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Al Gore and electric car star in films unveiled at Sundance

At 25 years of age, Sundance is the country’s premier festival of independent film. But a lot has changed over that quarter century. Well, actually, one thing has changed: m-o-n-e-y. There’s a ton of Hollywood cash spent at Sundance, and I could see it everywhere I looked last week. The “VIP” corporate parties on Main […]

Whitman’s behavior after 9/11: ‘Conscience-shocking’

Hot off the wires:

A federal judge blasted former Environmental Protection Agency chief Christine Todd Whitman on Thursday for reassuring New Yorkers soon after the Sept. 11 attacks that it was safe to return to their homes and offices while toxic dust was polluting the neighborhood.

U.S. District Judge Deborah A. Batts refused to grant Whitman immunity against a class-action lawsuit brought in 2004 by residents, students and workers in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn who said they were exposed to hazardous materials from the collapse of the World Trade Center.

...

She called Whitman's actions "conscience-shocking," saying the EPA chief knew that the fall of the twin towers released tons of hazardous materials into the air.

For background, see here.

Oil problems

Matt Yglesias makes a great point about the "oil addiction" business.

There are three kinds of problems that people tend to have about oil. The most politically salient of them is that people are concerned that gasoline costs too much. The most longstanding of them is that gasoline is bad for the environment. The chic high-minded one is that gasoline is bad geopolitics.

People keep wanting to get on the right side of all three of these concerns, but it's worth appreciating that they're somewhat in tension.

There's some great discussion in the comments too.

SOTU: Doing more with less?

This New York Times story is a rich source of humor and irony. There's one last thing from it I meant to mention (prompted by reader Joe).

Toward the end of a long article about Bush's grand new Advanced Energy Initiative comes this:

The Energy Department will begin laying off researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the next week or two because of cuts to its budget.

A veteran researcher said the staff had been told that the cuts would be concentrated among researchers in wind and biomass, which includes ethanol. Those are two of the technologies that Mr. Bush cited on Tuesday night as holding the promise to replace part of the nation's oil imports.

The budget for the laboratory, which is just west of Denver, was cut by nearly 15 percent, to $174 million from $202 million, requiring the layoff of about 40 staff members out of a total of 930, said a spokesman, George Douglas. The cut is for the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1.

Try laughing. It helps keep the tears at bay.

Big political players in their midst derail possible climate-change statement

There's been a lot of talk lately about the burgeoning Christian environmentalist creation-care movement. I'm all for any and every group getting on board with saving the planet, but my sense has been that the amount of press and hype this has received from outside the movement is rather out of proportion to any organic growth from inside the movement. It would be great for environmentalists -- frequently tarred (often by evangelicals themselves!) as communists and pagans -- if they received the support of a powerful bloc located squarely at the center of the right-wing's base. It would also be a great story. So environmentalists and the press have conspired to pump it up.

Recent events, however, have cast some doubt on the staying power of creation care. As the Washington Post reported today, a group of more than 20 evangelical leaders sent a letter (PDF) to the National Association of Evangelicals asking it to put an immediate kibosh on plans to take a formal position (and issue a formal press release) on the dangers of global warming. I've posted the entire letter below the fold.

The NAE immediately caved. Richard Cizik -- who was so eloquent on the subject of climate change in his interview with Grist -- said, "The NAE was never going to adopt a policy on climate change." Sure, they just sent the letter for the heck of it.

Phil: Unemployed

Global warming is going to kill Groundhog's Day!

RealClimate brings you this vital story.

SOTU: Coal execs confused, but pleased

The lede for this Wall Street Journal story is hilarious:

Power-industry executives reacted with mild puzzlement to President Bush's proclamation that the nation needs to "invest more in zero-emission coal-fired plants" to wean itself off foreign oil. That's because oil isn't used much to make power and no one has yet developed a way to burn coal that produces no emissions.

They go on to say, of course, that they're delighted to be the recipient of a whole new bundle of subsidies. And who wouldn't be?

Bullied Pulpit

Evangelical association decides not to fight global warming after all You know all the fuss this past year over the evangelical Christian community becoming a powerful partner in the fight against climate change? Well, never mind. The 30-million-member National Association of Evangelicals had been expected to issue a public statement on the dangers of global […]

This Global Thing Is Everywhere!

Weird weather is messing with marine ecosystems along the West Coast Tens of thousands of starved seabirds washed up on West Coast beaches last spring, and researchers are blaming — surprise! — above-normal ocean temperatures and weird weather and wind patterns. Half of the auklets in California’s Farallon Islands didn’t even try to breed last […]

Crops and Robbers

Archer Daniels Midland blossoms with lots of government help Agri-biz giant Archer Daniels Midland had a barn-burner of a quarter, sending its stock price to an all-time high. Why is the “Exxon of corn” doing so well? Why, your tax dollars, of course! The federal government shovels billions of dollars of subsidies at field corn; […]