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South Central Community Farm update

If you haven't been keeping up: The situation at the South Central Community Farm has gotten even more grim. The farmers have received an eviction order. A variety of celebs and quasi-celebs and hippie ex-celebs have taken up direct action, camping out on the farm. Julia Butterfly Hill is even sitting up in a tree. It's not looking good.

Go give them some money.

(Meanwhile, the same city that can't cough up $10 million for this community farm is contemplating spending $800 million renovating a sports stadium to attract an NFL team. Awesome.)

Americans and Climate Change: Incentives

"Americans and Climate Change: Closing the Gap Between Science and Action" (PDF) is a report synthesizing the insights of 110 leading thinkers on how to educate and motivate the American public on the subject of global warming. Background on the report here. I'll be posting a series of excerpts (citations have been removed; see original report). If you'd like to be involved in implementing the report's recommendations, or learn more, visit the Yale Project on Climate Change website.

All right, I realize that nobody is reading this, but dammit, I started posting it and I'm going to finish. It's a shame, really -- this is one of the most interesting chapters. It looks at a variety of professions -- scientists, journalists, educators, politicians, businessfolk, and environmentalists -- and examines the kind of career incentives that discourage active engagement on climate change. It's quite eye-opening. Today I'll just post the intro (super-short!).

From Dems to Diva

It’s just a jump to the left Welcome to Grist List’s time-warp edition! This week, Al Gore and both Clintons made noise about global warming and energy policy. For a sec we thought we’d been transported to 1996, but then we realized: a decade ago, they weren’t saying a damn thing. Photo: AP/Denis Paquin. And […]

A new reliance on coal could sap green cred from the ethanol industry

As ethanol boosterism spreads far and wide — from Bush’s bully pulpit to the New York Times to green-group press releases — a quietly emerging trend is threatening to undermine the biofuel’s environmental credibility. editorial page How green is this ethanol plant? Photo: iStockphoto. More and more ethanol manufacturers are looking to power their plants […]

Them’s the Breaks

Grist takes Memorial Day off In a burst of spontaneity and goodwill, Grist‘s tall, smolderingly handsome, delightfully witty, dazzlingly intelligent Maximum Leader is giving all staffers the day off on Monday. What generosity! What thoughtfulness! What … did you say? It’s a federal holiday? Oh. In that case, he’s actually not that tall. Anyway, don’t […]

Senate Takes Dirk in Interior

Kempthorne confirmed as secretary of the interior After a brief and largely pro forma confirmation hearing today, the Senate made it official: ex-Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne (R) will succeed Gale Norton as secretary of the interior, steward of 20 percent of the nation’s land. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) whinged a bit at the hearings about […]

The Tropic of Cancerous Growth

Warming atmosphere is expanding the tropics, study finds The globe’s tropics are expanding — and if you’re thinking coconuts and palm trees, don’t. Think deserts and drought. According to a new study in Science, satellite measurements show that the lowest level of the atmosphere in torrid subtropical regions on either side of the equator is […]

They Should Volunteer to Be Penalized for That

Bush’s voluntary emissions-reduction programs not amounting to much Are you sitting down? We’ve got some earth-shattering news: the Bush administration’s voluntary programs to reduce industrial greenhouse-gas emissions aren’t working. A report issued yesterday by the Government Accountability Office stated that many industry participants in the U.S. EPA’s voluntary “Climate Leaders” program and the Department of […]

If At First You Don’t Succeed … Keep Not Succeeding

House passes legislation to drill in Arctic Refuge … again Here we go again: for the 947th time, the House has passed legislation that would open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling. Less than six months before congressional elections, House Republicans are desperate to show they’re doing something about high gas prices. Of course, […]

TomPaine op-ed: ‘The Alt Fuels Distraction’

I have an op-ed on TomPaine today (it's also on CommonDreams and EnergyBulletin) that I'm fairly invested in. It attempts to make an argument I've made in bits and pieces several times -- something I'm keen to communicate clearly, though I'm not sure this piece fully does the job.

The argument, in short, is that the current debate over our energy future is distorted by money. Big-industry supply-side options like nuclear, "clean coal," and ethanol get all the press, while more immediately effective demand-reduction policies wither from lack of attention. It is the responsibility of the citizenry to push for these options, since industry (and the congressfolk they own) will never do it.

I hope you'll give it a read and let me know what you think. (More below the fold.)