Articles by David Roberts

More Gore

Al Gore had "a most excellent time" at Sundance, and if press coverage is any indication, he is well on his way to shaking his image as a stiff automaton. Check this out:

He is wearing earth tones again. He seems jolly. He brought Tipper and the kids. He is attending parties and posing for pictures with his fans and enjoying macaroni and cheese at the Discovery Channel soiree. He's palling around with Larry David of "Curb Your Enthusiasm," who says, "Al is a funny guy." But he is also a very serious guy who believes humans may have only 10 years left to save the planet from turning into a total frying pan.

If I were Al Gore's 2008 presidential campaign manager -- not that he's running! -- reading stuff like that would put a big fat grin on my face.

Big Oil suppressing biofuels? Obama thinks so.

Well well. Seems Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) agrees with ThinkProgress that Big Oil doesn't want you to know about biofuels.

Hot off the press-release presses:

U.S. Senators Barack Obama (D-IL) and Charles Grassley (R-IA) today asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate whether big oil corporations are knowingly restricting consumer access to alternative fuels like ethanol and biodiesel as a result of company policies.

"I believe that it is crucial for our national security and economic security that the United States lessen its dependence on foreign oil," said Senator Obama. "And if big oil companies are standing in the way of consumers who want to fill their vehicles with cleaner alternative fuels made here in the United States, then I believe the American people deserve to know why."

According to an internal memorandum from a major petroleum company obtained by Senator Obama's office, gas station franchise owners are prohibited from selling non brand name renewable fuels like E85 and B20 from fuel islands or underneath canopies bearing the oil company's name or logo. The memo also said that any alternative location of fuel pumps dispensing alternative fuels must be approved.

This could get interesting.

Another pundit on the take

Is every conservative pundit on the take?

Today Paul D. Thacker reports in The New Republic that Fox News columnist and junkscience.com proprietor Steven Milloy -- stalwart defender of tobacco and fossil fuels -- has been receiving hefty payments for years from, uh, tobacco and fossil-fuel companies.

However, unlike other news outlets that have dumped pundits after finding out they're receiving money from the subjects of their columns, Fox has been looking the other way (to put it charitably). Thacker concludes:

Perhaps the real reason the news organization tolerates Milloy is that his pro-industry, anti-environmentalist views dovetail nicely with those of its political commentators. Still, this misses an important distinction. Objective viewers long ago realized that Fox News has a political agenda. But, when a pundit promotes this agenda while on the take from corporations that benefit from it, then Fox News has gone one disturbing step further.

It’s biofuel realities that matter, not airy scenarios

All due respect to the intrepid folks at ThinkProgress, but I think this defense of biofuels falls a bit short. There's this:

First, developing a biofuel economy can actually help reduce hunger and poverty by diversifying agricultural and forestry activities, attracting new farmers, and investing in small and medium enterprises. Increased investment in agricultural production has the potential to boost incomes of the world's poorest people.

In what world does "investment in agricultural production" benefit "the world's poorest people"? The trend for the last half-century has been for agricultural investment -- read, subsidies -- to go to mega-agribusiness. If biofuel really catches on, if a robust global market develops, is there any reason at all to think that the same huge corporations won't dominate it?

I was browsing through this month's Atlantic Monthly; in the first 20 or so pages, I saw two advertisements touting the magic of ethanol. Guess who paid for the ads? Siemens and Archer Daniels Midland. Not exactly "small and medium enterprises."

And this: