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Let’s rebuild our national rail network instead of repealing the gas tax

At the rate things are going, any money that would be available for global warming mitigation is going to go into subsidizing the oil used by airplanes, trucks, cars, and heating oil so that most Americans do not become hysterical -- or am I being hysterical? From Michael T. Klare's latest article:

Me in the Guardian

I have a column up at the Guardian‘s CIF on Bush’s speech last night: On Wednesday, President Bush gave a major speech on climate change policy. Sounds like the setup for a joke, right? And perhaps it is — a joke on the national media, which went into full scramble yet again for this, the […]

British prime minister chats climate with Bush

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was in Washington, D.C., Thursday to sit down for a chit-chat with President Bush. Brown told press that he and Bush “agreed we must work internationally to secure progress at the G8 and toward a post-Kyoto deal on climate change. … I look forward to continuing to work with President […]

Last night’s debate

I came in this morning planning to review last night’s Democratic debate and blog about the energy/environment questions. Turns out there were none — indeed, policy and substance were almost entirely absent from the debate. There seems to be broad agreement that it was a real low point for journalism, a gotcha-fest that illuminated nothing […]

Google Checkout maps the spread of donations and Earth Day lovin’

I think Google has a crush on the planet. First, they announced a goal of achieving carbon neutrality for 2007 and beyond. Then, they unleashed their RE<C campaign (Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal), aimed at producing one gigawatt of clean electricity more cheaply than coal. Next, you may have noticed their blacked-out search page on […]

Americans for Balanced Energy Choices gets new name, t-shirts

ABEC has re-branded themselves the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. See here for an interview with President Stephen Miller, who does an admirably media-savvy job of laying out their talking points and PR strategy.

His key points:

1. "If we push too hard, too fast, we will force fuel switching away from coal."
2. "The president and the congress have a role to play to make sure the public sector invests in coal-fired power."
3. We've spent a lot of money on t-shirts, trucks, and advertising to affect the primary campaign, and it's working.

In other words: We need to burn more coal. We need taxpayers to pay for the cost of that coal. And we've got enough money to make sure it happens.

Here's the creepy new 60-second ad they're running nationwide:

Judge denies Humane Society injunction, OKs sea-lion trapping

Denying an injunction sought by the Humane Society, a federal judge has given the go-ahead to Oregon and Washington state officials to trap and kill salmon-gobbling sea lions near the Columbia River’s Bonneville Dam. The animal-rights group sued after the National Marine Fisheries Service OK’d sea-lion culling last month. An official hearing on the Humane […]

Clinton bashes Obama on energy

Clinton is attacking Obama over his energy bill vote in Penn. again. (More on the vote; more on the attacks.) You’ve got to know McCain is chuckling right now. He’s having the easiest campaign ever!

Bush and farm policy ‘reform’

In the farm bill debate, the Bush administration has joined Environmental Defense Fund, The Environmental Working Group, and other Big Green groups in taking a “reform” position: subsidies are bad, so let’s cut them. I’ve been arguing that this position amounts to no reform at all, because it doesn’t address the underlying problem of U.S. […]

Saving ourselves means trench warfare, not waiting for breakthroughs

On online wag recently noted that at Bell Labs -- one of the most productive, innovative places the world has ever seen -- the slogan was "Never Schedule Breakthroughs." A breakthrough is just that: a radical and unpredictable reorganization of understanding. Waiting for one is like trying to solve one of those elaborate circular garden mazes by assuming a teleporter to take you straight to the center.

We might well need some breakthroughs to survive the climate crisis, and it will be nice if we get them, but I'm much more impressed by things like this, a serious incremental step, than I am by the wondertoys we're so often told to ogle. The FLOX work is a great example of the trench warfare of science and technology. It can help buy us time to radically reduce our energy demands and switch off fossil fuel use entirely -- time to aggressively apply every off-the-shelf idea and practice we have now, without hypnotizing ourselves with the need for "breakthroughs."