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The good, bad, and ugly in our national five-year agricultural plan

We've all noticed higher grocery bills, but did you know Congress passed a $307 billion farm bill in late May that has a much bigger impact on what you will eat for dinner tonight than what you chose to place in the grocery cart?

The farm bill has a hand in all that happens before the swallow. The bag of Tyson chicken wings (grain subsidies), gallon of Horizon Organic milk (forward contracting), and pound of Fuji apples (country of origin labeling) are all regulated in some fashion by this policy determining how our food is raised and who profits.

But does the massive legislation support family farmers? Increase food access in urban food deserts? Or feed the 40 million poor and hungry in the United States?

Yes and no.

What should I ask the efficiency guru about nuclear power?

Amory Lovins. Photo: © Judy Hill Amory Lovins is on the warpath against nuclear power, battling the industry PR push that says nuclear is a viable climate solution. He’s got a new report, co-authored with Imran Sheikh, called “The Nuclear Illusion” [PDF]. Spinning off from that report are a Newsweek article called “Missing the Market […]

Senate GOP delays climate debate still further by forcing clerk to read Boxer amendment

Today in Senate action on the Climate Security Act, Republicans are forcing the clerk to read the entirety of the Boxer substitute amendment [PDF], claiming they haven’t had enough time to read it yet. It’s 157 pages long. Boxer, of course, protested, but her appeal was rejected. The clerk’s been reading for an hour already. […]

Democrats are undermining the strongest message behind climate policy

In this post, I argued that the best, simplest, and most impactful message for advocates of climate legislation is this: Good climate policy will rescue American families from a sinking ship. I meant to add that the Dems not only seem to miss the power of this message, but are by all appearances working to […]

Officials in ‘crisis mode’ as SoCal condors poisoned

Weeks before California’s ban on lead bullets in condor habitat goes into effect, seven of the endangered birds have been found with lead poisoning. And that’s no insignificant tally, as only 34 wild condors are known to live in southern California. Wildlife officials are in “crisis mode,” says Jesse Grantham of the U.S. Fish and […]

An ad campaign on climate needs spokespeople who believe what they’re saying

Idly watching TV the other day, my attention was caught by the arresting image of Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson sitting on a sofa. The artfully shot, 15-second spot is one of the first blitz of television ads from We Can Solve It, Al Gore's $300 million project to build up a public base of support for climate action.

The two resemble each other, looking as sleek and plump as sea otters after a good feed. Sharpton and Robertson fence good naturedly, following the strange-bedfellows format of the ad series. Robertson puns, "So get involved; it's the 'right' thing to do," and Sharpton ripostes with the Reagan line, "Now there you go again!"

The thing is well done and I enjoyed it, but I was also aggravated by the choice of spokespersons -- and the more I thought about it, troubled by the deeper meaning of the ad.

Oklahoma senator makes stuff up, wastes time in climate change debate

James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the Senate’s leading climate change denier, had plenty of kooky and alarmist things to say in yesterday’s debate over climate change legislation. Think Progress has video of one of his wing-nuttiest contributions to the discussion, in which he lies about Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, and the IPCC: Yep, the same IPCC […]

As fuel prices rise, airline industry profits plummet

Buckle your seatbelts, because there’s turbulence ahead for the airline industry. As fuel prices skyrocket in flight (afternoon delight), Big Air Travel is scrambling to cope. The International Air Transport Association predicted Monday that the world’s airlines will lose a combined $6.1 billion this year if oil stays near $135 a barrel. American Airlines will […]

It’s official:

Green is not the new black.

Standing up to Samuelson

This post is by Bracken Hendricks, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

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In Monday's Washington Post, and a parallel piece in Newsweek, Robert Samuelson gets it wildly wrong on cap-and-trade, parroting a litany of falsehoods and misrepresentations concerning the most probable federal policy for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.

Like most detractors of action on global warming, Samuelson continues to push the unsubstantiated notion that reducing emissions will tank the economy, and thus is not worth the effort. The problem with this argument is that it ignores the last three decades of science, misunderstands basic economic theory, and overlooks the enormous opportunity presented by the clean energy economy.

Inaction is by far the most expensive policy option, as many recent studies make clear.