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Tar sands fever

Via GCC, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers has announced that by 2020, Canada will be producing almost 5 million barrels of oil, almost all of that being from tar sands.

This explains, in large part, why Canada has opted for empty symbolism: We've hitched our wagon to the tar sands, come hell and high water. I'm actually pretty sympathetic to our new Conservative government, who at least made their disdain for Kyoto honestly known. The previous Liberals were happily pursuing the same policies while pretending to care about Kyoto.

Anti-status status

This ad agrees with me (hat tip to DRx) -- the car, not so much. I think this kind of ad would be especially effective at selling cars based on their gas mileage (in other words, small cars). You could target your competition by making their cars be the ones driven by the egotists. Never mind that anti-status is just another form of status (a way of saying you are better than someone else). The human propensity for self-deception would make short work of that little unpleasantry and the result might be that high gas mileage would become the new status symbol. The other beauty of this kind of ad is that it cannot be turned around to sell big cars.

Megaproposals

Katherine Ellison laments the lack of boldness on climate change.

The Alliance for Climate Protection: From the top down

Everyone should immediately go check out Amanda's exclusive scoop on the Alliance for Climate Protection. It's a huge new group being put together to raise awareness about climate change. Some interesting facts about it:

• Though Al Gore conceived it and will provide a big chunk of the initial funding, he won't be a member. He doesn't want it to be viewed as a political group. Several prominent Republicans are conspicuously involved for the same reason.
• The group has lined up millions in funding and plans to raise tens of millions more.
• There's only one enviro-group rep -- Larry Schweiger, president of the National Wildlife Federation -- on the board, and no other prominent enviros will be involved.

  Said Gore, "We came to realize that it was a disservice to the climate campaign to frame [the issue] as an environmental concern, not a universal concern -- a fundamental threat to all citizens, not just those who identify with the green movement."

• The group estimates that around 60% of its money will go toward national and local advertising.

This is all juicy, interesting stuff, and worthy of discussion. More below the fold.

Fox to balance previous accuracy with inaccuracy

Late last year, Fox News baffled everyone by running a special on global warming that presented the science accurately. Fox's right-wing supporters were upset that the wrong other side wasn't represented. The world asked: WTF?

Well, the natural order will be re-established this Sunday evening with a Fox News special called, "Global Warming: The Debate Continues." From the show description:

Ford and CEI

By now everybody has seen, and mocked, the pro-CO2 ads from CEI. Many people have also noted that CEI is funded by industries with vested interests in the oily status quo.

As Andrew Leonard rather scathingly pointed out, Ford Motor Co. is one of those funders. The same Ford that's been trying so hard lately to be a good environmental citizen. The same Ford who recently forged a partnership with TerraPass to encourage its drivers to offset their emissions.

This proved slightly embarrassing to the folks at TerraPass. They contacted Niel Golightly, Ford's Director of Sustainable Business Strategies, to get some answers. Golightly sent them this response:

Gore-backed group will spend big to convince Americans climate change is real

Al Gore wants you to understand climate change. Photo: © 2006 Paramount Classics.  Think you’ve been hearing a lot about global warming lately? If a new climate-focused group hatched by Al Gore has its way, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. After nine months of behind-the-scenes planning and wrangling, the Alliance for Climate Protection is now […]

Wind and intermittency

A while back I raised the problem of intermittency -- the fact that solar and wind power depend on the sun shining and the wind blowing, neither of which happens continuously -- and asked if anybody knew about ways of storing energy generated during peak sun/wind and releasing it into the grid during lulls.

Ask, and ye shall receive: There's a piece in Spectrum called "Taking Wind Mainstream" that directly addresses the issue. It contains all sorts of stuff I didn't know and has me feeling downright optimistic.

It begins:

Canada opts for empty symbolism

It's official: Canada wants to join the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Climate Change. The APPCC, for those not familiar, is less a climate treaty (the term "non-binding" is the first clue) than another "free" trade treaty whereby North American nuclear and coal companies lock in developing-world markets.

By creating the APPCC "alternative," Bush has gone beyond neglecting Kyoto to actively pulling participants away from it.

Obama’s new book

It's not strictly environmental, but I thought readers would be interested to see this preview of Barack Obama's new book, The Audacity of Hope (available Oct. 2006). This should give you an idea of the theme: