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Go car-free, win stuff

Here's something most Gristers are probably already doing: going car-free once a week. So step up, take credit, and get entered to win these prizes from New American Dream:

• Grand Prize: A one-week Bike Tour of Oregon for you and a friend, provided by Sustainable Energy in Motion
• Second Prize: A Villager U-frame Breezer Bike
• Third Prize: A $200 carbon offset from Native Energy (and a snazzy t-shirt as well)

Climate change impacts on wineries: Could this be the last straw for some?

Many of those opposed to action on global warming might change their tune if they knew that it would actually affect their beverage of choice. That's right, global warming might change wine. For more info on this, check out this story from KQED Public Broadcasting in San Francisco.

Legendary Burning Man festival gets an eco-conscience

Armen Zeitounian leads the way up the staircase of the house he’s living in, a two-story colonial nestled in the smoggy hills north of Los Angeles, complete with a view and a pool and a black Ford Explorer in the driveway. In a room on the top floor, a two-by-six-inch plank, painted white, protrudes about […]

MIT lab rats cook up a less wasteful gasoline engine

Don't hum the requiem for the gasoline engine just yet. MIT brainiacs say it's easier than imagined to flip a car between the usual gas-guzzling state to a low-pollution, ultra-efficient mode.

The researchers have tested a system that can run on a quarter less than the usual amount of gas without needing any fancy fuel. With the flick of a switch, the setup alternates between regular, spark-triggered combustion and experimental homogeneous charge compression ignition.

In the latter system, premixed fuel and air combust when compressed, spewing less soot and NOx from the engine. Volvo has explored the hybrid technology, but many kinks would need to untangle before you could get behind the wheel.

If car makers adopted such hybrid gasoline ignitions, the petroleum wouldn't get any cleaner, but less of it would be used, potentially adding a few miles per gallon of efficiency to a car. That might keep the grins up at oil companies and gas stations -- but in dreamland, only for a fleeting moment, as the world weans off of fossil fuels. Right?

This and other stopgap car-greening measures of now and the near future are giving people more driving options than ever. What's more interesting -- the novelty of this innovation, or that it's reaching the not-quite-there-yet phase of development more than a century after Daimler and Benz got props for the modern gas engine?

Time to get serious about bikes

I participated in another Critical Mass bike ride last Friday and thought I'd share some observations. This was the first time I have seen a patrol car at a gathering, although they didn't seem to know what exactly was going on. They cited one guy for drinking in public. The goofball had an open bottle of red wine. I had to smile as they dragged him off because half of the crowd watching was standing there with beers hidden in riding gloves or drink bottles.

The ride got off to a rocky start. Normally, a few of the several hundred riders will start circling the crowd to warn everyone that take off is imminent. But this time the dummies just took off while everyone else was still waiting for a signal. This spread the ride out. So, I decided to hang out at the tail end to see what that was like.

I found a woman and a mom and her young son trying to stay up with the other riders. When the crowd swept onto the highway things got dicey. I stayed with them to help run block on cars and tried to hurry them along. Now I know what a wildebeest cow and her calf must feel like when a pack of hyenas have weeded them from the herd. Another woman dropped back to help me protect them from the cars. We became surrounded by pissed off SUV drivers. The coup de grace was when a guy in a Porche deliberately slammed on his brakes. The young woman who had dropped back to help me ran right into his bumper and fell off her bike. He screeched his tires and left her lying there. She was pretty unhinged. I stuck with them until they got to an exit ramp where I told them that they really should not be participating in this ride. They simply were not strong enough riders. The exit ramp happened to be a few blocks from my house so I bailed out of the ride early hoping everyone got home safely.

Bridge to the 21st century?

Since 1998, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has been publishing an "infrastructure report card" detailing the sorry state of the various parts of our infrastructure. Unfortunately, national attention on the physical infrastructure only rises when something catastrophic happens, as it did in New Orleans in 2005, in Minneapolis on Wednesday after the collapse of a large bridge, or during an electrical blackout.

Like our ecosystems, the physical infrastructure is an essential part of the economy; the economy literally rests on the foundation of ecosystems and the infrastructure. Like the various ecosystems, such as forests and grasslands, lakes and rivers, the infrastructure has increasingly been treated like an asset that can be milked for all its worth, without investment. Like our ecosystems, the neglect of our infrastructure is the result of maximizing income in the short term; instead of insuring that there is some slack in a bridge or a forest, the economy has become nonresilient.

The antagonism is mutual

I’m now in one of the marquee panels of the weekend: blogs vs. MSM! In attendance are Mike Allen of Politico, Jill from Feministe, Jay Carney from Time, and Glenn Greenwald. Those of you who follow blogs know that Greenwald’s attacks on and contempt for the mainstream media — particularly Allen and Carney — are […]

Anybody listing the lists?

Some people really like lists of things that you can (or maybe should) do for the environment. Some don't.

Those who do can go here.

For those who don't: move along, nothing to see here.

What’s happening with the House energy bill?

Word from the front: fierce resistance from the usual suspects has resulted in compromise amendments hacking the 20 percent standard to 15 percent, while allowing states the option of meeting up to 4 percent through energy efficiency. This is a strategic retreat that has supporters optimistic, though by no means certain of eventual victory.

House is in recess right now over an Ag bill kerfluffle. No word yet on the critical solar investment tax credit.

Update [2007-8-3 17:40:22 by Adam Browning]:

The extension of the federal solar tax credit should be heard on the House Floor Saturday, and Big Oil is rallying the opposition to kill solar as we speak. It will be an extremely tight vote - tight like a noose - and we need you to call your Representative right now.

The situation is this. Earlier this year, House leadership committed to 'pay as you go'--that is, any new tax incentives must be balanced by getting rid of existing incentives. In this case, that means paying for renewable energy programs by reducing tax cuts for oil production. That's all good right? In a time of record profits for Big Oil, an approaching climate crisis and energy security scaring us all, why not reduce oil profits to help bring solar into the mainstream?

Unfortunately, the Republican leadership is holding the line on keeping subsidies for Big Oil, while some Democrats in oil districts haven't gotten the message that the public is tired of business as usual and wants a real commitment to renewables.

If this is important to you, call your Representative and tell them to support HR 2776 right now. Enter your zipcode here to find your Rep and give them a call.

Tell them:

* I live in Representative _______'s district

* Please support HR2776, the tax title of the Energy Bill

* if they tell you they are already supportive, then thank them profusely!

* If not, tell them...

* I support reducing tax cuts for fossil fuels to support renewable energy

* We are at a turning point to create a secure economy and stop a climate crisis with more renewable energy. The people are in favor of this change and all our politicians need to get on board - or they'll be pushed out of the way.

Act now, time is short and we need these votes! Solar is a non-partisan issue, and we need you to keep it that way.

YearlyKos: Hertzberg has a blog

Hendrick Hertzberg of the New Yorker — who’s about the smartest guy and the best writer you’re likely to meet in this lifetime — has a blog (I surrender!). To introduce yourself to it, check out this post on how oddly … normal the crowd at YearlyKos is.