Gristmill

Wolfowitz and the World Bank

Nobody is entirely sure what to make of the appointment of neocon radical Paul Wolfowitz to head the World Bank. However, this Bloomberg story contains an ominous tidbit:

Under Wolfowitz, the Bush administration may now try to narrow the focus of the World Bank, returning the international lending institution to its roots of primarily financing large infrastructure projects and limiting the practice of handing out zero-interest loans, analysts such as Alan Meltzer, who led a 2000 congressional inquiry into the World Bank, said.

For the past decade or two, the World Bank had been making an effort -- or at least talking more -- about making low-to-zero interest loans to social development projects in developing countries, stuff like pensions and education. This is contrast to the old school, wherein the WB would make enormous loans to huge infrastructure projects -- highways, hydropower, etc. -- that would enrich the huge American companies (see: Halliburton) that built them, leave the poor poor, and put the countries themselves in crippling debt to the U.S., which they could never possibly hope to escape from, leaving them, effectively, permanently indentured American colonies.

Here's a bit of an interview with John Perkins, ex-international development consultant and author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man:

The electricity, the highways, the ports were seldom even used by the people who needed them the most. But the country would be left holding a huge debt and it would be such a large debt that they couldn't possibly repay it. And so at some point in time, we economic hit men, we go back into the country and say, "Look, you owe us a lot of money, you can't pay your debts. Therefore sell us your oil at a real cheap price or vote with us at a UN vote or give us land for a military base or send some of your troops to some country where we want you to support us."

Looks like Wolfowitz -- and unreconstructed advocate of American Empire -- may be sent to return the WB to its "good" old days.

(All this comes via Digby, whom you should be reading more often.)

(See also this dystopian scenario from Billmon.)

Update [2005-3-18 8:28:46 by Dave Roberts]: More support for this theory in an American Prospect column.

Update [2005-3-18 10:8:57 by Dave Roberts]: And see this Salon piece on Wolfowitz's 30-year record of incompetence.

Fuels rush in

This Eugene Register-Guard editorial -- cautioning Oregon's politicians to take a sober, hype-free look at biofuels before launching a program to subsidize them -- is definitely worth reading.  But it makes one point that, while not clearly out-and-out wrong, at least deserves a closer look.

According to the editorial, legislative action to promote biofuels in Oregon would be unnecessary ...

... if biofuels could compete with other forms of energy in the marketplace. The fact that ethanol and biodiesel need the Legislature's encouragement is evidence that these fuels suffer an economic disadvantage, have environmental costs or both.

Hold on, there, buckeroo.  Petroleum gets huge subsidies of its own, ranging from special tax benefits for oil companies, to the mammoth military costs for defending access to overseas oil supplies, to the environmental and social costs of air & water pollution, greenhouse gases, etc.  So just because ethanol needs subsidies to compete with petroleum, doesn't necessarily mean that ethanol is inherently uncompetitive; it could just be that petroleum's massive subsidies outweigh those to ethanol.

Terror alert level green!

The first 'graph of this Post-Gazette story really says it all:

The [Pennsylvania] state House approved a measure yesterday to impose harsh penalties against "eco-terrorists," even though legislators sharply disagreed on what types of activity constituted eco-terrorism.

Response to “Death”: Part IV

Today comes Part IV of Ken Ward's response to "The Death of Environmentalism," in which he argues that some of The Reapers' ire -- nay, most of it -- should have been reserved for environmental funders. The narrow focus, political ineptitude, and technocratic fixes come not from the environmental advocacy groups, he says, but from the foundations that fund them.

Good stuff today. (An edited version of this installment appears today in Soapbox.)

Don't forget to read Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part V.

Slainte

The Chicago River is a ripe shade of green right about now. The city is famous for its tradition of dyeing the river green for St. Patty's Day, a practice that began in 1962 when city pollution-control workers used dyes to track illegal sewage discharges and realized it could make for a fun holiday event. Although back in '62 they used some 100 pounds of green vegetable dye to do it -- which kept the river green for a week! -- the city now limits it to 40 pounds of the stuff, keeping it green for just a few hours.

Hoping to start a tradition of their own, restaurateurs in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., this year had planned to dye the New River green for a St. Patrick's Day festival, but Broward County environmental regulators pooh-poohed the idea, saying it violated local water-quality rules. Officials worried about the dye's effects on the endangered West Indian manatee and other environmental treasures in the area.

When party promoters pushed the idea, arguing that the dye is non-toxic, Mayor Kristin Jacobs retorted with a suggestion that the festival organizers dye themselves green by drinking the chemicals if they were indeed so safe. The party planners must not have been interested, as the new plan is limited to dyeing fountains at the Las Olas Riverfront and offering special "Green River Water" drinks. Yum.

Like a bat out of hell

Every once in a while I like to take a break to appreciate wacky ol' nature. Last time it was upside-down pandas peeing on trees. This time: vampire bats running on treadmills.

Yes, it turns out vampire bats can run on all fours, an evolutionary trait that comes in handy as they prey on hapless victims. Being able to hop and run is useful "when you're a bat slurping cow blood, because cows are heavy and can kick or roll over and squash a bat," explains Cornell University researcher Daniel Riskin, who reported the findings in the latest issue of Nature.

What fascinates me almost more than the image of sprinting bats: the fact that people get paid to watch.

Link-o-rama!

I want to write about everything. Sadly, being a mere mortal, I can't. So here's a big fat set of links to stuff that I haven't been able to get to in the last week or so. Handle with care.

Hegel, and I don’t mean Chuck

The other day I pointed to a Dave Pollard post in which he argued with himself, eerily echoing an argument I find myself having with, uh, myself, frequently. Commenters immediately seemed to select the "right" side of the argument and condemn the other. They saw an either/or and picked a winner -- which was not at all my reaction.

Response to “Death”: Part III

Today comes Part III of Ken Ward's response to "The Death of Environmentalism," in which Ken argues that environmentalists should resist efforts to make environmental justice the core tenant of the movement and instead refocus on the most successful weapon in their arsenal: protest.

Don't forget to read Part I, Part II, Part IV, and Part V.