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A new amendment from Sanders and Clinton

Over at The Hill‘s Congress Blog, Sen. Bernie Sanders touts his green-collar jobs amendment to the energy bill, which will come up for debate this week. (Sen. Clinton also put her name on it.) Great to see this issue getting attention. See, again: Van Jones.

So says Jim Henley, and yours truly

Jim Henley says that "energy independence" is the most ridiculous phrase in the American political lexicon: The concept of "energy independence" is a sham. I think it’s generally code for "Then we can stop being nice to the fvcking A-rabs," but this gets gussied up with terms like "instability" and references to Hugo Chavez, who […]

An eco-lexical eco-spasm for the modern eco-age

With apologies to “green” and “enviro,” there’s no doubt “eco” is the supreme prefix of the environmental movement. Photo: iStockphoto According to the Oxford English Dictionary — the Bible of the English language, only with fewer lepers and begettings — “eco” detached from “ecology” as early as 1969, when examples of “eco-activist,” “eco-catastrophe,” and “ecocide” […]

Why does Bush never veto legislation?

Because he can just direct federal agencies to ignore it instead. And speaking of corrupt federal agencies, check out the latest clowning at Interior, involving Steven Griles, one of the A-list hacks of the Bush years. The cojones on these guys …

More victories

Sweet! Here’s a press release I just got from Friends of the Earth: —– WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate today voted against two attempts to encourage the use of liquid coal, rejecting a pair of amendments to the energy bill that would have alternately mandated 6 billion gallons of liquid coal use annually by 2022 […]

The precise mathematical formula for despair

The latest Mother Jones (July/August 2007, according to the the weird dating schemes of dinosaur media) has a great last-page feature titled "The New Math of Global Warming" -- short, poetic mathematical expressions on our plight.

I'd link to it but the MoJo site seems to be missing some of its mojo right now ... the link to the slideshow gives you a "not found" error.

But it's probably for sale at a local indie newsstand near you. As Joe Bob would say, "Check it out."

A package of good stories

Rolling Stone has a package of stories on Al Gore’s climate crusade in the current issue. First up is a long interview with the man himself , including this nice tidbit: What figure in the administration, other than the president himself, do you hold most responsible for standing in the way of meaningful change on […]

Arguments supporting government subsidies of agrofuels are getting polished

This is my formal rebuttal to David Morris's "case for corn-based fuel." I'm using my access to the bully pulpit to pull it out of the comments field.

How did the use of ethanol end up alongside tyranny and torture as an evil to be conquered?

That's easy. A whole lot of real smart people have been giving corn ethanol a lot of thought and have found that "an evil to be conquered" isn't a bad description. In smaller quantities, it does smaller amounts of damage, but as quantities increase, so does the damage. I mean, what's not to like about a fuel that milks billions from taxpayers, increases the cost of food all around the world, exacerbates the Gulf of Mexico dead zone, and returns no more energy than it produces?

Two great tastes?

Christina Larson has the latest on the flowering cooperation between greens and the hook & bullet crowd. This bit is funny: Hunters are predominantly male. Yet the folks who’ve been most successful in reaching out and forging partnerships haven’t been green dudes, talking man to man — but rather the enviro ladies. A few possible […]

So says a new report

Everything you could possibly want to know about nuclear power -- and its (limited) potential as a potential climate solution -- can be found in the new Keystone Center Report with the less-than-captivating title "Nuclear Power Joint Fact-Finding."

Reuters is confused in its article on the report, "Nuclear Power Can't Curb Global Warming -- Report," and actually overstates the case for nuclear: