Articles by David Roberts

An elaborate proposal to raise money and spend it

Well, I managed to wade through Hillary's whole speech to the Cleantech Venture Forum, and let's just say ... she's no Barack.

The vast bulk is a fairly tepid summary of current conventional wisdom: energy crisis, get free from foreign oil (grr), promote clean energy and clean cars and energy efficiency, etc. This is all boilerplate stuff, but it's worth celebrating, I suppose, that it is conventional wisdom now. As much as environmentalists lament their own failures, it's pretty remarkable how quickly the green line on energy has taken over and become centrist -- and believe me, despite her reputation in wingnut circles, Hillary wouldn't say it if it wasn't safe and centrist.

Unfortunately, the conventional centrist wisdom is not translating into action, as illustrated by Hillary's attempt to list her accomplishments on these issues. This is typical:

Quite a few of us in Congress have worked to bridge the gap and put forward proposals for a better energy future. We passed, albeit not as much as we would have wanted, a 10 percent renewable energy standard in the Senate, but the White House rejected it.

Huzzah!

The one new, "bigger and bolder" (her words) idea is the " Strategic Energy Fund." The SEF would be funded through a tax "alternative energy development fee" on oil companies. This tripped me up:

“Foreign oil” redux

Reading Hillary Clinton's recent speech (more on that later) reminded me of an old hobbyhorse: As faithful readers will recall, the term "foreign oil" irritates me to no end. Decrying our dependence of foreign oil is just a way of decrying our dependence on oil, period -- with the extra macho credibility that comes with jingoistic, xenophobic overtones. For that reason it's probably politically necessary. But it adds nothing to our substantive understanding of America's energy situation. For a host of geological, economic, social, and environmental reasons, we could never conceivably produce enough "domestic oil" to satisfy our demand -- and anyway, what domestic oil we do produce goes out on the world market like any other oil. The problems that come with dependence on foreign oil and the problems that come with dependence on oil are one in the same. It would make as much sense to decry "liquid oil" or "underground oil."

So if you hear the term "foreign oil" from a politician, assume it's accompanied by a wink and a nod. If you hear it from a pundit, assume it's accompanied by confusion.

Update [2005-10-25 14:0:34 by David Roberts]: Oh, the whole point of this post was supposed to be: The term "foreign oil" suggests that domestic oil would be okay, and thus supports the scumbags in Congress who are trying to build new refineries on military bases and neuter environmental protections. It doesn't matter that in her speech, Clinton says "a few more refineries and drills won't solve the problem" -- the very term she's using to frame the problem works against that point. Framing, people. Look it up.

Wealthy ‘family farmers’ in California wage PR campaign to maintain their subsidies

We're happy to present this guest essay from Lloyd G. Carter, an attorney and former journalist who has written about California water issues since 1969. Carter is president of the California Save Our Streams Council.

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Remember the family farmer?

He was immortalized in Grant Wood's 1930 painting "American Gothic": a grim, hardscrabble stoic in overalls, grasping a pitchfork. Guess what? It wasn't really a farmer. It was Wood's dentist posing as a farmer.

Fresno County's own philosopher/farmer, Victor Davis Hanson, announced years ago that the family farmer was a figment of the urban imagination. Hanson wrote that the multi-generational family farm has all but disappeared and that soon the only thing left will be "broke serfs and thriving corporations."

But now a coalition of western San Joaquin Valley agribusiness interests have launched a multi-million dollar media blitz to convince Californians that the modern "family farmer" still exists -- and needs to keep consuming colossal amounts of California river water. The statewide ad campaign includes television spots, full page newspaper ads, bus stop billboards in big cities, and even sponsorship of the "California Report" on National Public Radio. The word "family" is repeated ad nauseum.

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