and then come in with other complementary policies later, is dangerously wrong. Transportation and building heating/electricity are the two largest contributors to carbon emissions, accounting for well over half the total. The price elasticity on transportation fuels is very low, as we've seen. With gas prices up $2 per gallon in the last three years, we're now finally seeing small reductions in driving, somewhere in the neighborhood of 4%. $2 per gallon of gas is roughly the equivalent of $200 per ton of carbon, a price impact that the failed Lieberman Warner bill wouldn't have brought until beyond 2040, if then.

Home energy use is not only terribly price inelastic (people light and heat their homes out of habit and necessity, not on the basis of price), so that we'd need very high prices to induce behavior changes, but is also characterized by a terrible market failure in information, where people have no idea what appliance costs them what in terms of electricity. As everyone should now be aware, rental units are subject to other serious energy market failures due to renter/owner split incentives and the liquidity constraints of many renters.

Budget office wants to reduce disaster funds for West Coast fisherfolk

The federal government, having failed to support salmon to the point that California’s fishing season was shut down altogether, may now yank support from fisherfolk. The Office of Management and Budget is requesting that the $170 million put aside as disaster funding for the West Coast salmon industry be reduced to $100 million to offset […]

New Yale green site draws attention to state climate efforts

I think various Grist contributors have linked over there a few times already, but I’ve been remiss in not explicitly noting the debut of environment360, the new online publication from the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. It’s come out of the gate with a bang, with pieces from high-profile writers like Bill McKibben, […]

PR firm Edleman launches charm offensive for the GMO giant

Not so long ago, I was an utterly obscure farmer-blogger dashing off indictments of industrial agriculture for some 30 loyal readers (many of them house-mates and relatives). And then, evidently by the miracle of the Google search, a functionary from Monsanto’s legal office discovered my blog and fired off a cease-and-desist letter. I published it, […]

Challenging the militarization of U.S. energy policy

This essay originally ran on TomDispatch; it is reprinted here with Tom's kind permission.

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American policymakers have long viewed the protection of overseas oil supplies as an essential matter of "national security," requiring the threat of -- and sometimes the use of -- military force. This is now an unquestioned part of American foreign policy.

On this basis, the first Bush administration fought a war against Iraq in 1990-1991 and the second Bush administration invaded Iraq in 2003. With global oil prices soaring and oil reserves expected to dwindle in the years ahead, military force is sure to be seen by whatever new administration enters Washington in January 2009 as the ultimate guarantor of our well-being in the oil heartlands of the planet. But with the costs of militarized oil operations -- in both blood and dollars -- rising precipitously, isn't it time to challenge such "wisdom"? Isn't it time to ask whether the U.S. military has anything reasonable to do with American energy security, and whether a reliance on military force, when it comes to energy policy, is practical, affordable, or justifiable?

How energy policy got militarized

The association between "energy security" (as it's now termed) and "national security" was established long ago. President Franklin D. Roosevelt first forged this association way back in 1945, when he pledged to protect the Saudi Arabian royal family in return for privileged American access to Saudi oil. The relationship was given formal expression in 1980, when President Jimmy Carter told Congress that maintaining the uninterrupted flow of Persian Gulf oil was a "vital interest" of the United States, and attempts by hostile nations to cut that flow would be countered "by any means necessary, including military force."