Articles by David Roberts

President cozies up to Saudi dictator, begging for lower oil prices.

Our overreliance on oil makes us do things that are economically stifling, ecologically destructive, and geopolitically self-defeating.

And then sometimes it just makes us look pathetic.

I refer, of course, to Bush's man date with Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, during which he begged the repressive dictator to lower oil prices, something the repressive dictator couldn't do even if he wanted, which he doesn't particularly. All this took place, of course, on the holy ground of Bush's increasingly brush-free ranch in Crawford, where Bush and his repressive dictator buddy strolled, hand in hand, appearing for all the world like star-crossed lovers.

Matt Welch is grossed out, and so is Justin Logan, and so am I.

Via Matt Yglesias, who adds this:

[The price of oil] may go up or down a bit thanks to this or that gambit (Bush's Saudi ploy, the Democrats' hackneyed Strategic Petroleum Reserve proposal) but fundamentally it's something we need to start dealing with, rather than whining about. If cars were more fuel efficient, then high oil prices wouldn't be so bad, and over time prices might start to fall. If we stopped relying on oil for electricity generation, that, too, would improve the situation.

You could say that.

Optimism

Joel Makower makes the case for optimism:

From my perch -- overlooking the landscape of business and how it is responding to the environmental challenges we face -- there is much good news to report. The world of commerce, still seen by many as the Earth's Evil Empire, is moving, slowly but ever so surely, toward a new environmental consciousness. Despite -- or perhaps in spite of -- the near abdication of energy and environmental leadership on the part of the White House, Congress, and most regulators -- the private sector increasingly is rising to the occasion.

Today's news that JP Morgan Chase bank will be issuing a new set of environmental policies seems to lend weight to Joel's sentiment.

Mainstream environmental groups don't seem to be getting anywhere in D.C. these days. Perhaps they should devote some of their billions to an aggressive cultural campaign, targeting the private sector and pop culture. That's where the individual battles are being won, and despite the paranoia of some progressives, if culture moves, eventually the political class will move with it.

Whether you recycle plastic really doesn’t matter.

I've been mulling over this "environmental confessions" business. I get that it's fun and light-hearted and I shouldn't take it too seriously. Horrible me, sometimes I don't recycle the kenaf-paper my peasant-collective-raised free-range hand-fed weekly-massaged organic beef comes in! Ha ha, I feel better.

But if there's one thing my two readers expect, it's dry, ponderous posts on subjects of soul-crushing weight, so who am I to deny them?

My thoughts on the matter are captured by this excellent comment from reader greenmark. Read the whole thing, but here's the main bit:

Sprol

Check out this blog, Sprol, which gathers satellite images and descriptions of "the worst places on Earth" -- i.e., the places most ravaged by human activity. It's fascinating.

(Via Dave Pollard)