Gristmill

The Bush administration’s grumbling about Iran is ultimately about energy

TomDispatch is running a fascinating essay by Michael T. Klare, author of Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependency on Imported Oil. It's about the role oil plays in the growing discord between the U.S. and Iran -- which in the mainstream press, as always, is covered credulously as a question of WMD (namely Iran's nuclear program) alone. But Iran has more untapped oil reserves than any country other than Saudi Arabia, and more untapped natural gas than any country outside of Russia.

It might seem fantastical that this same administration could once again invade an oil-rich Middle Eastern country on the pretext of removing WMD, but ... well, lots of fantastical things have happened since 2000. There are signs that preparations are underway, best summarized in the important reporting of the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh.

Those concerned about global warming, or the direction this country will take when the coming oil shocks hit, would do well to educate themselves on these sorts of geopolitical issues.

Anyway, check out Klare's essay. Here are the two money shots:

EPA drops CHEERS study; Johnson confirmation to proceed

Score one for the Dems. Stephen Johnson on Friday agreed not to poison infants and toddlers with pesticides in exchange for Senate confirmation of his appointment to head the EPA.  

Johnson -- a generally unobjectionable nominee, especially by Bush admin standards -- was expected to glide on through the confirmation process, but Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) threw a wrench into matters on Wednesday, demanding that Johnson, who's now acting administrator of the EPA, permanently cancel the notorious CHEERS research. The Children's Environmental Exposure Research Study had, according to the New York Times, "offered $970, a free camcorder, a bib and a T-shirt to parents whose infants or babies were exposed to pesticides if the parents completed the two-year study. The requirements for participation were living in Duval County, Fla., having a baby under 3 months old or 9 to 12 months old, and 'spraying pesticides inside your home routinely.'" Oh, and a couple mil in funding for it was being put up by the American Chemistry Council, a trade group representing, among others, pesticide manufacturers.  

After the study drew highly critical press (imagine that), Johnson last fall suspended it pending ethical review (which you would think would take, oh, about 20 seconds). Now, the study's dead for good.

And this is what counts as an environmental victory these days -- managing to thwart research that would use poor kids as guinea pigs for the pesticide industry.  

The founder of Earth Day reflects, 35 years later

There's not a whole lot new in this essay by Earth Day founder Denis Hayes, but it's good reading as that day approaches. I would just echo Jeff in saying that Hayes focuses a little too exclusively on politics. The business and cultural realms are if anything more fecund sources of creative green ideas these days.

Below the fold, I reproduce an exerpt from a Robert Kennedy speech, taken from Hayes' essay. As an exercise for readers, imagine George W. Bush -- really picture the posture, the intonations, the accent -- speaking these words:

An essay by Stewart Brand challenges four eco-dogmas

My last post was prelude to pointing readers to "Environmental Heresies," by Whole Earth Catalogue-founder Stewart Brand (via Commons). He begins this way:

Over the next ten years, I predict, the mainstream of the environmental movement will reverse its opinion and activism in four major areas: population growth, urbanization, genetically engineered organisms, and nuclear power.

To which I would say:

Romney admin hires columnist to tout its environmental policies

Paying journalists to shill for Republican policies -- it's not just for Bushies anymore!

The admin of Mitt Romney, Massachusetts' GOP governor, will fork over $10,000 to a Boston Herald op-ed columnist to promote its environmental policies, The Boston Globe (gleefully) reports.

Sustainability is best served by empirical research, not dogma

I am constitutionally averse to orthodoxies. I don't like it when means become ends in themselves. I don't like it when solutions to problems become holy writ even after the problems are solved. I don't like it when objections to a practice become dogma even when the practice has changed.

In some areas -- religion, for instance -- orthodoxy is built in, and of course many movements become de facto religions as methods harden into unquestioned dogma. (See: early 20th century communism.) But in a secular, democratic society, orthodoxy has no place in public policy. The raison d'etre of a democratic government is to pursue the mutually agreed-upon goals of its citizenry using the methods empirically demonstrated to be effective, within the bounds of the law. This is a bit idealized, of course, but you get what I mean.

Environmentalism has, in many people's eyes, become a religion. I don't think this is quite true, but I certainly know of greens who behave more like priests than scientists, forever condemning any dissent from the straight-and-narrow and excommunicating those who stray. I find this kind of stuff obnoxious -- aesthetically, morally, but most important, pragmatically. The question of how best to protect our natural resources and put human civilization on a sustainable course is empirical, involving a smart synthesis of scientific data, political savvy, and a sense of the possible. To that end, there should bo no verboten topics, no discussion or argument that's out of bounds. No one should feel any "shame" for bringing up sensitive topics.

This was meant to be a prelude to a post, but it's gotten too long, so I'll split it in two. More shortly.

Natural Logic CEO Gil Friend lays out the basics of sustainable business

Gil Friend, CEO of Natural Logic, sustainable business guru, blogger, and future Grist InterActivist, gave a talk this week at San Fran's Commonweath Club called "Business and Sustainability: Risk, Fiduciary Responsibility, and the Laws of Nature." Joel, Jamais, and Gil himself have already blogged about it. But let me echo all of them and encourage you to read "Sustainable Business: A Delcaration of Leadership" (PDF). It's a simple, compact, and forceful presentation of the basic tenets of sustainable business. With pretty colors!

Want to do a good deed today? Print a bunch of these out and leave them at businesses in your community.

(Gil says to check back on the Nat Logic site soon for audio of the talk and a poster-sized version of the declaration.)

The cultural profile of environmentalism has drifted free of reality

John and Jamais make a great point. Media reaction to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment focused, almost without exception, on gloom and doom -- the grim catalogue of what is currently wrong and the most apocalyptic scenario of where things could go from here. But the MEA contained much more than that, including several scenarios in which things change and improve in various ways. Read their posts for specifics on those scenarios.

I meant to address this way back when I was bitching at Nicholas Kristof, who complained about the "alarmism and extremism" of the green movement.

The cultural profile of environmentalism seems to have taken on a life of its own. "Environmentalism" means shouting about how the world's going to hell and condemning everyone who doesn't agree to live like a monk. When an environmental issue is covered in the media, that's how it gets covered -- if it doesn't fit that template, it's either forced in or ignored. When the public sees that kind of story, its eyes glaze. It all becomes -- for the green groups, those who consider them enemies, the groups' individual members, and the public at large -- incredibly predictable, and like anything predictable, it becomes background noise.

For a look at a particularly undiluted, flat-footed presentation of that stereotype ...

We can’t make this stuff up

Funny thing: We thought about writing something like this and slipping it in as one of our April Fool's stories. But we knew no one would buy it.