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The Onion with another masterful satire

Oh, Onion. You make me laugh and want to cry: In The Know: How Can We Make The War In Iraq More Eco-Friendly?

Gary Hirshberg argues that his company is doing a lot to support organic dairy farmers

The following is a response to a post by Ed Maltby, executive director of the Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance.

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Londonderry, N.H.: These are difficult times for the organic dairy industry, and as we have demonstrated consistently for over a decade, we are deeply engaged in the effort to find solutions that balance escalating supply costs with the need to keep organic product prices within the average consumer's reach.

Stonyfield has consistently fought for farmers' interests, despite the pressures of the marketplace to reduce or hold prices for our yogurts. Over the past five years, the pay price we pay for organic milk has risen 34 percent, while Stonyfield has only raised the price of its 6-oz. yogurt 11 percent over the same period. We have endeavored to meet farmers' needs, while finding savings in other parts of our business.

The fact is, despite our supplier costs rising dramatically over recent years, we have worked hard to maintain an affordable price for the consumer. This is a very tough balancing act, but at the end of the day, the greatest thing we can do is to grow the organic segment that benefits all the players -- farmers, processors, and consumers. And Stonyfield has done just that, by converting 100 percent of our products to organic, increasing our purchases of family-farmer-supplied organic milk to over $60 million per year, and all the while investing in numerous strategies that will help our family farmers to thrive.

An interview with eco-certification expert Michael Conroy

Michael Conroy. Photo: Chris Conroy Photography As a shopper, you can’t turn around without running into some type of green label, from Fair Trade to FSC-certified. But what do they all mean, and where the hell did they even come from? Economist Michael Conroy digs into the history behind these increasingly common labels in his […]

Small-scale bike-share program to come to Capitol Hill

Thirty bicycles will be made available to government employees on Capitol Hill under a pilot bike-share program announced by U.S. Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) at a National Bike Summit Thursday. “You have such a huge concentration of people” on the Hill, he said, “and so much of the errand running doesn’t need to fire up […]

What drives climate change denial?

David and I have apparently crossed blog streams (very dangerous; never do this), but I do want to expand a bit on this basic idea: climate change skepticism has little to do with science. Rather, it is an outgrowth of the culture war.

This point seems both totally obvious and strangely unremarked. At the risk of generalizing, environmentalists tend to view climate change denialism as a top-down, money-driven phenomenon. Energy producers, auto manufacturers, oil companies, and other interested parties court politicians, buy friendly scientists, and groom armies of lawyers, lobbyists, and op-ed writers to push their agenda. Or so the theory goes. And, of course, there's a lot of merit to that theory. You don't need a compass to follow the trail of money.

But the theory only goes so far. A shrinking but significant proportion of average American citizens reject the reality of climate change. The reasons for this are surely overdetermined -- scientific confusion, media spin, hopelessness in the face of a big problem, etc. -- but it's impossible to ignore the basic cultural resentment underlying everything from Planet Gore to the regular flow of blog comments and email I get from dedicated dead-enders.

Notable quotable

“Is it all right to hurt humans in order to protect whales? I think whales are cute and important creatures, but even so, hurting humans is unforgivable.” — Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura, criticizing anti-whaling activists

Bush’s keynote at WIREC surpasses misinformation

Scholars have been debating that question for ages, along with "If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around, does it make a sound?" and "Why don't we see any baby squirrels?" and "What the heck is happening on ABC's Lost?"

(BTW, if anyone actually knows what the heck is happening on Lost, how Sayid ends up being Ben's hitman (!), let me know -- I still believe the "island is purgatory" theory -- it certainly is for viewers -- even though it has been debunked by the show's creator. As if! I guess that makes me a Lost denier ... but I digress.)

I was inspired to re-examine this age-old question after the recent remarks of the Disinformer-in-Chief in his keynote address at the Washington International Renewable Energy Conference, a ministerial-level conference hosted by the U.S. government. He said:

Now, look, I understand stereotypes are hard to defeat. People get an image planted in their head, and sometimes it causes them not to listen to the facts. But America is in the lead when it comes to energy independence; we're in the lead when it comes to new technologies; we're in the lead when it comes to global climate change -- and we'll stay that way. [Applause.]

Side note: The "Is it still disinformation if the speaker gets applause?" question was actually settled by Aristotle himself in his little-known book The Duh of Rhetoric.

The Western Climate Initiative’s first proposal ducks biggest climate problem

The Western Climate Initiative is a path-breaking effort. Insufficient federal progress prompted seven states and two provinces to join together to reduce climate pollution by means of an economy-wide cap-and-trade program. It's a momentous opportunity, and many folks have been working hard to ensure that it's a success.

Unfortunately, there's now cause for serious concern.

Yesterday evening, WCI released its draft proposal (PDF). It proposes an initial cap that would cover less than half of the region's total emissions. Most surprisingly, WCI does not recommend including emissions from transportation fuels, by far the largest source of climate pollution in the West. [Update 3/7: The recommendation doesn't exclude transportation precisely, but rather defers the decision until further economic studies are completed.]

The proposal is at odds with WCI's own stated principles that include a commitment to cover "as many emissions sources as practical." And for an effort born of frustration with federal lawmakers, it's bizarre that the proposal is significantly smaller in scope than recent federal bills (PDF), including Leiberman-Warner.

There are no big technical challenges to including transportation fuels. In fact, the WCI admits that while there are a couple of hurdles, it's administratively feasible to include transportation emissions. So what's going on?

No one knows for sure.

Bill introduced in House to overturn EPA’s California decision

A bill introduced Thursday in the House of Representatives would grant California the right to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from vehicles, and pave the way for 12 other states to do the same. The U.S. EPA’s decision to keep California from regulating car GHG emissions “defied the science, defied the states, and defied common sense,” said […]

Competitive Whining, er, Enterprise Institute bashes Gore with all they’ve got

A short while ago, Sir Oolius received a fundraising email from the Competitive Enterprise Institute asking for donations to help them with their new raison d'etre: yelling "FU, Al Gore!" as loudly and as often as possible. The fruits of this effort are now upon us in the form of a national ad whining campaign:

If carbon = life, then Al Gore ...