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A Hop and a Prayer

Eco-activists team with prayer network to save hapless toad This summer’s It amphibian — the endangered arroyo toad of California, famously dismissed as “hapless” by Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts — is in the news again. The Center for Biological Diversity has teamed up with Christians Caring for Creation to sue the Bush administration […]

The Story of the Hurricane

In which we help you keep up with the bad news on Katrina Even as they mourn the loss of life and devastation of communities throughout the Gulf Coast, greens wonder whether global warming is responsible for Hurricane Katrina’s intensity and worry about the possible toxic disaster that could ensue as waste, chemicals, and bodies […]

Freedom to Pollute Is on the March

New air rules could allow coal-fired plants to pollute more The Bush administration may finally eviscerate the legal basis for many pesky air-pollution lawsuits against coal-fired power plants. A new proposal being drafted by the U.S. EPA would change the system for monitoring plants’ emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide: after a plant modernized […]

Act now!

Speaking of irrigation, the folks at the International Center for Environmental Arts emailed Grist about the South African students who won the 2005 Stockholm Junior Water Prize.

From the press release:

A response to a response to a response, only better than it sounds

Hm, looks like this post on CAFE standards stepped into quite a vigorous ongoing conversation.

I want to address Matt's response, but first let me recommend some other background reading:

• Brad Plumer makes basically Matt's argument: gas taxes are better and more direct than CAFE.
• Brad DeLong agrees.
• Ezra Klein thinks Brad and Brad are wrong (read the comment thread, it's good): CAFE is preferable.
• Kevin Drum also writes in defense of CAFE.
• Andrew Samwick says neither CAFE nor gas taxes actually reduce gas consumption much.
• A report from the National Academy of Sciences argues that CAFE standards have, in fact, worked.
• Our own Clark Williams-Derry discusses a report concluding that CAFE standards are counterproductive.

Hm. Confusing.

Anyhoo, Matt responds to my accusation of the dread policy literalism by trying to frame his gas tax proposal in terms of "broad values and coalitions." It's the right spirit, but I don't think it works. Here's what he says:

Hybrid tax credits

A great rundown on the hybrid-related tax credits in the energy bill over on Hybridblog.

Scientific American’s special issue on the environment

Now available on newsstands (and the Internets) is Scientific American's special issue titled "Crossroads for Planet Earth." In it you'll find: George Musser setting the stage, Joel E. Cohen on population, Jeffrey D. Sachs on extreme poverty, Stuart L. Pimm and Clinton Jenkins on endangered species, Amory B. Lovins on energy, Paul Polak on agriculture, Barry R. Bloom on public health, Herman E. Daly on economic growth and sustainability, and W. Wayt Gibbs on setting priorities.

Here's an excerpt from Musser's intro:

The 21st century feels like a letdown. We were promised flying cars, space colonies and 15-hour workweeks. Robots were supposed to do our chores, except when they were organizing rebellions; children were supposed to learn about disease from history books; portable fusion reactors were supposed to be on sale at the Home Depot. Even dystopian visions of the future predicted leaps of technology and social organization that leave our era in the dust.

Looking beyond the blinking lights and whirring gizmos, though, the new century is shaping up as one of the most amazing periods in human history. Three great transitions set in motion by the Industrial Revolution are reaching their culmination. After several centuries of faster-than-exponential growth, the world's population is stabilizing. Judging from current trends, it will plateau at around nine billion people toward the middle of this century. Meanwhile extreme poverty is receding both as a percentage of population and in absolute numbers. If China and India continue to follow in the economic footsteps of Japan and South Korea, by 2050 the average Chinese will be as rich as the average Swiss is today; the average Indian, as rich as today's Israeli. As humanity grows in size and wealth, however, it increasingly presses against the limits of the planet. Already we pump out carbon dioxide three times as fast as the oceans and land can absorb it; midcentury is when climatologists think global warming will really begin to bite. At the rate things are going, the world's forests and fisheries will be exhausted even sooner.

I personally enjoyed the Paul Polak piece titled "The Big Potential of Small Farms" which introduced me to the treadle pump and gave some great examples of how drip irrigation systems that use cheap rubber hoses can make a huge difference for poor families.

[editor's note, by Chris Schults] When I wrote "Internets" I really meant the Scientific American website, where only some of the content is freely available.

Pielke Jr. responds

Roger Pielke Jr. has made something of a career out of studying societal response to hurricanes (see him quoted liberally here). He's made something of a side career out of arguing that greens should -- as a matter of ethics, science, and policy -- refrain from using severe weather events like hurricanes to raise alarm over global warming and (thereby) advance their preferred energy policies.

I happen to disagree with him on that, but his position, being somewhat infuriating to greens, tends to get caricatured and vilified a lot. So, let's let him speak for himself.

He responded to my post on hurricanes and global warming with a post on his blog. I responded in turn with the following email:

Are fuel-efficiency standards a smart way to reduce oil consumption?

Fareed Zakaria has a nice rundown of the many ways our hunger for oil distorts our foreign policy and makes a mockery of our efforts to fight terrorism and spread democracy. At the end, he briefly mentions solutions:

It's true that there is no silver bullet that will entirely solve America's energy problem, but there is one that goes a long way: more-efficient cars. If American cars averaged 40 miles per gallon, we would soon reduce consumption by 2 million to 3 million barrels of oil a day. That could translate into a sustained price drop of more than $20 a barrel. ... I would start by raising fuel-efficiency standards, providing incentives for hybrids and making gasoline somewhat more expensive (yes, that means raising taxes).

Matt Yglesias thinks that fuel-efficiency (CAFE) standards -- however beloved by greens and progressives -- are a bit of a red herring:

Petal Pusher

Entrepreneur sees vast potential for organic flower industry Gerald Prolman is a man with an organic-flower plan. The California entrepreneur is not only after a significant chunk of the $20 billion-a-year cut-flower industry in the U.S. — he’s hopeful that cultivating demand for organic bouquets will transform grower practices in Latin America and Africa, where […]