Gristmill

Grist on the radio

Oh, lest I forget, another stop on your Earth Day media tour should be Seattle's own public radio show Weekday, which today interviewed our own Amanda Griscom Little, writer Adrienne Maree Brown (who's also written for us), and Futurewise's Aaron Ostrom. They discuss Earth Day, environmentalism, Death Stuff, and more.

You can hear the whole thing here.

Weather prevents Bush from celebrating Earth Day

Am I the only one wondering whether the weather has a sense of humor?

President Bush canceled an Earth Day visit to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park on Friday because of bad weather.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the threat of hail and thunder storms was keeping the president from visiting the park, but Air Force One still was making a brief stop at an airport outside Knoxville, Tenn., so Bush could make remarks near the park on Earth Day.

Bush then planned to fly on to Texas, where he was spending the weekend at his ranch and then hosting Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia on Monday.

I have a vague hunch that Bush won't be telling the Saudi dictator about his approach to energy conservation.

A bunch of stuff to read on this increasingly anodyne holiday

I must admit to having mixed feelings about Earth Day. The original was a fantastic, historic event that focused and lent momentum to a growing wave of concern. It erased our reasons not to act.

I fear it has become the opposite these days, a nicely segregated and boxed nod to "Earth stuff" that fades from memory as soon as it's over. It's a time for Joe Citizen to check in -- "yep, everything's still going to hell, maybe I'll plant a tree" -- and then check back out. It separates the "Earth" from our cultural, social, and political lives, casts it as a distinct thing that we must tend like a potted plant.

But whatever, it's here, so let's celebrate it. Yay for Earth Day. Here's a roundup of some stuff you might enjoy:

Kelpie Wilson says the green dream is alive, and gives you 10 things to do. Yahoo ... sorry, Yahoo! also has ten things. Treehugger tells you how to cook an Earth-friendly dinner. Moving Ideas has a whole passel of ways to take action. About.com, trying to be unique, has a 12-item list of things you can do. You can make a difference from the comfort of your couch by joining the Earth Day Virtual March. And of course the Earth Day Network is chockablock with helpful info.

The Boston Globe is glum, but Joan Lowy is hopeful. Brian C. Howard reflects, the Detroit Free Press reflects, and Miguel Llanos reflects. Lotta reflecting.

And finally, in an appropriately ironic turn, President Bush's planned Earth Day visit to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was cancelled due to bad weather.

Climate change clown show

One of the favorite techniques of the (rapidly dwindling ranks of the) climate change deniers is to say, well, gee, there's so much uncertainty out there and we better get all the facts before we do anything whatsoever to address the danger. Obfuscate, delay, and hope for the best.

Well, it turns out that the Bush administration doesn't even want to find out what might happen because, presumably, it fears the consequences:

The Bush administration's program to study climate change lacks a major component required by law, according to Congressional investigators. The program fails to include periodic assessments of how rising temperatures may affect people and the environment.

The investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, conclude in a report to be released today that none of the 21 studies of climate change that the administration plans to publish by September 2007 explicitly address the potential effects in eight areas specified by a 1990 law, the Global Change Research Act. The areas include agriculture, energy, water resources and biological diversity.

Without such an assessment, the accountability office said, "it may be difficult for the Congress and others to use this information effectively as the basis for making decisions on climate policy."

The investigators also said the program was behind schedule, with just one report on track out of nine that are to be published by next September. The 1990 law requires a report to Congress every four years on the consequences of climate change.

Shameful.

The report is here.

The magazine’s editors note that environmentalism is already changing.

Okay, so they're a little late to the party, but the Economist's editors have read their Reapers. They also recognize that environmentalism is, in fact, changing already despite its recent setbacks in the United States.

They write:

If this new green revolution is to succeed, however, three things must happen. The most important is that prices must be set correctly. The best way to do this is through liquid markets, as in the case of emissions trading. Here, politics merely sets the goal. How that goal is achieved is up to the traders.

A proper price, however, requires proper information. So the second goal must be to provide it. The tendency to regard the environment as a "free good" must be tempered with an understanding of what it does for humanity and how. Thanks to the recent Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and the World Bank's annual "Little Green Data Book" (released this week), that is happening. More work is needed, but thanks to technologies such as satellite observation, computing and the internet, green accounting is getting cheaper and easier.

Which leads naturally to the third goal, the embrace of cost-benefit analysis. At this, greens roll their eyes, complaining that it reduces nature to dollars and cents. In one sense, they are right. Some things in nature are irreplaceable--literally priceless. Even so, it is essential to consider trade-offs when analysing almost all green problems. The marginal cost of removing the last 5% of a given pollutant is often far higher than removing the first 5% or even 50%: for public policy to ignore such facts would be inexcusable.

If governments invest seriously in green data acquisition and co-ordination, they will no longer be flying blind. And by advocating data-based, analytically rigorous policies rather than pious appeals to "save the planet", the green movement could overcome the scepticism of the ordinary voter. It might even move from the fringes of politics to the middle ground where most voters reside.

I'm going to ignore that last slur and the general historical inaccuracy of the piece and just say: welcome. There's room for everyone.

That’s what he called Bush’s plan for a hydrogen economy.

I find this story both delightful and disturbing.

Delightful, because Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), one of the House's most virulent, deranged anti-environmentalists, called a major plank of Bush's energy plan "bullshit" and got cold busted for it. The comment came at a press conference where his fellow Californian, Rep. John Doolittle, was touting the mysterious pixie-dust magic of the "hydrogen economy."

Disturbing, because this may be the first time I've ever agreed with Pombo. When asked by the sharp-eared CNN reporter who overheard him to explain himself, he said:

"It's not a short-term solution because we just don't have the technology to produce it," he said, adding that the promised hydrogen-powered vehicles are "multimillion-dollar prototypes that nobody's going to buy."

I'm sure Pombo and I would differ considerably about what is an appropriate short-term solution for our energy woes, but he's right that hydrogen ain't it. A viable hydrogen vehicle is, optimistically, 10 years out, and who knows how long the full-blown "hydrogen economy" would take. And there's the small snag that hydrogen requires quite a bit of energy to produce, which just moves the energy problem back a step. And of course that's the point: It's a pretty bauble to wave around and distract the public from the fact that Bush neither has nor seems particularly interested in developing a serious response to the oncoming end of the oil economy.

So yes, Bush's energy plan is bullshit, in sum and in almost every individual part. To the extent Pombo agrees, well, I'm happy he's saying so. Out loud.

(Via Kevin Drum)

Out of curiosity

When has the federal highway system ever turned a "profit"?

Energy Bill passes House

Per Beltway Bandit, the Energy Bill passed the House on a 249-183 vote. A Democratic amendment to strip out the MTBE-manufacturer protections went down narrowly, 219-213.

The good news is, the MTBE stuff may well be the poison pill that keeps this grotesquerie from getting through the Senate, as with last time. The R's seem to think they have a better shot this time around, but with their recent string of PR and other defeats, prospects don't seem good. But I could be wrong.

Global meltdown. NOW goes inside the battle over global warming.

A little birdie forwarded this week's NOW newsletter which contained the following:

HOT WORLD, COLD COMFORT

Scientists say that over the last century, almost every glacier on earth has gotten smaller and that the Arctic, which serves as the "air conditioner" for the world, is warming twice as fast as anywhere else. It's part of the body of evidence, they say, that proves humans are changing the atmosphere and causing global climate change, which has enormous implications for the health of the planet and its inhabitants. So why are some in government still claiming that global warming is a hoax? On Earth Day, NOW analyzes the latest from the scientific and political fronts on climate change. The report looks at recent scientific evidence that has set off alarms about the implications of melting glaciers for rising ocean levels and talks to one coal-burning energy company that has voluntarily pledged to stabilize its greenhouse gas emissions.

To find out when NOW airs in your area, click here.

Also, right, um, now, the NOW home page is all about the environment. Aw, just in time for Earth Day.