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For shame

Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas Zuniga is interviewed in the spring issue of Terrain, the publication of the excellent Ecology Center in Berkeley, Calif. He has some interesting views to share about the green movement, including his disappointment that the top six environmental groups have more cash assets than the "vast right wing conspiracy," yet they keep their pet issues so siloed that they cancel their collective clout, keeping a national green agenda effectively sidelined. But where he loses me is with his tepid but clear endorsement of clean coal:

I'm a big supporter of Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer, who is one of the heaviest proponents of clean coal technology and carbon sequestration. Right now we're dependent on the Middle East for a large percentage of our energy needs, and it's clearly making us weaker from a national security perspective. It precipitated the horrid war in Iraq, and it may precipitate another one with Iran. Anything that weans us off that foreign energy and makes us self-dependent I think is a better thing in the short term.

He definitely needs some more data.

Letter in the Washington Post

John Kerry had a letter in today's Washington Post:

Stick It Where the Sun Do Shine

Groovy new battery could change the way energy is stored A type of battery created by Ford Motor Co. in the 1960s for use in electric cars could help utilities around the world. Sodium-sulfur batteries provide efficient energy storage, and could reduce the need for new transmission lines, substations, and power plants. The new generation […]

Also, Could You Paint Tom Sawyer’s Fence?

South Korea ships oil to North Korea in nuke-shutdown deal South Korea will ship oil to North Korea next week as part of a six-nation agreement reached in February that trades energy aid for a shutdown of the North’s main nuclear facility. Funny story, though: North Korea hasn’t shut down the reactor. But it totally […]

Look, We Made a Book!

Grist hawks its first book, Wake Up and Smell the Planet Attention Grist fans: we’re pleased to announce that we’re making our first foray into fiber-space. This fall, your favorite bits of Grist — including sage green-living advice, creative ideas from readers, and all manner of educational and entertaining prose — will be printed in […]

That’s a Mighty Full Circular File

Faced with rampant pollution, China reports increase in citizen protests The sorry state of air and water quality in China has led to rising public protests, says a top environment agent there — and citizens and officials alike are urging the country to crack down on polluters. In the first five months of 2007, the […]

Real World: Havana

Cuban conference addresses climate and development This week, an international conference of 800 brains is addressing climate change, environmental education, sustainable development, and other green topics — in Cuba. Yes, offering further proof that the commies have the right idea, Cuba got credit from U.N. Environment Program Director Achim Steiner for solving its energy crisis […]

Global warming cancels 4th of July celebrations

Global warming threatens our White Chistmases with winter heatwaves and our Arbor Days with record wildfires. And now it imperils our Independence Day fireworks with ever worsening droughts.

The Drudge Report headline blares "No Fireworks." As USA Today reports:

Dozens of communities in drought-stricken areas are scrapping public fireworks displays and cracking down on backyard pyrotechnics to reduce the risk of fires.

"From a fire standpoint and a safety standpoint, it was an easy call," Burbank Fire Chief Tracy Pansini says. He recommended calling off fireworks at the Starlight Bowl because they're launched from a mountainside covered with vegetation that's "all dead."

The record droughts around the country have nixed fireworks in a half dozen states. What will happen to 4th of July celebrations over much of the country if, as predicted in an April Science, article, we have "a permanent drought by 2050 throughout the Southwest"?

Here are some of the places canceling fireworks this year:

Grist in NYT

How did we neglect to shamelessly self-promote mention that Grist honcho Chuck Gilla got some props in Sunday’s New York Times?

Emphasis on the ‘rare’

Trees are terrific in every way but one: they make lousy carbon offsets. That was the point of the "First rule of carbon offsets." But a number of comments and some media queries have led me include two rare exceptions: certified urban trees and certified tropical forest preservation. The word "certified" is key in both cases.

For these two rare cases, I would allow trees to comprise no more than 10 percent of an overall offset portfolio (which should be heavily weighted toward efficiency, renewables, fuel switching, and perhaps carbon capture and storage). Also, their offset value should probably be discounted over time (because urban trees are unlikely to be permanent and tropical forest accounting is quite uncertain).