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Premier episode of a new online film series features Jones and Carl Pope

A new online film series called This Brave Nation premiered its first episode Sunday night: a conversation between Carl Pope and Van Jones. Both are natives of Frisco and both are equally adamant about environmental stewardship, but they have vastly different approaches. Here they chat about melding those tactics towards a common goal. Later this month, on June 15, Pete Seeger and Majora Carter discuss environmentalism, protest music, civil rights, and urban renewal. Should be interesting.

Dow, Boeing ordered to pay $926 million for nuke pollution

A federal judge ordered Dow Chemical and Boeing to pay a total of $926 million for nuclear pollution at the now-closed Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant near Denver, following a jury trial that ended in 2006. The class-action suit against the companies began 18 years ago and involves some 12,000 area homeowners seeking compensation for […]

GM acknowledges that it lost the bet on big vehicles

“At this point, we are considering all options for the Hummer brand. Everything from a complete revamp of the product lineup to partial or complete sale of the brand.” — General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner, responding to the dismal numbers released by GM yesterday

The challenges of reconciling science and policy

This is a post that I'm virtually certain will be misinterpreted. But it's an important enough issue that I'm going to bet that my writing skills are sufficient to provide clarity to a rather muddy issue.

First off, though, a disclaimer: Science is good. Policy informed by science is good. Leadership informed by science is good. The alternative to all of the above is bad. Nothing I am about to say is to be taken as support for creationism, global warming denial, diminution of White House science advisers or the re-excommunication of Galileo.

However, there is a conflict that lies between the fuzziness that is innate to scientific inquiry and the precision that is required for policy -- and more broadly, leadership. We see this conflict whenever global warming deniers trot out scientists who disagree with mainstream theories and we are forced to explain to the deniers that while the nature of scientific inquiry invites debate, the presence of a debate per se does not imply anything about the preponderance of evidence. As Joe Romm has pointed out, Einstein's revisions to the laws of motion did not prove that Issac Newton was an insufferable quack. It just meant that science is innately fallible and subject to revision. Or as Keynes famously said, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"

So far, I don't think I've said anything novel or controversial. But here's the catch: The same logic that compels us to acknowledge that science is fallible and evolves must also compel us to acknowledge that policy based on science might be wrong. This is not to suggest that a 1-percent doubt ought to stand in the way of policy based on 99 percent certainty, but rather to recognize that good policy must retain sufficient flexibility to "change its mind."

Climate bills will only get better from here

Mark Thoma, whose Economist’s View is an excellent resource for all things economic, posts a roundup of writing on cap-and-trade versus a carbon tax, including a good primer on how the economics work and why the two plans are so similar. He also excerpts a rather cynical take by Pete Davis on the political reasons […]

Cool housing for oldsters

People who think about how we're going to adapt to lower-energy living arrangements often miss that the U.S. continues to gray rapidly. Given that we've had almost sixty years of radical suburbanization and cross-country relocation, sundering the extended family networks that once provided child and elder care, we're in a pickle when it comes to figuring out how to care for elders.

Here's an encouraging story about a new facility that really seems to get it. My question is why we aren't thinking about these for just-getting-starteds and young adults ... we could call it co-housing ...

Purdy lil Heifer

Heifer International, a nonprofit that lets people make gifts of livestock to farmers in impoverished areas, gave a shout out to Grist in its March/April WorldArk magazine (albeit using .com in the web address).

Now, in the May/June issue, not only does Grist get a shout out with a correction in the letters column, but the whole issue is outstanding.

Here's just a sample of the terrific content:

Global warming draws heat from Dems

Here's an article out today from Roll Call ($ub. req'd), which has been covering Congress since 1955:

Obama claims nomination, but Clinton says she’s not going anywhere yet

Photo: wfiupublicradio Barack Obama secured enough delegates to win the Democratic nomination on Tuesday, passing the threshold of 2,118 needed to become the party’s candidate. “Because you chose to listen not to your doubts or your fears but to your greatest hopes and highest aspirations, tonight we mark the end of one historic journey with […]

Senate begins debate on Lieberman-Warner climate bill — sort of

After last night’s cloture vote, Senate Republicans asked for 30 hours before legislatively productive debate on the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act could begin. That means they spent all of today kibitzing about climate legislation without any progress toward amending or voting. Joe Romm has been live-blogging all day over on Climate Progress, and I’ve also […]