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Judge issues ruling protecting delta smelt, restricting California water access

For years, environmentalists have blamed the rapidly dwindling smelt population in the San Joaquin-Sacramento River delta on huge pumps that dispense water throughout southern California, but also suck in and kill huge numbers of the endangered fish. To protect the smelt, a species unique to the delta, a federal judge issued a far-reaching ruling Friday […]

Spike in gasoline prices is partially due to Bush’s weak energy policy

The Washington Post reported that President Bush made the following claim at a fundraiser:

Do you realize that the United States is the only major industrialized nation that cut greenhouse gases last year?

The Post noted immediately that the White House "was unable to substantiate the claim" because they really don't know what other industrialized nations have done. But does Bush deserve any credit for the unusual U.S. drop in emissions? I say yes, but only in a perverse way -- his failed energy policy (and the failed reconstruction of the Iraqi oil industry) helped set the stage for sharply increased gasoline prices in 2006, which moderated oil consumption.

The White House claims that "progress is due in part to natural causes, innovation and market forces, and emerging federal, state and local policies." Uh, how do "emerging federal policies" change anything? Answer: they don't until they actually emerge, which for this administration will be pretty much never.

Wisdom from 13th-century Persia

Last Friday, Bill Moyers interviewed the poet Robert Bly on PBS. Bly has been translating some of the poetry of the great Persian poets Hafez and Rumi, and he recited the following piece from Rumi:

Just be quiet and sit down. The reason is you're drunk. And this is the edge of the roof.

Bly (and Man with a Muck-Rake) relate this to Bush, but I wonder if the phrase could be also be applied to way humans have been abusing the environment: becoming drunk on fossil fuels and the natural capital of nature, ready to fall off the roof.

Trash bins overflow with plastic bottles at the ‘green’ Bumbershoot Music and Arts Festival

They won't hear the message over the sound of your actions.

Organic dairy farm dodged organic rules, and more

Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: The Climate Got Me High Emission Accomplished Agribusiness As Usual Classy Consciousness Sudan Impact Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: How Green Is Your Candidate? Import-Export Business A Shareable Feast

Pacific Rim nations meet to consider climate, unlikely to do much

If you haven’t had your fill of anticlimactic climate meetings, hark: climate is at the top of the agenda at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Sydney this week. APEC’s 21 members — Pacific Rim countries including the U.S., China, and Australia — together consume about 60 percent of the world’s energy, and thus are […]

For mitigation over adaptation: the argument from cynicism

The second anniversary of Katrina has passed, marked by me only with craven silence. There are three Katrina tidbits I wanted to pass along, though, as they are germane to the argument over whether humanity can or should adapt to ongoing climate change. The first is from a year ago. Jim Rusch, who was then […]

Consumer Reports hypes hydrogen cars

Consumer Reports has a fluff piece on hydrogen fuel cell cars in its latest issue (subs. req'd).

I spend way too much time debunking this most consumer unfriendly of alternative fuel vehicles -- I even wrote a book on the subject, The Hype About Hydrogen. So I was happy to get an email from Tom Gage, President and CEO of AC Propulsion, containing a letter he sent to the magazine. I asked him if I could run it, and he not only said yes, he expanded it:

Larry Craig’s environmental legacy was dismal, but his successor’s might be better

In keeping with the classy GOP tradition -- out with the gay and in with the new -- Sen. Larry Craig is now history. But, expanding on Tom's post, it's worth keeping in mind that his brown legacy extends well past his much-lampooned arrest in an airport toilet.

The New West Network has a fairly encyclopedic rundown of the many ways in which Larry Craig obstructed legislation that was friendly to the environment and advanced measures detrimental to it. Some highlights: Craig supported offshore drilling, supported drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, obstructed appropriations to, among other programs, the Land and Water Conservation Fund, promoted the transportation of nuclear weapons to Yucca Mountain for storage therein, deappropriated funds intended to count the dwindling population of salmon in the Columbia and Snake rivers, trounced efforts to raise public land grazing fees, and attempted to deregulate big timber. It's quite a record -- all the more worth mentioning because some of the names being tossed around as potential replacements present such an enormous opportunity for improvement.

Exploring the tubes so you don’t have to

Mo’ links! Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland Ohio recently passed a renewable portfolio standard that falls prey to the worst pitfalls of that particular policy mechanism: Gov. Ted Strickland wants to require that 25 percent of the electricity sold in Ohio by 2025 come from alternative energies, such as fuel cells, solar panels, windmills, nuclear and […]