Gristmill

Get your assessment

Get a sneak peek at the massive Millennium Ecosystem Assessment before its official launch on March 30 in nine cities around the world. Billed as the most comprehensive assessment ever of the world's ecosystems and the impacts of those ecosystems on human health, the four-year study was written by 1,300 experts from 95 countries with another 900 serving as editors and reviewers. The hope is that like the consensus-driven Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the pains taken at inclusive and comprehensive scientific assessment will bring more political as well as scientific heft to the conclusions.  With the report embargoed until its release March 30, it is hard to say more. But there is something for everyone in this effort.

An open letter to Nicholas Kristof

Nic,

Look, I think it's a great thing that the environmental movement is taking a hard look at itself, and I'm as critical of some of its tactics and rhetoric as anybody. But your latest op-ed is a lazy, risible piece of shit.

Be Cool — eventually

I saw Be Cool last night. It's the sequel to Get Shorty, and as you would expect, it's not nearly as good. But there are enough spirited, funny moments -- mainly involving bit characters played by The Rock and Andre 3000 -- to make it worth the price of admission. Barely.

One of the running jokes in Get Shorty was that Chili Palmer (apparently the only character John Travolta plays well) got stuck with a minivan. After he becomes a successful movie producer, and thus an arbiter of cool, everyone in Hollywood starts driving minivans.

The jokes is basically repeated in Be Cool, except this time he gets stuck with a Honda Insight (guess Honda outbid Toyota for product placement).

It's obvious why the minivan is funny -- it's associated with soccer moms and suburban squares. But it's worth pondering why the hybrid is funny.

And still *more* on ANWR

Last week we talked some about the Senate Republicans' sneaky move of placing the issue of drilling in the Arctic Refuge in a budget resolution, which unlike normal legislation cannot be stopped by a filibuster. If you're interested in the nuts-and-bolts mechanics of how that parliamentary trickery works, check out this post from Mark Schmitt. He aptly summarizes:

Now, where in that process is there an opportunity for real debate and bipartisan participation? Nowhere. A decision is made the night before the Budget Committee markup about what number to write into one of those open slots. From there, a series of "we have no choices" choices are generated, that might lead to further tax cuts or to opening ANWR. Only a significant number of Republicans declaring that they will vote against the whole thing can derail this process.

It's possible to understand this process as a way of reducing deficits, which was the procedure's original intent. As it did in the Reagan, Bush I and Clinton eras, it forces Congress to make choices in the aggregate that it does not want to make in the particular. But used as a procedure to cut taxes and increase deficits, and to push through other unrelated policies such as ANWR, it is simply an outrageous assault on democracy.

Still more on ANWR

It's pretty clear at this point that Bush is, while not technically lying about what we can expect from drilling in ANWR, making many highly misleading statements. (Hm, that tactic sounds vaguely familiar...) If you'd like some details, head over to Green Car Congress and get some of those "facts" and "figures" of which Mike Millikin is so fond.

Why Kerry lost

Oh, hey, turns out there's no need to worry about ANWR. Our cause has been taken up by a man with a proven record of outmaneuvering Bush. We're in the clear!

Ah, I kid. I'm actually quite fond of John Kerry, stilted speech and utter lack of charisma and all.

Since speculating about a) why Kerry lost and b) why the environment didn't play a bigger role in the election never goes out of style, I found this interesting:

Seated in his modest Senate office, Kerry reflected on why matters like the environment -- an issue he believes remains potent with the electorate -- had not won him election in November.

"There was one dominant complication in the year 2004," Kerry said. "It's called the war. The war on terror. It's the only thing Bush people really talked about, advertised on, scared people about."

...

Some environmentalists have faulted Kerry -- as they did Vice President Al Gore before him -- for not making matters such as Alaska drilling, regulating air and water pollution, forest management and endangered species protection a higher priority during the campaign. In rebuttal, Kerry cited a half a dozen events he held during the campaign, including Earth Day in Houston, and events focused on Great Lakes protection in Michigan and coastal erosion in Louisiana.

Had it not been for the threat of terror, he said, "I think the environment would have emerged as a greater issue, as would health care and education. A lot of issues were drowned out. And purposely so by the administration, because their strategy was obviously to use the war as the fulcrum that it was. It was ... effective."

It's fashionable in eco-circles to call bullshit on this, but I actually think it's accurate. It was a narrow loss and there are plenty of things that could have tipped the balance, but I'm inclined to doubt that raising the volume on environmental issues is one of them. If I had to rank them, I'd say 1) a better national security message, 2) smarter campaign tactics (especially on the Swift Boat stuff), and 3) a more mediagenic personality.

Arctic Refuge update

Yesterday we wrote about attempts by Senate Republicans to backdoor their way into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by slipping a provision into a budget bill. Today brings news that Senate Dems have failed in their attempt to slip it back out.

Love is one word for it

While waiting in line at the P.O. yesterday, I found myself gazing at an ad that I've come to hate. Have you seen it? It's for eBay, and shows the inside of a cardboard carton with a few spare Styrofoam peanuts rattling around. The text reads something like "Eight gallons of packing material around a pair of shoes is a kind of love."

Actually, eight gallons of packing material around a pair of shoes -- shoes! -- is ridiculous, and wasteful, and stoopid. I'm writing a letter.

The family that spies together …

Hey, did everyone watch Alias Wednesday night? Not a fan? First let me get you up to speed ...

Sydney Bristow (played by Jennifer Garner) is a covert CIA agent. She works with her father Jack Bristow, who happened to marry an undercover Russian spy (Syd's mom). She also works with her boyfriend Michael Vaughn (Syd's mother supposedly killed his father). Michael's best friend Eric Weiss is also on the team. Eric works with his burgeoning love interest, Nadia. Get this, Nadia is ... Sydney's half sister (they have the same mother). Wait, it gets better ... Nadia's father is everyone's new boss, Arvin Sloane, who, up until not too long ago, was considered to be an enemy of the United States. Oh yeah, Sloane (among other things) also had Sydney's fiance killed, as well as the wife of another team member, Marcus Dixon. He obviously had an affair with Syd's mom / Jack's wife.

Can you see why I'm addicted to the show?

So what do these super spies do when they get together for a dinner party? No, everyone does not gang up on Sloane -- he's a good guy now after all! And they don't fight over whose disguise is better or boast over who has the bigger gun or who uses the cooler gadgets. They talk about: hybrid cars. Yup, that's right. On the March 9th episode of Alias, during the scene when the team gets together at Sloane's house to celebrate Nadia's birthday, they all have a chat about hybrid cars and the global oil economy. And apparently, Sydney drives (or has driven) a hybrid!