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China trumps U.S. as biggest CO2 polluter, and more

Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: And They’re Off Canary You Hear Me Now? Be Still Our Beating Hearts Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Gameboys Search Engine Engine Search Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: The Hand That Feeds Pay for the Rays […]

Don’t call it a subsidy

David Roberts' recent post compelled some ideas that have been germinating for awhile, but are too long for just a comment on his post. Namely: we should stop talking about the need to subsidize green technologies, and instead frame the debate as a need to level the playing field.

An annual conference for perennial inspiration

Westerners are known for their pluck and willingness to solve problems with grit and imagination. Combating climate change, developing renewable energy, promoting rural economies and local agriculture, strengthening communities, and ensuring equitable access to transit ... these are all pieces of a Western manifesto put forward by the Sopris Foundation's great annual conference, this year in Missoula from July 13-15.

Elected officials, planners, ranchers and farmers, grantmakers, citizens, activists, and entrepreneurs are there for this indispensable conversation every year. How about you?

Umbra on peeing at the beach

Dear Umbra, When at a beach with no bathrooms, is it better, environmentally speaking, to urinate in the ocean or behind a sand dune? Tom Greenville, N.C. Dearest Tom, A good, silly summer question to consider as regards our impact on the natural environment. There are non-environmental concerns with beach urination as well, such as […]

Moscow on the Cud Sign

Russian capital introduces label for GM-free food Now you can have your GM-free borscht and read it, too: next week, the city of Moscow will debut a groundbreaking label for foods that are free of genetically modified ingredients. Under the leadership of Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, the city has devised a voluntary system of testing and […]

Boulder and Wiser

IBM plans green data-center expansion in Colorado High-tech grandpappy IBM will undertake an $86 million expansion of a greenish data center in Boulder, Colo. The company will add 80,000 square feet to a 225,000-square-foot facility, using energy-efficient lighting and heating, efficient building design, and energy-conservation technologies in the data gear. It’s all part of a […]

Canary You Hear Me Now?

Climate change a contributor to Darfur crisis, says U.N. report A United Nations Environment Program report says brutal conflicts in Sudan are tied to the effects of climate change, including severe drought. Competition over scarce resources, including water, timber, oil, and land, could spark more fighting unless the issues are addressed, says the report: “Ignoring […]

Random observation of the day

I read a lot of arguments about coal in a carbon-constrained world, given my, um, obsession with it, and I frequently run across these two claims, sometimes in the very same article: There’s so much coal, and renewables are so far from competitive, that it’s not realistic to think we could live without it. Coal […]

Time to kick it old school on the farm bill.

The terms of debate around the 2007 farm bill’s controversial commodity title have gotten rather narrow. On the one hand, you’ve got the House subcommittee on ag commodities, which essentially cut and pasted commodity language from the subsidy-heavy 2002 farm bill into the 2007 version now being drafted. On the other hand, you’ve got a […]

Hold the applause on the administration’s

On a new blog called Terra Rossa -- "Where Conservatives Consider a New Energy Future" -- GOP consultant Whit Ayres argues that when President Bush at the G8 summit declared his willingness to "seriously consider" carbon emission reductions over the next forty years, he took a "major step" in the direction of his environmental critics. Says Ayres:

I don't think anyone could argue that conservatives are not trying to compromise on the issue. While many conservative voters, politicians, and business leaders might prefer to take no action to limit carbon emissions, they have heard the call to action and are clearly working toward a cap they can live with.

Ayres claims the President has undergone a "sea-change" on global warming, but ignores these inconvenient facts:

• No agreement to reduce carbon emissions came out of the G8 summit, despite much pressure from Germany and Europe.
• The President talks of "long-term" [requires subscription] "aspirational" goals, but has committed to nothing but discussion.
• Shortly after taking office, a White House insider admitted [requires subscription] to Andrew Revkin of The New York Times that the Bush administration intended to do as little as possible about global warming: "There's a sense in which everybody's saying the American public doesn't have the attention span or background to pay attention to this issue," the official said. "There's still a hopeful perception around the White House that this has gone away."
• Not only did the President break a reassuring campaign promise regarding carbon emissions, but just this last year told a biographer that he was a "dissenter" on the "theory" of global warming.

So we have good reason to doubt the sincerity of the Bush administration, despite the bland assurances of progress from White House environmental chief Jim Connaughton. And in fact this past week the president himself, in his own words, has let us know exactly how high a priority he gives the issue. Four recent speeches -- to a Southern Baptist convention, to a homebuilders convention, at a political fund-raiser, and at a nuclear power plant yesterday -- were put through a word processor, and the results show what is on the president's mind, and what is not: