Gristmill

Ahem

I'm finding Mikhail Capone's weekly updates quite useful. As an obsessive blogger I've usually seen most of it, but it's a nice way of seeing a week's developments in one place.

I must take umbrage, however, at today's identification of "Queer Eye for the Green Guy" as a "very good column at Alternet." It is, in fact, a very good column at Grist.

Have you hugged a corporation today?

How can we get corporations to operate more sustainably?

Lefties often characterize corporations as ruthless automata like the Terminator, grinding toward a goal -- short-term profits -- with no consideration of social or environmental consequences. I don't think that is quite accurate, at least not in all cases. Though there is structural bias toward short-term thinking in the very nature of incorporation (exacerbated by the requirement in the U.S. to report profits every quarter), corporations are in fact composed of people. People, though often misguided, are rarely sociopaths. People within corporations who struggle to make them more humane and green can and do have an effect.

Perhaps instead of thinking of corporations as terminators, we should think of them as overgrown toddlers, stumbling erratically in search of instant gratification but susceptible to behavior modification.

As the parent of a toddler, the best piece of advice I ever heard is this:

Hawks speak out for U.S.-grown clean energy

"It's not a hardship to drive it. It's fun."
-- George Shultz, former Secretary of State, referring to his Toyota Prius, a hybrid car that uses much less gasoline than a conventional vehicle, at the second annual summit of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, February 11.

I found this nugget in my inbox, tucked into the recent issue of @stanford, "a monthly newsletter of campus news and research," in the "Heard on Campus" segment (I am an alum of the law school). How great to hear another respected Republican foreign policy leader touting the benefits of cleaner and more efficient automobiles. Over the past several years, it seems the chorus is getting louder and louder, with testimony, articles, and op-eds about and from Republican and Democratic foreign policy and military leaders.

Oily to rise

Hot off the presses, crude oil futures are trading above $53 a barrel today. An Associated Press article is rife with worrisome notes. Here are some:

"Those people who think we've entered a new paradigm where high oil prices don't affect economic growth are wrong," said Lawrence Goldstein, president of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation in New York.

"I believe oil prices and the economy are on a collision course and that it's only a matter of time," [Peter] Beutel added, [president of Cameron Hanover Inc. of New Canaan, Conn., a provider of petroleum market analysis].

On the other hand, optimists point out that the US economy is drastically more energy efficient than it once was. And in inflation-adjusted terms, oil would have to reach $90 a barrel to match prices in 1980. They're (partly) right.

Calling Mr. Bean

Although the U.S. and Europe are meandering down the same road to fuel efficiency, they're driving in different lanes. Hybrids, which have caught on among a certain set on this side of the Atlantic, are just now hitting Europe. On the other hand, thrifty Europeans have embraced diesel -- in the form of the teeny-tiny, 60-mpg "smart car" -- and are sending some this way. Of course, knowing American proclivities, they've made an SUV version called -- and I audibly groan here -- "formore."

In other green car news, the mayor of Fort Wayne, Ind., is converting the city's trucks to biodiesel and buying hybrid cars. Hmm ... will they be red or blue?

Fareed on hybrids

I'm a huge fan of Fareed Zakaria, who's both one of the most insightful political commentators around and one of the best repeat guests on the Daily Show. I don't find his column on hybrid cars to be his best work, but it does fall within this blog's purview, so I'm gonna link it anyway. Basically, Zakaria says that we could, with concerted effort, exceed Kyoto CO2 emissions targets and break our dependence on foreign oil purely through hybrids (not today's hybrids, of course, but future plug-in hybrids that also accept biofuels). Pretty bold, and also, I suspect, a little overly optimistic. Nonetheless, this passage is worth quoting at length:

If things are already moving, why does the government need to do anything? Because this is not a pure free market. Large companies -- in the oil and automotive industry -- have vested interests in not changing much. There are transition costs -- gas stations will need to be fitted to pump methanol and ethanol (at a cost of $20,000 to $60,000 per station). New technologies will empower new industries, few of which have lobbies in Washington.

Besides, the idea that the government should have nothing to do with this problem is bizarre. It was military funding and spending that produced much of the technology that makes hybrids possible. (The military is actually leading the hybrid trend. All new naval surface ships are now electric-powered, as are big diesel locomotives and mining trucks.) And the West's reliance on foreign oil is not cost-free. [Energy security advocate Gal] Luft estimates that a government plan that could accelerate the move to a hybrid transport system would cost $12 billion dollars. That is what we spend in Iraq in about three months.

We get letters

From reader MF:

Thanks for your newsletter. It would be funny, if it weren't so serious, that [Sen. Richard] Pombo's name, with the addition of just an 'i' after the P, becomes Piombo, which is Italian for Lead. There's a town on the otherwise idyllic coast of Tuscany called Piombino which has mined and shipped lead and other metals since Etruscan times and I can tell you that driving through it - which is all one would ever want to do unless you are one of the poor devils who has to live there - is one of the few depressing things in that region! So I think you should 'accidentally on purpose' refer to him as Mr Piombo in future!

Hmm...

Wait, THE Steve Johnson?

Today's nomination of Steve Johnson to head the U.S. EPA has been met with a resounding "Uh... who?" Nobody seems to know much about the guy, other than the fact that he's a scientist and has been with the agency for 24 years. ENS's story seems as substantial as any I've seen yet.

And, in a sign of grim things to come, Judith Lewis has this ominous tidbit.

This bears repeating

Warning: there is no merit, journalistic or otherwise, to this post. But recently, while looking through my nephew's Ask magazine -- a cool science rag for kids -- I learned a little something. It seems new research shows that pandas pee on trees while doing handstands. (And hey, if the BBC's reporting it, it must be news.)

In this gloomy world, when all talk is of climate change and other catastrophes, let us simply take a moment to savor that.