Leo’s feel-good press conference is interrupted by a feel-bad question

Leonardo DiCaprio at the premiere of The 11th Hour. Alex Berliner © Berliner Studio/BEImages When celebrities embrace environmental concerns, cranky...

Who knew?

Maybe some of you are not going to believe this, but a trend seems to be developing wherein some progressives seem to think that the issue of global warming is grabbing the "spotlight." For instance, in "Why is peak oil politically incorrect?" Ugo Bardi compares the number of online searches that global warming receives versus peak oil, using Google's admittedly new "Trends" system. The number of searches for global warming is rising rapidly, while peak oil lists along. But as an editor comments at the end of the article,"But if you think that's all very depressing -- do the comparison with 'Paris Hilton' and then cry."

Exactly. If the civil rights movement had enjoyed the "publicity" and public passion that global warming currently does, we'd still have segregated bathrooms in the South. Which brings us to the second, admittedly amorphous problem, best exemplified currently by that fascinating phenomenon, left-wing climate deniers.

David F. Noble, a historian of technology (his book Forces of Production is a classic), does a good job in " The Corporate Climate Coup" of showing the history of how large corporations are trying to use the global warming issue for marketing purposes, but somehow global warming activists seem to have accumulated some collective guilt as a result -- am I missing some billboards or something?

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Forthwith debunked

Every silver lining has a cloud -- or so we are told.

Climate analyst Jesse Ausubel is getting a lot of press with his new, controversial, deeply flawed study, "Renewable and nuclear heresies" (available here with subscription, but you can get the main points from this 2005 Canadian Nuclear Association talk and the accompanying PPT presentation).

He says ramping up renewables would lead to the "rape of nature." His study concludes:

Renewables are not green. To reach the scale at which they would contribute importantly to meeting global energy demand, renewable sources of energy, such as wind, water and biomass, cause serious environmental harm. Measuring renewables in watts per square metre that each source could produce smashes these environmental idols. Nuclear energy is green. However, in order to grow, the nuclear industry must ... form alliances with the methane industry to introduce more hydrogen into energy markets, and start making hydrogen itself ... Considered in watts per square metre, nuclear has astronomical advantages over its competitors.

Uh, no, no, and no. Jesse popularized the notion that the economy has been decarbonizing for many decades (see Figure 2 of the PPT). This has led him to make a bunch of serious mistakes.

Even in Canada

So, about a year ago I wrote briefly about Marc Jaccard, a Canadian economist whose book, Sustainable Fossil Fuels, has been exceedingly popular in Canadian policy-making circles. No surprise there -- any book that says we can have our cheesecake and eat it too is going to find a wide audience among politicians averse to making any tough decision, ever.

I was, you could say, less than charitable to Jaccard's ideas. But the latest news from Canada's Conservative do-nothing-about-global-warming government makes me almost feel sorry for him.

Dairy farmers’ organic practices called into question

Regulation might not be the best way to create greener markets, but the right sort of regulations enforced the right way can work.

That's a lesson in the organic market, which witnessed a first this week: a mega-organic dairy with 10,000 cows (3,500 "organic"), which was clearly skirting regulations, was suspended by a certifier and no longer allowed to sell "organic" milk.

Which companies are going beyond green

"Eco fashion" has definitely become the buzzword of the moment.

Within the last month alone, my office has received calls from over a half-dozen trade shows and runway organizers seeking to green their events. Apparel companies and clients feverishly searching for organic clothing sources are also becoming quite common. The press seems to be foaming at the mouth for new material too, which is always a good sign; but, in the U.S. at least, we have yet to graduate beyond the "green" theme. This week I'll be speaking to a U.K.-based women's glossy on "ethical fashion," a term I hear used far more frequently in Europe.

"Ethical" brings a more social-cultural perspective to the mix, one you don't always get when talking straight up "eco" speak. The term has its roots in the fair-trade movement. Fair trade got its start 50 years ago, well before the idea of "eco fashion" was ever embraced by popular culture. It started with international aid groups working with small-scale African farmers. It wasn't until the late 1980s that an international system of Fair Trade certification and labeling was introduced, but heck -- that was about 20 years ago!

Still, "fair trade" and "ethical" fashion have yet to find their footing in America's popular culture. They are terms that still remain too esoteric for the general public, particularly because fair trade is more often associated with foodstuffs and artsy-crafty products. There are a couple of reasons for this.