Gristmill

An eco-friendly Valentine’s Day guide for the bitter and alone

If the only thing you’re more tired of than Valentine’s Day is all those tips for how to green your Valentine’s Day, take heart. You can hate on Hallmark and smug couples while still showing your mad hot love for the Earth. Here’s our guide to celebrating Singles Awareness Day in eco-style. 1. Get back […]

EPA to drop Bush’s controversial mercury emissions policies and begin new rulemaking process

U.S. EPA administrator Lisa Jackson announced on Friday that her agency will begin a new rulemaking process on mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants, dropping a Bush-era legal challenge that sought to delay such regulations. Jackson said that acting solicitor general Edwin S. Kneedler will not pursue the previous administration’s appeal to the Supreme Court, […]

Dueling NPR stories illustrate surreal disconnect around climate discussion

Two NPR stories illustrate one of the most frustrating things about the climate debate. First there's this one, which makes the important and necessary point that the climate problem -- or specifically, the "reducing emissions enough to stabilize the climate" problem -- is much, much bigger than most people understand, and that we're going to have to spend trillions of dollars in coming years if we want to save our asses.

Great, right?

Then the following day we get part two of the story, which says that the sheer size and severity of the problem mean we need a new approach. What new approach? Well, according to Dan Sarewitz of Arizona State University, we need to "invent our way out of the problem." Huh? Apparently, that means we don't want any of those nasty, politically difficult policies that raise the price of dirty energy. Those are too hard. "Doomed," he says. Instead he wants a new paradigm:

WaPo on the new USDA chief

As Tom Laskawy pointed out here a few days ago, controversy rages around new USDA chief Tom Vilsack's choice of deputy secretary -- traditionally a powerful figure within the agency, tasked with implementing policy in a sprawling bureaucracy.

The sustainable-ag world is rallying around Chuck Hassebrook, director of the Center for Rural Affairs in Nebraska, who's thought to be under serious consideration for the post.

Evidently, the choice is being held up because Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) is threatening to fight it in the ag committee. It's pretty unsavory stuff -- Conrad is evidently furious that Hassebrook supports stricter limits on subsidies paid to a single farm (a policy also supported by Vilsack and President Barack Obama).

Astonishingly, this back-room brawl in what used to be a back-water agency has gotten high-profile attention. NYT pundit Nicholas Kristof weighed in on his blog recently.

As I've written before, the USDA suddenly operates under the glare of media attention. Can anyone remember a similar situation at USDA during Bush II's reign? I tried to make a fuss when Bush chose a deputy secretary who had served as president of the Corn Refiners Association. No one seemed to see what the big deal was.

Those days are over. Now the USDA chief's got reporters bird-dogging him about his attitude toward reform. And he's been making an effort -- unprecedented, as far as I know -- to soothe his critics in the sustainable-food world. Here he is waxing downright Pollanesque to a Washington Post reporter:

The players: House and Senate

I’m trying to get a handle on the prospects for federal climate/energy action in the next year or two. Initially I was going to do a quick overview post on it, but the post got way (waaay) out of hand. Now it is many thousands of words and counting, so I’m going to break it […]

Kudos and fingers as IM dialogue

GristEditor: So what's the deal with climate kudos/finger this week? Got any ideas?

Reporter@Grist: Stop bugging me. Watching cat videos.

GristEditor: seriously, we gotta publish this on fri. need your ideas.

Reporter@Grist: argh. ... ok. hold on.

GristEditor: I was thinking Hillary Clinton for planning to jump on the climate/China issue

Reporter@Grist: Boooooooring

Reporter@Grist: Barbara Boxer should definitely get finger for that screwed up roads package she's cosponsoring with Inhofe.

GristEditor: That's so inside baseball. Plus, Boxer outlined her climate principles this week -- deserves a kudo for that.

Reporter@Grist: Not really. Boxer's "principles" very vague.

Reporter@Grist: how 'bout the Senate for passing that dumbass amendment to give money to people to buy cars?

GristEditor: But that might be good if $ spent to buy hybrids or electric vehics.

Reporter@Grist: Sigh. Hey, you want to avoid inside baseball? How about Molson? Bad beer, good climate record.

GristEditor: Salazar for reversing the Utah oil leases?

GristEditor: Lugar for writing an op-ed arguing for increasing the gas tax?

GristEditor: Finger to the Czech PM for perpetuating skeptic line?

Reporter@Grist: Yeah, maybe.

GristEditor: geez. maybe we just blow it off this week ...

Reporter@Grist: :-)

GristEditor: not funny.

Chevy Volt could cut costs by using batteries more efficiently and paying less for them

In a excellent piece this week, Joe Romm reiterated why battery changing stations don't make sense for electric cars. But he also argued that plug-in electric ranges of more than 20 miles do not make sense because cost gets too high for too little benefit. This seems a reasonable deduction from high (and rising) costs for the Chevy Volt. But this is a case where the efficiency could be cheaper than conservation.

Consuming 0.4 kWh per mile electricity usage, the Volt currently uses a $10,000 16 kWh battery capacity for a 40-mile range. But lots of electric cars get better mileage than that. For example, the Triac only consumes about 0.23 kWh per mile. Admitting this is fairly extreme, there is no reason a car that needs less than half the battery range (and thus does not need to carry as much battery weight) can't keep its power consumption around 0.27 kWh per mile, which would make battery capacity 11 kWh rather than 16 kWh.

Senate hones in on crucial need for country: more cars

I was chatting the other day with Jack Hidary, chair of SmartTransportation.org, about the "cash for clunkers" bill he's been pushing up on the Hill (watch him debate the bill with all-purpose dumbass Patrick Michaels here).

On balance I'm a big fan of the idea -- offering vouchers toward the purchase of new fuel-efficient cars or transit passes to those who turn in old gas guzzlers -- though there are reasons for caution, well-described by Rob Inglis here. After all, there's a lot of energy and emissions involved in manufacturing new cars. Would removing the oldest of the gas guzzlers still be a net economic and climate gain? It's a subject worth investigating and debating.

You know what isn't worth investigating or debating? You know what policy would absolutely, certainly, no-doubt-about-it suck from both an economic and climate perspective? Just giving people tax money to buy new cars, with no restrictions. You know, just to get more cars made and sold and on the road.

Naturally, the Senate is taking the latter route.

We are ruled by idiots.

Universities hold national teach-in on climate change

Across the country yesterday, college campuses opened up a dialogue on climate change as part of a National Teach-In. And for many schools, this meant opening up lecture halls as well.

At Seattle University, a 400-level engineering class (normally reserved for dedicated students in that major) spent the hour discussing effective energy solutions; lit majors, history professors, and everyone in between were invited to join. Later that afternoon, students in ECON 468 welcomed visitors for a lecture on the economics of carbon reduction and cap and trade. Elsewhere on the SU campus, students discussed the role of business in sustainability and the importance of "low-carbon" eating habits.

"Our primary mode of reaching a diverse set of students [was] to have the teach-in themes 'embedded' in regular classrooms," said Jennifer Sorensen, the university's science director and organizer for the event. Faculty members from varied disciplines were asked to devote part of their class time (whether that class be Intro to Geology or Federal Income Tax I) to discussing climate change as it relates to their field.

Students were a driving force behind the success of SU's teach-in, Sorensen says. "The faculty are more responsive to student requests to discuss these themes in their classroom than they are to my collegial invitation to participate!"