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A conservative kids’ book publisher takes on climate change

The L.A. Times visits a conservative publisher of children’s books. Here’s what they find: First up is a story about a boy named Jake who watches a dire film about global warming in school. Jake walks home cursing every SUV — until his best friend, Ben, sets him straight with a didactic lecture disguised as […]

15 Green Actors

Photo: Steve Granitz / WireImage Leonardo DiCaprio Once “king of the world,” this star often flies commercially and drives himself around in a hybrid Toyota Prius. In 1998, he started the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation to promote environmental causes. More recently, he’s been working on 11th Hour, an environmental documentary featuring interviews with global green leaders. […]

Public presentations on global warming — not as easy as you might think

So I had an opportunity to go see a free, open-to-the-public talk by Dr. Michael Mann, one of the lead authors for the IPCC, the person most associated with the "hockey stick" graph of temperature, and a faculty member at Penn State University.

His topic: "Global Climate Change: Past and Present."

A review:

15 Green Sports Stars

Check out our roster of green sports stars, then pitch your own suggestions in the comments section at the bottom of the page. Photo: Imaginechina / WireImage Yao Ming At seven and a half feet tall, NBA star Ming isn’t afraid to stand up for endangered species. He’s spoken out against the hunting of sharks […]

More on Bush’s climate strategy

My post yesterday said what needs to be said about Bush’s "new" climate strategy, but this passage from Dana Milbank’s hilarious column today is too good to pass up: “Will the new framework consist of binding commitments or voluntary commitments?” asked CBS News’s Jim Axelrod. “In this instance, you have a long-term, aspirational goal,” [Bush […]

Start with CFLs, and let the lightbulb go on

Today's post on how gloom and doom messaging backfires -- on Katya Andresen's excellent nonprofit marketing blog -- backs up David Roberts' posts on fear-based messaging being bad for green issues here and here. It's more important to empower people than scare them, Andresen says. Grist keeps a good balance in this regard. I think she's right on the money:

Go negative with caution. You must give people the feeling that they have the power to help, not the feeling they are helpless or that your issue is intractable .... If you scare with scale, you'll lose. If you empower with feasible steps, you'll make social change ... I feel the same way about apocalyptic messages about global warming. I feel powerless to stop the flooding of the world. Ask me to buy different light bulbs, however, or take some other action that is feasible, and I will.

We can't stop climate change with just CFLs, but encouraging folks to do so opens a window into a deeper conversation about what else we must do.

A new report

The Center for American Progress has a terrific new report on "Global Warming and the Future of Coal" by Ken Berlin and Robert Sussman.

The report explores what to do about the explosive growth in coal plant construction projected for the coming quarter century -- 1,400 gigawatts of electricity by 2030, with more than 10 percent in the U.S. alone.

In the absence of emission controls, these new plants will increase worldwide annual emissions of carbon dioxide by approximately 7.6 billion metric tons by 2030. These emissions would equal roughly 50 percent of all fossil fuel emissions over the past 250 years.

So we must have emissions controls on the vast majority of those plants. The report looks at a variety of policy measures that might achieve that goal and recommends:

Regulations may increase rather than decrease property value

UPDATE 6/8/07: The study I mentioned in this post was was based on data collected and analyzed by two researchers at Oregon State University. Those researchers, William Jaeger and Andrew Plantinga, have produced a more complete report (pdf) containing a full economic analysis and no editorializing. The conclusion, however, is basically the same: there's no evidence to support the claim that Oregon's growth management protections have harmed property values, at least in aggregate.

When Measure 37 was up for a vote in 2004, supporters claimed that Oregon's planning laws were so draconian they reduced property values by $5.4 billion per year. That eye-popping figure may be one of the central reasons voters were inclined to support the measure. (Voter support has since severely evaporated.) As it turns out, however, that $5.4 billion cost to Oregon's property owners was a chimera.

To unmask the $5.4 billion illusion, Georgetown University's Law Center just published a rigorous empirical study of trends in Oregon property values and found that all those land-use regulations have cost, well, not much at all. In fact, they may have added value, at least on average.

I won't walk blog readers through the whole study, but the Georgetown report should be required reading for those following the issue closely: it represents by far the best-researched examination of the question to date.

Perhaps the most damning finding is one of the simplest: a comparison between property values in Oregon and other states from 1965 to 2005. As it turns out, Oregon's highly-regulated property slightly outperformed values in neighboring California and Washington, though it lagged Idaho by a little. Oregon also outperformed the national average.

Check Baby Check Baby One Two … 300

Wachovia, fourth-largest U.S. bank, plans to build 300 green branches The fourth-largest bank in the U.S. will build only green branches by the end of 2008, aiming for 300 eco-friendly offices by 2010. Wachovia, based in Charlotte, N.C., is expanding into California and will begin its green experiment there. It is also seeking LEED certification […]

Can Hemp Dashboards Be Far Behind?

Union leader, Ford call for green progress in Detroit Could Big Auto be shifting gears? Speaking at a business conference on Michigan’s (car-free) Mackinac Island yesterday, Ford Motor Company Chair Bill Ford Jr. and United Automobile Workers President Ron Gettelfinger both addressed the need for Detroit to get with the green program. “Unfortunately, there is […]