Latest Articles

Boosting crops for fuel will hurt water supplies, says report

Increased production of corn and other crops to fulfill America’s biofuel gluttony could threaten both availability and quality of water supplies, according to a report released today by the National Research Council. Fulfilling President Bush’s stated goal of producing 35 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2017 “would mean a lot more fertilizers and pesticides” […]

Want environmentally conscious effervescence? DIY

If you’re a fan of sparkling water but feel guilty about having to buy it bottled, you might enjoy this NYT story about home seltzer makers that provide "environmentally conscious effervescence." Myself, I don’t care for the bubbly stuff, but I did find this part amusing (emph. mine, obvi): Plain tap water has become the […]

LCV declares Sen. James Inhofe a target for unseating in 2008

Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe (R) is the first person to make the League of Conservation Voters’ “Dirty Dozen” list of congresspeople the group hopes to unseat in 2008. Inhofe is the minority leader on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, despite having called climate change “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people”; […]

Yet more musing on Lomborg and S&N

Looks like I'm not the only one who sees a scary similarity between the messages in their respective books, Cool It and Break Through.

The San Francisco Chronicle just ran a double review by Robert Collier, a visiting scholar at the Center for Environmental Public Policy at UC Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy. The review ends pointedly:

[T]he arguments of Nordhaus and Shellenberger attain an intellectual pretense that could almost pass for brilliant if their urgings weren't so patently empty. The closing chapter calls for "greatness," but, like the rest of the book, it offers little in the way of substantive proposals to back up its rhetorical thunder.

Perhaps that's for their next book. Or perhaps real solutions, rather than pretentious sniping, are not the authors' purpose. Nordhaus and Shellenberger, like Lomborg, will get plenty of attention in Washington from those who want to preserve the status quo. But for those who recognize the urgent need to transform the national and world economies and save the planet as we know it, they are ultimately irrelevant.

Precisely.

Me, elsewhere

Two things I wrote yesterday are now up on other sites. Over at the Guardian‘s opinion site, I’ve got a piece on Obama’s new energy plan. (Wow, the comments are really awful over there.) Over at TPM Cafe, I’m taking part in a "book club" roundtable on S&N’s new book Break Through (heard of it?). […]

Climate change will bring more humidity and heat-related deaths

Climate change is increasing global humidity, according to a new study in Nature. If the globe heats as projected, air stickiness could increase globally by up to 24 percent by 2100. Says study coauthor Katharine Willett, “Although it might not be a lethal kind of thing, it’s going to increase human discomfort.” For a lethal […]

Shellenberger & Nordhaus echo flawed economic assumptions

I just finished reading Shellenberger & Nordhaus' latest, and while I realize I am a bit late to the party, I think they say some fascinating things -- perhaps not for the reasons they intended.

S&N manage to succinctly distill an awful lot of the ideas that are core not only to policy debates on carbon, but to policy discussions of any major change to the economy. Understanding these biases is critical to understanding why S&N write what they write, but also why they are so deeply wrong.

Umbra on tossing food waste

Dear Umbra, I am a college student. I eat a lot on the go. Not fast food or boxed meals, but when I leave my dorm I usually grab an apple, banana, or other fruit/veggie to eat as I walk to my destination. I don’t compost, instead I just throw the banana peel or apple […]

Politicians are still pumping biodiesel

Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) will be speechifying today at 11:00am at the opening of the first of many biodiesel pumps to be installed in the Seattle area by Propel Biofuels. According to a press release I just received from Duff Badgely, there will also be a handful of protesters on hand to greet them. Don't these people have anything better to do than to run around speaking truth to power?

In her speech, Cantwell will tell us all about how this fuel will fight global warming, reduce local air pollution, make us energy independent, and be made from crops grown by Washington State farmers. Here is a picture of Maria Cantwell, Patty Murray, Congressman Norm Dicks, and Imperium President John Plaza with looks of absolute glee on their faces at the grand opening in August of the largest industrial agridiesel refinery in North America.

Never mind that according to a recent paper in Science, one in the Journal of Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, and this paper (PDF) co-authored by Ron Steenblik, the fuel being served at this pump is far more environmentally destructive than the fuel it replaces. The peer-reviewed paper in Science says it will release about five times more carbon over a thirty-year period than if you had simply let the cropland grow into a forest. The journal study (by a multinational team of researchers including a Nobel Prize winner) says it releases 70% more greenhouse gases (in the form of NO2) than diesel. To ice the cake, the paper co-authored by Steenblik has a chart on p. 35 that gives biodiesel made from rapeseed an overall environmental rating 2.5 times worse than diesel:

L.A. considers freeway overpass for wildlife

Los Angeles is considering adding another commuter lane — for wildlife. But a proposal for a $455,000 animal path over the 405 Freeway is unpopular with residents who argue that transportation dollars should go to easing human-caused congestion, not making the commute more enjoyable for bobcats, coyotes, deer, and opossums.