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Kerry energy speech

John Kerry -- approaching full campaign mode -- delivered a major energy speech yesterday. It blahs on and on toward the beginning, but finishes strong. (Here's an mp3 of the speech.)

Even reading his text, I imagine him delivering it and drift to somnolence. But this 'graph is choice:

For evidence, look no further than the fake energy bill Congress enacted over bipartisan objections -- a monstrosity with no guiding national goal, no tough decisions, no change in priorities -- just a logrolling, back-scratching collection of subsidies for any industry with the clout to get a seat at the table and a share of the pork. A few good ideas, a lot of bad ideas and ugly ideas -- Washington smiled equally upon all of them.

Fun stuff. Almost every speechwriter or rhetorician gets more eloquent when they're gripped with righteous fury. Not sure why that is.

Here's the mission statement:

Can you say misguided?

NYT today reports on the rise? emergence? rediscovery? of geoengineering options to combat global warming.

For me this stuff falls into the category of bad adaptation strategies; wait until we're really SOL and then spend gobs of money on big techy solutions that may not work, but look cool.

There's plenty more critique to be had in the article itself.

A conversation with the makers of Who Killed the Electric Car?

Chris Paine, the director of Who Killed the Electric Car?, looks a little embarrassed as he walks toward his waiting limo. “I should really have them drop us off a block away from the theater,” he says, laughing uneasily. At least he’s carpooling. Dean Devlin and Chris Paine at Sundance. Photo: Fred Hayes/WireImage. With him […]

Kerry energy speech

Here's the big news from John Kerry's energy speech today:

I propose establishing an aggressive economy wide cap and trade program to reverse emissions growth starting in 2010. After that, we will progress to more rapid reductions and end at 65 percent below 2000 emissions by the year 2050.

That's by far the most aggressive proposal for reducing CO2 emissions I've heard from any major politician.

More on the speech later.

(You can listen to an mp3 of the speech here.)

Schadenfreude alert

Rush Limbaugh was busted on his way back from the Dominican Republic with unprescribed Viagra.

Yippee!

Earth's Climate Warming Abruptly, Scientist Says:

The warming around Earth's tropical belt is a signal suggesting that the "climate system has exceeded a critical threshold," which has sent tropical-zone glaciers in full retreat and will melt them completely "in the near future," said Lonnie G. Thompson, a scientist who for 23 years has been taking core samples from the ancient ice of glaciers.

Thompson, writing with eight other researchers in an article published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said the ice samples show that the climate can and did cool quickly, and that a similarly abrupt warming change started about 50 years ago. Humans may not have the luxury of adapting to slow changes, he suggests.

Berry, berry, quite contrary

I walked into my local grocery store over the weekend and was faced with the very dilemma -- organic or local? -- some of my colleagues have been wrestling with for a while.

On one table: fresh local strawberries, grown conventionally (i.e., with pesticides and artificial fertilizers). On an adjacent table: organic strawberries shipped all the way from California. I looked, but couldn't find any that were both local and organic.

The question: which to buy?

More reasons to hate sprawl

It makes you lonely and, if you're not careful, a xenophobic jerk.

Lindzen: dishonest; News anchors: stupid

Update [2006-6-26 15:10:1 by David Roberts]: Tim Lambert has more debunking here.

I'm not really sure if stuff like this is worth mentioning any more, but climate dead-ender Richard Lindzen had an insipid op-ed in The Wall Street Journal this weekend titled "There Is No 'Consensus'
On Global Warming." It's sprinkled with all the bogus factoids typically deployed in these ventures. The only substantive argument for the headline is this:

You keep me hangin’ on: Supremes to take up global warming

Today the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case filed by 12 states against the Environemental Protection Agency for failing to regulate carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act. This case has already sparked controversy and will be closely scrutinized when it is finally argued this October.

What the Supremes will decide in a nutshell: Is CO2 "life" or a "pollutant"?

Their recent Clean Water Act ruling is not giving me much cause for hope. As the Washington Post editorial said today:

The bloc favoring a harder-line approach to environmental enforcement could be among the more dangerous features of the new Roberts Court.