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Greener automakers

Everybody and their uncle is linking to this NYT essay, but it seems a bit half-baked to me. If the author is seriously trying to argue that an American car company could remake itself as completely green, making only hybrids and low-emission diesel cars, in today's market, and not become a "niche player," well, he's nuts. I think American automakers have adopted a disastrously brown strategy over the last 20 years, but turning in a new, greener direction is going to take time, thought, and care.

On a related note, it's too bad the auto industry isn't more competitive, such that a niche company making exclusively green cars could get off the ground.

The energy bill negotiations are entering the home stretch.

The conferees were hard at work over the weekend and are meeting this evening at 5 pm EST to have what might be the last official meeting of the conference. All the remaining controversial items are on the table. Will Rep. Barton be able to get support for his MTBE deal? Will Sen. Bingaman's climate change language survive? How much ethanol will the country be required to use by 2012? Tune in and find out.

Missed the early episodes? Catch up with these factsheets courtesy of Rep. Waxman.

An outright thumbs down

The ads combined with the Indian proclivity to combine slightly askew English phrases made this article an interesting read. It also highlighted the fact that India is losing the battle to save its biodiversity, thanks in part to the human male's residual instincts to demarcate territory.

Attempts to introduce new species to city ecosystems are often doomed to failure.

An article in Pacific Northwest Magazine discussing Seattle's recurrent Canada goose problems got me thinking. Cities are primarily for people, and they have their own microenvironments. Some animals and plants thrive inside these ecosystems, and some do not. Creatures that can live among us already do. Attempts to introduce other species to please our sensibilities will more often than not turn into expensive failures or chronic damage-control exercises.

Organic snobbery

Julie Powell writes in today's New York Times on the social implications of eating well, which for many people has come to mean eating fresh, organic food. Referring to the "cult of garden freshness" and the "snobbery of the organic movement," Powell sees two negatives that can arise from an overemphasis on such foods: economic elitism and moral superiority.

The chicken at Whole Foods is organic and cage-free; the chicken at Western Beef is not. Is the woman who buys her children's food at the place where they take her food stamps therefore a bad mother?

Powell (thankfully) deviates from the stereotypes of the two stores, delving into the difference between shopping and cooking. She warns not to "assume that everyone at Whole Foods is wise and everyone at the Western Beef benighted."

While the stereotypes are a bit of a straw man, they are not pulled entirely from thin air. Just as with cars, the choice of grocer (for those who have the choice) is "90% social communication and self-branding."

The question is, does this self-branding lead to the two outcomes that Powell mentions?

Readers talk back about lawns, eco-vandalism, labor/enviro alliances, and more

  Re: The Terror of Our Ways Dear Editor: Thank you for putting the difficult topic of eco-vandalism up front. Unfortunately, it was disappointing to read yet another article calling […]

UK biz ahead of schedule

This story is pretty cool, though I expect there's more than a little CBI PR behind it.

Steel, aluminum, cement and chemical makers made the biggest cuts to carbon dioxide emissions. Along with paper, food and drink companies, they also took the biggest strides when it came to energy efficiency.

But let's talk about the caption. WTF? Nothing in the story so much as touches on the science of climate change. BBC just thought it was worth pointing out?

When they have a story on, say, new gene research, do they caption their picture with "the science of evolution has been disputed"?

Foreign oil

I've pretty much concluded that any story or speech that includes the term "foreign oil" is full of it. There is no foreign oil or domestic oil. There's a worldwide oil market. Cut off oil from one source? Another source compensates. Produce more oil domestically? Prices drop a tiny bit, equally for everyone.

The problem, if problem there be, is not "foreign oil." It's oil. Anyone who says otherwise is trying to pull something over on you.

Barton controversy hits the bigtime.

David Ignatius covers the Barton controversy for The Washington Post. Glad to see it's hitting the bigtime. I would take issue with this, though:

Even President Bush agreed that the scientific evidence is solid by endorsing a Group of Eight communique this month that described climate change as "a serious and long-term challenge" and warning that human activities "contribute in large part to increases in greenhouse gases associated with the warming of our Earth's surface."

As Chris Mooney has carefully demonstrated (and many others have argued as well), the G8 statement shows a lot more movement of other countries' positions toward America's than vice versa.

Body Count

Americans’ bodies harbor numerous toxins, big study finds The largest-ever study of human chemical exposure shows that Americans are carrying dozens of potentially harmful toxic compounds in their bodies. Researchers […]