Articles by David Roberts

Why Kerry lost

Oh, hey, turns out there's no need to worry about ANWR. Our cause has been taken up by a man with a proven record of outmaneuvering Bush. We're in the clear!

Ah, I kid. I'm actually quite fond of John Kerry, stilted speech and utter lack of charisma and all.

Since speculating about a) why Kerry lost and b) why the environment didn't play a bigger role in the election never goes out of style, I found this interesting:

Seated in his modest Senate office, Kerry reflected on why matters like the environment -- an issue he believes remains potent with the electorate -- had not won him election in November.

"There was one dominant complication in the year 2004," Kerry said. "It's called the war. The war on terror. It's the only thing Bush people really talked about, advertised on, scared people about."

...

Some environmentalists have faulted Kerry -- as they did Vice President Al Gore before him -- for not making matters such as Alaska drilling, regulating air and water pollution, forest management and endangered species protection a higher priority during the campaign. In rebuttal, Kerry cited a half a dozen events he held during the campaign, including Earth Day in Houston, and events focused on Great Lakes protection in Michigan and coastal erosion in Louisiana.

Had it not been for the threat of terror, he said, "I think the environment would have emerged as a greater issue, as would health care and education. A lot of issues were drowned out. And purposely so by the administration, because their strategy was obviously to use the war as the fulcrum that it was. It was ... effective."

It's fashionable in eco-circles to call bullshit on this, but I actually think it's accurate. It was a narrow loss and there are plenty of things that could have tipped the balance, but I'm inclined to doubt that raising the volume on environmental issues is one of them. If I had to rank them, I'd say 1) a better national security message, 2) smarter campaign tactics (especially on the Swift Boat stuff), and 3) a more mediagenic personality.

Arctic Refuge update

Yesterday we wrote about attempts by Senate Republicans to backdoor their way into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by slipping a provision into a budget bill. Today brings news that Senate Dems have failed in their attempt to slip it back out.

A little Europhilia

I keep meaning to link to Jay Walljasper's E Magazine piece on hometown pride, European style. There's not a lot new there for people who follow urban planning and such, but it's both a nice travelogue and a heartfelt argument for making cities more livable. Through a series of examples, he illustrates one basic point: The fact that European cities are more livable, walkable, and generally enjoyable than big American cities is not some fluke of history or geography. It's the result of conscious community planning, and it could be done here.

My honeymoon took me through London, Brussels, Amsterdam, and Paris. I wish every U.S. citizen could take that same trip -- it's hard to imagine just what a livable city looks and feels like until you've been in one. Riding a bike around Amsterdam, in particular, is something everyone should do before they die. It's amazing to see a whole system of transit where cars are marginalized, just one relatively small and dismissively treated segment. Men in suits, fashionably attired women in heels, parents with babies -- everybody rides a bike. It's just phenomenal.

How about where you live? What's being done to make it more livable? What do you wish was being done?

I’ve got my eye on Yue

As longtime readers know, we here at Grist are fascinated/horrified/baffled/whatevered by the environmental implications of China's explosive economic growth. On that score, two reading recommendations.

First, Lester Brown at the Earth Policy Institute writes that China simply can't develop the same way the U.S. did. Not a moral can't, but a brute physical can't -- there just aren't enough resources. On oil, coal, steel, and paper, the story is the same: If China consumed at U.S. per capita levels, it would consume more than the world currently produces. That takes a while to sink in, but it's pretty incredible to contemplate. If, when China's median wage reaches U.S. levels (projected to happen between 2030-2040), China's per capita consumption of oil also reaches U.S. levels, China alone will be consuming more oil than the entire world produces today. With oil, that's probably just not possible -- oil production has either already peaked or will soon. With something like paper, it might be physically possible, but it would be ugly indeed. No more forests. Same with meat, or cars, or whatever. It's just brute math.

And this is just putting it in terms of raw resources. If China actually travels down that road, they'll hit an environmental wall before the resources themselves run out.

The good news is, apparently some folks in China realize this. Or at least one folk. Read this Spiegel interview with Pan Yue, Deputy Director of China's State Environmental Protection Agency. It is, as Jamais notes, remarkably candid for an official of any country, but particularly China. Yue makes no bones about the fact that something has got to change in China's development, and he's not afraid to go to bat against powerful people in business and government to make it happen. He's also startlingly frank about the fact that political reform is necessary to prevent eco-catastrophe. Seriously, it's pretty short, so just go read it. But here's one tasty excerpt:

This [economic] miracle will end soon because the environment can no longer keep pace. Acid rain is falling on one third of the Chinese territory, half of the water in our seven largest rivers is completely useless, while one fourth of our citizens does not have access to clean drinking water. One third of the urban population is breathing polluted air, and less than 20 percent of the trash in cities is treated and processed in an environmentally sustainable manner. Finally, five of the ten most polluted cities worldwide are in China.

As Jamais also says, it's worth tracking Yue's political fortunes. If he is successful in government, it's a good sign. If not, well ...

Finally, please see this disclaimer.