Climate Politics

Taxholes

House Republicans fight to preserve $5 billion in oil industry tax breaks In public, prominent Republicans are chastising oil companies over high gas prices, and threatening price-gouging investigations and windfall-profit taxes. Behind closed doors, House Republicans are fighting to protect some $5 billion worth of tax loopholes for those very same oil companies. Luckily for […]

Gas price rant

One of the many problems with policy discussions these days is that they tend to be narrow and literal-minded. Take the "problem" of high gas prices. Response? Tax oil companies! Cap prices! Investigate price gouging! Ease environmental restrictions on clean-burning gas!

Stupid. We should take a step back. Here are two relevant facts:

• It's good that gas prices are rising. We want people to buy more fuel-efficient cars and drive less. In the long-term, oil prices are headed up whether we like it or not.
• The hardest hit by high gas prices are the poor, who have the least disposable income and in many cases are stuck in living and work situations that simply don't allow them to drive less in the short-term.

Given that, here are a few policy responses, some local, some federal, just off the top of my head, that make a hell of a lot more sense than whinging about oil companies. In no particular order:

Ukrainian attorney Olya Melen stands up for the Danube Delta

Olya Melen doesn’t think small. In her first-ever court case, the young Ukrainian attorney challenged a massive canal project proposed for the Danube Delta, an internationally recognized wetland on the edge of the Black Sea. Melen, a lawyer for the public-interest group Environment-People-Law, argued that the canal would disrupt the area’s rural communities and diverse […]

In China, Yu Xiaogang is helping locals fight back against dams

China has spent decades trying to harness its powerful river systems with dams. Enormous hydroelectric projects, most notably the Three Gorges Dam now under construction on the Yangtze River, have devastated local economies and ecosystems. Yu Xiaogang. Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize. Chinese environmentalist Yu Xiaogang, founder of the group Green Watershed, says the people harmed […]

You Got Reserved!

Bush presents plan for combating high oil prices, halts reserve deposits In September 2000, then-candidate George W. Bush said that the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve “should not be used as an attempt to drive down oil prices right before an election. It should not be used for short-term political gain at the cost of long-term […]

Spring brings a new crop of climate bills in Congress

A small crop of new climate bills is sprouting up in Congress, and none too soon. Grow, little seedling, grow. Photo: iStockphoto. Earlier this month, a number of influential energy execs called on Congress to regulate industrial greenhouse-gas emissions. And earlier this week, the EPA quietly released dismal new figures showing that U.S. emissions are […]

Knock, Knock. Hu’s There.

Oil issue looms as Chinese prez visits White House Buying oil from unsavory regimes, thus ensuring their grip on power. Attempting to lock up oil supplies to increase geopolitical influence. Growing heedlessly and unsustainably, polluting the air and water. These are the kinds of behaviors the world can no longer tolerate from … China. Wait, […]

EPA plan would give political officials more say over air-quality standards

Who should decide what level of air pollution is safe — scientists or political appointees? Plume and doom. Photo: iStockphoto. A counterintuitive answer came from top officials at the U.S. EPA last week. Bill Wehrum and George Gray, EPA’s highest-ranking air and science officials, respectively, issued recommendations that some enviros and agency staffers fear could […]

On the art and brutal economics of small-scale farming

Since moving to the North Carolina mountains in 2004 to launch a farm project, I've learned some sobering lessons about idyllic rural life.

To wit, small-scale organic farming is an art form -- and as with most artistic endeavors, the hours are long and the pay is crap. How did I wind up penniless and exhausted, sporting a beat-up pair of Carhartts? You'd think I had set up shop as an abstract painter in some squalid, ruinously priced Williamsburg, Brooklyn, garret.

(There's much to love about the farming life, too: for example, the volunteer broccoli raab that's sprouting up everywhere in one part of the garden, a triumph of unintentional permaculture. Saute it with a little olive oil, garlic, crushed chile, and vinegar, and you remember why you came to the farm in the first place.)

The USDA's Economic Research Service recently released two reports on the state of farm economics. The information contained therein can help greens as they formulate an agenda for the 2007 Farm Bill (which may be even more important than defending biofuel and hybrids from critics.)

Governor, May I Take One Baby Step?

Schwarzenegger calls for slow and steady climate action In line with his recent climate-action plan to reduce the state’s greenhouse-gas emissions 25 percent by 2020, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) called yesterday for power plants, refineries, and factories to begin … reporting their emissions. Ah, well: baby steps. In a speech, Schwarzenegger advocated a “sensible […]