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Bill Bryson’s books offer environmental ethics with a light touch

A Walk in the Woods, the venerable travel writer's best-selling 1998 account of hiking a portion of the Appalachian Trail, conjured memories of adventures I'd had as a kid in the forests where I grew up. Bryson seems to capture my dueling feelings about the woods: beautiful and inspiring from a distance -- "an America that millions of people scarcely know exists" -- yet disorienting and at times menacing from within. "[The] trees surround you, loom over you, press in from all sides," Bryson writes. "Woods choke off views and leave you muddled and without bearings. They make you feel small and confused and vulnerable, like a small child lost in a crowd of strange legs."

Oily to rise

Hot off the presses, crude oil futures are trading above $53 a barrel today. An Associated Press article is rife with worrisome notes. Here are some:

"Those people who think we've entered a new paradigm where high oil prices don't affect economic growth are wrong," said Lawrence Goldstein, president of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation in New York.

"I believe oil prices and the economy are on a collision course and that it's only a matter of time," [Peter] Beutel added, [president of Cameron Hanover Inc. of New Canaan, Conn., a provider of petroleum market analysis].

On the other hand, optimists point out that the US economy is drastically more energy efficient than it once was. And in inflation-adjusted terms, oil would have to reach $90 a barrel to match prices in 1980. They're (partly) right.

Looking for Some Good Cowboys

Blair bypasses Bush, appeals to Texas for global-warming aid British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s quixotic mission to convert the Bush administration from staunch believers in “more research” on global warming to actual movers on the issue has thus far proved unsuccessful. So Blair is diversifying his strategy. One tactic is to bypass the decision maker […]

Hazy Delays of Winter

Clear Skies bill still bottled up in Senate committee Help — Clear Skies has fallen, and it can’t get up! President Bush’s “Clear Skies” legislation is stuck in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Committee Chair James Inhofe (R-Okla.) has delayed a vote on the bill three times, most recently yesterday, each time realizing […]

Bush Sticks Johnson in the EPA

President Bush announces nominee to head EPA Today President Bush announced his new pick to lead the U.S. EPA: Steve Johnson, who’s been the agency’s temporary head since Mike Leavitt left six weeks ago to head the Department of Health and Human Services. If confirmed by the Senate, Johnson, a 24-year EPA veteran, will be […]

Calling Mr. Bean

Although the U.S. and Europe are meandering down the same road to fuel efficiency, they're driving in different lanes. Hybrids, which have caught on among a certain set on this side of the Atlantic, are just now hitting Europe. On the other hand, thrifty Europeans have embraced diesel -- in the form of the teeny-tiny, 60-mpg "smart car" -- and are sending some this way. Of course, knowing American proclivities, they've made an SUV version called -- and I audibly groan here -- "formore."

In other green car news, the mayor of Fort Wayne, Ind., is converting the city's trucks to biodiesel and buying hybrid cars. Hmm ... will they be red or blue?

Fareed on hybrids

I'm a huge fan of Fareed Zakaria, who's both one of the most insightful political commentators around and one of the best repeat guests on the Daily Show. I don't find his column on hybrid cars to be his best work, but it does fall within this blog's purview, so I'm gonna link it anyway. Basically, Zakaria says that we could, with concerted effort, exceed Kyoto CO2 emissions targets and break our dependence on foreign oil purely through hybrids (not today's hybrids, of course, but future plug-in hybrids that also accept biofuels). Pretty bold, and also, I suspect, a little overly optimistic. Nonetheless, this passage is worth quoting at length:

If things are already moving, why does the government need to do anything? Because this is not a pure free market. Large companies -- in the oil and automotive industry -- have vested interests in not changing much. There are transition costs -- gas stations will need to be fitted to pump methanol and ethanol (at a cost of $20,000 to $60,000 per station). New technologies will empower new industries, few of which have lobbies in Washington.

Besides, the idea that the government should have nothing to do with this problem is bizarre. It was military funding and spending that produced much of the technology that makes hybrids possible. (The military is actually leading the hybrid trend. All new naval surface ships are now electric-powered, as are big diesel locomotives and mining trucks.) And the West's reliance on foreign oil is not cost-free. [Energy security advocate Gal] Luft estimates that a government plan that could accelerate the move to a hybrid transport system would cost $12 billion dollars. That is what we spend in Iraq in about three months.

We get letters

From reader MF:

Thanks for your newsletter. It would be funny, if it weren't so serious, that [Sen. Richard] Pombo's name, with the addition of just an 'i' after the P, becomes Piombo, which is Italian for Lead. There's a town on the otherwise idyllic coast of Tuscany called Piombino which has mined and shipped lead and other metals since Etruscan times and I can tell you that driving through it - which is all one would ever want to do unless you are one of the poor devils who has to live there - is one of the few depressing things in that region! So I think you should 'accidentally on purpose' refer to him as Mr Piombo in future!

Hmm...

Wait, THE Steve Johnson?

Today's nomination of Steve Johnson to head the U.S. EPA has been met with a resounding "Uh... who?" Nobody seems to know much about the guy, other than the fact that he's a scientist and has been with the agency for 24 years. ENS's story seems as substantial as any I've seen yet.

And, in a sign of grim things to come, Judith Lewis has this ominous tidbit.

Enviro-justice activists send a dispatch from a panel with The Reapers

Thursday, 3 Mar 2005 SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. The Asian Pacific Environmental Network was invited to speak on a panel yesterday with “Death of Environmentalism” coauthor Michael Shellenberger, Taj James, executive director of the Movement Strategy Center, and Adam Werbach, past president of the Sierra Club. The goal was to broaden the debate about the future […]