The Secret of Nimrods

Monsanto’s confidential research finds that GM foods mess up rats Rats fed with genetically modified (GM) corn exhibited health problems...

A Bank Slate

Big banks play growing role in curbing eco-destruction Increasingly, green groups are both protesting against and partnering with major financial...

Tar Wars

Canadian tar sands becoming top oil source, despite environmental harm With conventional oil reserves declining around the world, all eyes...

Senate Republicans shoot down an attempt to repeal the SUV loophole.

Speaking of madness -- yesterday Senate Republicans shot down an effort by Democrats to close the so-called SUV loophole, whereby SUVs and light trucks are held to a lower gas mileage standard (21 mpg) than other cars (27.5). I suppose I don't need to argue here how batshit insane such a loophole is. Instead, I draw attention to the arguments of the measure's opponents:

Opponents said imposing a higher fuel standard would place further burdens on US automakers that are already suffering financially, endangering thousands of high-paying jobs. They also said the government should not dictate what vehicles consumers buy.

Oh, U.S. automakers are "suffering financially"? Why is that? I give you Carl Pope:

[After the late-70s oil shocks,] Detroit had two choices -- one was to reach out to the nation and ask for public support in dealing with its underlying challenges. The other was to try sustaining itself by putting ever larger shells of sheet metal on old truck technology, and marketing the results as a passport to freedom and safety high above the road.

The industry took the second path.

They chose a profoundly unwise, imprudent, and immoral path, and their cronies in Congress now argue that we must keep them on it, no, encourage them along it, lest they suffer the consequences of their decision. (Oh, and by removing an exception and holding SUVs to the same standards as the rest of our fleet, we are "dictating what vehicles consumers buy." Eh?)

One hardly knows what to say.

Global warming probably won’t do the job.

Roger Pielke, Jr. makes a good point over on Prometheus today about the way the debate over energy policy is being framed. He says:

The energy policy debate over climate change has largely been framed as an issue of managing the global climate for long-term benefits with the extra benefits of reducing dependence on foreign oil, increased efficiency and decreased particulate pollution.

He suggests that advocates of a sane energy policy would be well advised to reverse this order, to sell their ideas "in terms of a primary need to reduce dependence on foreign oil, increased efficiency and decreased particulate pollution," with "the resulting side benefit of reducing the impacts of humans on the climate system."

I too have my doubts that global warming will ever serve as an effective driver for public action. Even if the faux debate went away and everybody acknowledged the reality, it's just too abstract and far away, the benefits too intangible. Yes, the ice caps are melting (etc.), but we're talking about making a major shift in the way we live in order to ... what? ... slow but not stop the rise in greenhouse gases so as to avoid the worst impacts of climate change in 100 years? It's just not something that's going to get people in the streets. In a perfect world, maybe, but ours is not that.

What will get people fired up? Security and money. Money and security.

New Apollo Energy Act contrasts sharply with “Jurassic” GOP energy bill

On April 21, Congress stepped back in geologic time when the House of Representatives passed an energy policy of the...

Neva Goodwin, ecological economist, answers questions

Neva Goodwin. What work do you do? I’m an economist, and codirector of the Global Development And Environment Institute at...

Revisiting the 1970s eco-cult classic that gripped a nation

In the afterword to the 30th-anniversary edition of his 1975 novel, Ernest Callenbach writes, "Looking back, it seems clear that Ecotopia was the first attempt to portray a sustainable society, and that this, more than its modest literary merit, explains its durability." Sadly, there is no false humility in that statement.

Raising CAFE standards may actually backfire.

It's a rare treat to read a dry, technical report and--almost by accident--learn something surprising, counterintuitive, useful, and (at least to me) genuinely new.

Which is exactly what happened when I read this paper (beware, PDF) by Todd Litman at the Victoria Transportation Policy Institute. The upshot: Raising vehicle fuel-economy standards, which always seemed to me like a good idea, may actually be counterproductive, even if they're truly successful at reducing the amount of gasoline the average vehicle consumes per mile.