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In which I clear everything up

Over the past couple of weeks, there’s been a strangely heated debate on this site about carbon offsets. In this post, I’ll speculate about why the concept is so charged, and argue that it doesn’t warrant all the heat. And then I will leave the subject behind, at least for now. Start here: why is […]

Jarid Manos, CEO of the Great Plains Restoration Council, answers questions

Jarid Manos. With what environmental organization are you affiliated? What’s your job title? I am the founder and CEO of Great Plains Restoration Council, based in Fort Worth, Texas;, Wounded Knee, S.D.; and Denver, Colo. What does your organization do? Out here in flyover country, our prairies and plains have been so devastated they have […]

Politicians behaving badly

I'm thinking of marketing a politician handshaking kit that would consist of one rubber glove that can be carried in a wallet or purse to protect potential politician handshaking partners from slime.

This started out as a comment on Kate's post, but got so long I decided to put it up front. As Kate points out, the Democratically controlled House just approved continued funding of abstinence-only education to the tune of $50 million. What really makes this unbelievable is that the results of a decade-long study (PDF) funded by Congress, released just two months ago, showed conclusively that abstinence-only education has no effect whatsoever on the sexual antics of teenagers. The bar graphs starting on page 45 sum it up.

Contrary to what you might have heard

A new study by the Union of Concerned Scientists finds:

Increasing the average fuel economy of America’s new autos to 35 miles per gallon (mpg) by 2018 would save consumers $61 billion at the gas pump and increase U.S. employment by 241,000 jobs in the year 2020, including 23,900 in the auto industry ...

The study is available here.

According to the analysis, nearly $24 billion of the gasoline savings would become new revenue for automakers in 2020–paying for the improved technologies plus some profit ...

[P]utting fuel economy technology to work would also cut our oil addiction by 1.6 million barrels per day and reduce global warming pollution by more than 260 million metric tons, akin to taking nearly 40 million of today’s average cars and trucks off the road in 2020.

Leo, I’ve Got a Feeling We’re Not in Hollywood Anymore

DiCaprio-produced series will rebuild tornado-ravaged Kansas town It’s official: Nine months after the rumors began, Leonardo DiCaprio has confirmed that he and a partner will give birth to … a reality series on green building. DiCaprio will executive produce the 13-part Eco-Town on the Discovery Channel’s Planet Green arm, launching in 2008. The original notion […]

No Rush Hour

New York hems and haws over Manhattan congestion fees Today is a make-or-break, do-or-die, fish-or-cut-bait, poo-or-get-off-the-pot, we-wish-we-could-think-of-more-hyphenated-clichés day for New York, as state legislators, Governor Eliot Spitzer, and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg wrestle over Bloomberg’s proposal to enact traffic congestion fees. Following the lead of cities like London and Singapore, the Big Apple […]

Second to Naan

A worried India takes steps toward national climate plan India — home to more than a billion people and a fast-expanding economy — is taking its first steps toward a climate-change plan. On Friday, at the kick-off meeting of the National Council on Climate Change, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh gave a preview of a “Green […]

Helpful energy legislation guides

Three handy guides to the flurry of climate and energy legislation in Congress right now: First, there’s a breakdown of the July 4 "Energy Independence Day Initiative" out of the House, which details all the elements by bill and by committee. Handy. Then there’s this graphic in the WaPo, which focuses on five bills that […]

Umbra on mercury in CFLs

Dearest Umbra, For the past 10 years or so I have been patiently and methodically replacing the incandescent light bulbs in my house with the more efficient compact fluorescent ones. Even though they cost more than incandescents, I have been confident that their lower energy requirements and longer life span more than made up for […]

How legislators can help the rural

In a recent trip through the small town of Walthill, Nebraska, the phrase "rural revitalization" took on a whole new meaning. In this case, it was the lack of any kind of prosperity that made it obvious to me why rural communities are in need of revitalization. Main Street looked painfully deserted, with two recent arsons adding fresh scars to the once-active storefronts. As we drove around the residential area, most houses looked to be in some state of disrepair -- so much so that it was difficult to really tell which were homes and which had already been abandoned. If ever there was a town that needed some life breathed back into it, this was it.