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Shop till you drop? There’s a better way

It's that time of year again. The bells are jingling and the registers are ring-ting-tingling, too. Black Friday has come and gone, and Cyber Monday orders are in the mail. Now we're wasting time in parking-lot traffic jams and long checkout lines, all the while trying to maintain our holiday cheer.

The National Retail Federation predicts that Americans will spend $474.5 billion this holiday season. That's up 4 percent from last year's whopping $456.2 billion spent on clothes, video games, and hot tech toys.

Do we really need to repeat history? Recent tradition, supported by plenty of well-crafted holiday advertisements, says "Yes."

Our current state of consumer mania -- our manufactured wants, must-haves and can't-live-withouts -- was born during the post-World War II era, when our country was trying to rebuild its economy. The best strategy, according to retail analyst Victor Lebow, was to make consumption a way of life. And boy, have we ever!

FutureGen “clean coal” demonstration plant slated for Illinois

FutureGen, the U.S. Department of Energy’s massive “clean coal” demonstration plant, will be sited in Mattoon, Ill., officials announced this morning. Three other potential locations for the plant each lobbied heavily for the roughly $1.8 billion project to be built on their turf — one other site in Illinois and two others in Texas. The […]

An incomplete roundup of reactions and commentary to the Bali climate meetings

I feel somewhat guilty for not following the goings-on in Bali more closely. A few of you have written to ask why. It’s just that every single international meeting on climate since I started covering this stuff has gone down the exact … same … way. It’s like clockwork: everyone arrives full of hope, because […]

Mining giant Newmont cleared in Indonesian pollution suit, again

An Indonesian court cleared a subsidiary of Denver-based Newmont Mining Corp. of wrongdoing in a lawsuit filed against the company by an environmental group. The group, Walhi, had sought cleanup and an apology from Newmont’s subsidiary for dumping mine waste from a now-closed gold mine directly into Buyat Bay, allegedly killing fish and sickening area […]

The next blight

Via Atrios, a preview of things to come: empty retail space in the ‘burbs. How long can something stay empty and still retain that clean, sterile look the ‘burbs are known for? How long until blight sets in?

Economists cannot predict the future

For those of you who have not seen this presentation given at the American Association for the Advancement of Science humor session earlier this year, I highly recommend it. Of all the posts I've seen on the Gristmill on the subject of economics, this one by Sean Casten most closely reflects my views.

In this post, Jerry Taylor from the CATO Institute tells us about the worst case scenario from a study done by Dr. Martin Parry, the lead author of the most recent IPCC Working Group on climate change impacts. According to results of this "computer run" eighty years from today, average incomes will have increased somewhere between five and 50-fold, and the land needed for agriculture will be reduced by half (along with deaths from hunger, malaria, and coastal flooding). Are we talking about the same Dr. Parry who said the following in September?

"Mitigation has got all the attention but we cannot mitigate out of this problem. We now have a choice between a future with a damaged world or a severely damaged world."

I tend to agree with many of Jerry Taylor's stances. Here he reflects my opinions on corn ethanol, and here he reflects my opinion of Republicans, except he appears to think highly of Reagan.

Nominee for federal fossil-energy secretary has strong ties to Big Coal

From 2001 to 2003, Stanley Suboleski was chief operating officer of mining company Massey Energy, which faces $2.4 billion in fines for more than 4,000 alleged Clean Water Act violations at its coal operations in West Virginia and Kentucky within the past six years. It’s only logical, then, that President Bush would nominate Suboleski, who […]

Senate OKs stripped-down energy bill, oil spills in North Sea, and more

Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: No Day at the Beach in Bali Glass Half Full? Letting Goad Clean Up That Oil, Stat! It’s a Christmas Miracle! O Me! O Life! Of the Questions of These Recurring Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: It’s All About the […]

Sen. Joe Lieberman endorses Sen. John McCain for president

Used-to-be-Democrat-but-now-Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.) has angered Democrats by endorsing Republican Sen. John McCain for president. The two men have similar views on the war in Iraq (pro) and terrorism (anti), but Lieberman says his endorsement was also for McCain’s commitment to the environment and fighting climate change. The two joined their names to pen […]

The terrible omnibus bill

Rumors began circulating late last Friday -- as the Senate was passing the much-weakened energy bill -- that some terrible provisions had made their way into the omnibus spending package, which will likely face votes in both bodies by the end of the week.

Now comes word from Friends of the Earth that "the omnibus spending bill expected to come before the House of Representatives tonight and the Senate tomorrow directs $20.5 billion in loan guarantees to nuclear power and $8 billion to the coal industry, with language that includes potential subsidies for the production of coal-to-liquid fuels."