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Greenpeace and FOE call Climate Security Act too limited; too slow

It's time to call the Lieberman-Warner love train back to the station. This is not to say that we don't urgently need to immediately start reducing atmospheric GHG concentrations and get policies in place that price carbon. It is instead simply the observation that as L-W morphs into ever greater complexity, it becomes an ever-worse way to meet that goal. Like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, I rather doubt that L-W will go anywhere close to far enough to cure AGW. But I am quite certain that the side effects of this purported cure are worse than the disease.

Herewith, a few rather simple distinctions to prove the point. Consider each of the following either/or propositions, and ask yourself which would be a hallmark of good GHG policy.

(Hint 1: the right answer is always A. Hint 2: the Lieberman-Warner answer is always B.)

Labor and enviros join up for green-jobs campaign

A new green-jobs campaign has been launched by the Sierra Club, NRDC, the United Steelworkers, and the Blue Green Alliance (itself a project of the Sierra Club and the steelworkers union). The Green Jobs for America campaign, moving forward on the momentum of last month’s Good Jobs, Green Jobs conference, will be focused in 12 […]

A tasting of seven organic beers

Can’t get enough of that frothy stuff. Photo: iStockphoto Why is beer so good? The question has perplexed humanity since the dawn of agricultural civilization 10,000 years ago. Archeological records show that beer-making evolved with bread-making: both are ways of using fermentation to preserve grain, the first cultivated crop. To make beer, you let grain […]

WTF?

They’re submerging subway cars to make artificial reefs?! Nobody tells me anything.

We’ve run out of time to wait for an unknown techno-fix to save us

Andy Revkin wrote in The New York Times last weekend about what I believe is the climate debate of the decade.

This post will serve as an introduction to this crucial topic for readers new and old. I will devote many posts this week to laying out the "solution" to global warming, and a few to debunking the "technology breakthrough" crowd.

Carmakers take anti-Cali talking points to ‘Blue Dog’ House Democrats

It’s no secret that American auto companies are working overtime to impede California’s ability to set its own tailpipe emission standards. They’ve had a few setbacks in court, but they’ve got the U.S. EPA in their back pocket — witness Johnson’s refusal to grant Cali’s waiver. There’s been some talk recently about Congress overriding Johnson, […]

Dem delegates will compete to be most eco-friendly at convention

As if the Democratic convention wasn’t fun enough on its own, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced an exciting “Green Delegate Challenge” for the August rendezvous in Denver. State delegations are encouraged to buy carbon credits to support clean-energy projects in Colorado, and the delegation that offsets the most of its travel will reportedly get […]

Heston on global warming

Apparently actor Charlton Heston has escaped this mortal coil. I have no particular insight on his film career, but here, for your edification, are his wingnuterrific wise thoughts on climate change: (thanks, LL!)

Brazil aims to protect Amazon by using sustainably harvested rubber in condoms

Photo: iStockphoto Hard up for ways to preserve the Amazon rainforest, the Brazilian government has announced it’s opening a condom factory that will use rubber harvested sustainably from the imperiled rainforest — no tree-chopping required. The latex will come from the Chico Mendes reserve, named for a well-known Amazon activist gunned down by ranching interests. […]

Ten reasons NYC’s congestion pricing plan went belly up

Albany strikes again: congestion pricing -- the smartest urban-transportation idea since the subway -- has been buried by the professional morticians of the New York State legislature, led by Chief Ghoul Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

As previously reported, the pricing plan, proposed a year ago by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and subsequently improved by a 17-member state-mandated commission, would have charged an $8 entry fee on cars driven into Manhattan's central business district (CBD) during 6 a.m. - 6 p.m. on weekdays. Benefits included an annual $500 million revenue stream for mass transit (sufficient to bond at least $5 billion in capital improvements), a solid if unspectacular drop in traffic gridlock and pollution, and, perhaps most significantly, a first step toward knocking the automobile off its privileged perch atop the New York street pyramid. Not to mention establishing the principle that safeguarding "the commons" -- our air, water and public space -- requires that we exact from ourselves a commensurate price for uses that damage or deplete it.

Congestion pricing was backed by an unusually broad coalition of labor, business, enviros (the full spectrum from EJ to Big Green) and civic associations. Yet neither this broad-spectrum support nor the plan's extraordinary vetting over the past 12 months deterred legislators from both parties from citing "unanswered questions" and assailing bogus inequities.

Calling today "a sad day for New Yorkers and New York City" and noting federal support for congestion pricing, Mayor Bloomberg blasted the legislature, stating that, "Even Washington, which most Americans agree is completely dysfunctional, is more willing to try new approaches to longstanding problems than our elected officials in the State Assembly."

With so much going for it, what killed the plan? There will be time later for sober postmortems, but for now, here's my shoot-from-the-hip Top 10 list of what felled congestion pricing in NYC: