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Who knew David Brooks was a greenie?

Caught me offguard that in his ambivalent Election Day nonendorsement (New York Times policy) endorsement of George Bush for reelection, conservative columnist David Brooks cites the president's environmental record as a primary reason to be frustrated with the current administration:

[Bush] came to power with good ideas on how to move the G.O.P. beyond the Gingrich stall. But time and again, he abandoned his reformist strategy to give spoils to the G.O.P. donor base.

To take one small example: on environmental policy, he showed interest in moving to a flexible, market-based system that would have cleaned the environment better than the current system. But too often rules were written to please key industries. Voters who could have been turned on by new, effective approaches were instead appalled at unseemly self-dealing.

The Now House

I have a long-standing love affair with modern modular homes, particularly those built with eco-friendly materials and techniques (which is most of them, these days).  I also have a long-standing love affair with the "digital home" movement, wherein everything is wired to everything else and everything is online and the refrigerator knows when it's out of milk and all that.  So I am all agog at the unveiling of the Now House, a modern, modular, sustainable, digital-to-the-hilt exhibition home built using a system designed by Clever Homes, packed with products chosen by CNET Digital Living, and presented by the non-profit Affordable Green Development Corporation (what?  no website?).  

Me want.

The stylish modern, high-tech home is designed from safe advanced green and sustainable materials in a highly integrated manner. It also features the best digital accoutrements, including an intelligent digital network, extensive security monitoring and a consumer electronics system comprised of the "Editor's Choice" award selections provided by CNET Digital Living.

"The NowHouse was conceived to give consumers and builders alike a fully functional example of the advances that have taken place in home construction," said Scott Redmond, project director. "This innovative structure was built using a proprietary panelized construction system featuring patent-pending technologies, construction tools, and processes in over 300,000 square feet of robotic factories which are online and ready to build as of today, at a fraction of the cost and time of traditional home building."

The NowHouse project brings the "best-of-breed" architects, agencies, engineers, state-of-the-art products, technologies and systems together with the public to solve the missing link in modern digitally integrated green, sustainable, efficient systems- built, value-based homes for the progressive world.

Drool.

The Now House has been built in an SBC Park Parking lot in San Francisco, Calif., and is open to the public through December 20.  If you live in that neck of the woods, you should check it out.

For all those remaining undecideds …

Judd Legum and The Nation have pithily summarized nine of Bush's most egregious environmental offenses (as well as 91 non-environmental ones):

It’s gettin’ hot in herre

The New York Times editorial page took the Bushies to task yesterday for ignoring and distorting science on climate change, echoing accusations made by NASA's top-dog climatologist, Jim Hansen.

Speaking in Iowa last week, Hansen castigated the Bush administration for its failure to face up to facts and act, and he "said that he had been instructed by Sean O'Keefe, administrator of [NASA], not to discuss publicly the human contribution to global warming," the Times writes. The editorial continues:

[T]his administration has a depressing history of discouraging robust discourse on climate change. ...

The net result is that while most of the industrialized world has ratified the Kyoto agreement, and committed itself in general terms to mandatory cuts of carbon emissions, America is saddled with a passive strategy of further research and voluntary reductions.

Dr. Hansen said he knew he was risking his credibility and possibly his job by criticizing Mr. Bush in the final days of the campaign, but had decided -- properly so, in our view -- that the risks of silence were greater.

Find more background here.

Thank Your Lucky Starbucks

Starbucks chief pushes for fair-trade, eco-friendly coffee Starbucks has served as a convenient target for the anti-globalization crowd, especially given that you can’t throw a brick in some neighborhoods without breaking a Starbucks window. But CEO Orin Smith is fighting back against the company’s bad reputation. He recently announced that, by 2007, Starbucks would attempt […]

I Had a Gas Station in Africa …

Unleaded gas making inroads in African countries — finally Years after leaded gas was given the heave-ho in developed countries, a number of African nations are beginning the process of shifting to unleaded. Leaded gas — or rather, the lead spewed into the air when it is combusted — has been shown to lower IQs […]

The Polar Excess

Comprehensive new study confirms that global warming is devastating Arctic For the handful of people left in the world who don’t yet believe it, a comprehensive new study should remove all doubt that the Arctic is being ravaged by global warming. The four-year study, commissioned by eight nations with Arctic territory (including the U.S.), was […]

Her Majesty’s a Pretty Nice Girl — and She Does Have a Lot to Say

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth speaks out on global warming In a rare public intervention into politics, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II met with Prime Minister Tony Blair and either — depending which news reports you believe — strongly expressed her concern about global warming, or smacked him upside the head for not pushing the U.S. to join […]

Kathryn Fuller, president of WWF, answers questions

Kathryn Fuller. With what environmental organization are you affiliated? World Wildlife Fund. I’m the president and CEO. What does your organization do? What, in a perfect world, would constitute “mission accomplished”? Our mission is the conservation of nature. We seek through our network of offices in about 100 countries around the world to save the […]

Frog findings jump into public eye in Minnesota

There's been a flurry of activity in the Minnesota press about atrazine, frogs, and skullduggery. As reported initially by Tom Meersman of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, a well-known UC Berkeley biologist, Dr. Tyrone Hayes, was first invited, and then disinvited, to give the keynote speech at a conference organized by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. Emails obtained by the Star-Tribune between Hayes and a member of the Pollution Control Agency staff indicate that pressure was brought by the state Department of Agriculture to block the talk.  Hayes has demonstrated that when tadpoles are exposed to atrazine at levels widely found in Minnesota drinking water, they grow up hermaphroditic, something no self-respecting frog -- or at least one interested in reproducing successfully -- would want to be.