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There are many, but not one knock-out.

Sorry to keep going on and on about energy policy, but ... there's a flurry of good points and confusion swirling about, so I'll jump in.

First, Matt the Prolific points to an NRO piece by Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren on some strange misconceptions hovering around the energy debate in Congress.

Their principle point, which The Economist also makes this week, is this:

The hostility directed at "foreign" oil is ridiculous. The amount of oil we import has no bearing on the impact of world oil-market shocks on our economy. Even if the United States imported no oil at all (and we did not restrict trade), supply disruptions abroad would have a similar effect on our economy as if all our oil came from overseas. That's because oil is traded in global markets: Anything that affects supply or demand anywhere affects prices everywhere.

Thus, the national security argument that we should increase domestic oil exploration, drilling, and production is silly. To the extent Congresscritters are making that argument, they are doing so on behalf of the domestic oil industry. As long as our economy is based on oil, we are vulnerable to oil markets and the countries -- mostly in the Middle East -- that supply them.

Matt agrees, and concludes this:

TIME columnist feels safe endorsing energy independence now that the cool kids are on board.

Let me be honest: I loath Joe Klein. To me he represents everything that's wrong with the smug, self-satisfied, head-up-its-ass D.C. media establishment. Beltway opinion-makers live in a bizarre bubble of "conventional wisdom" that consists almost entirely of what they tell each other at cocktail parties and on Sunday-morning cable shows. They are consistently, grossly, embarrassingly manipulated by those in power -- the very ones they're supposed to be afflicting.

You couldn't find a better example than Klein's current op-ed in TIME.

Plus Ca (Climate) Change …

Ancient empires crushed by changing climate — not that you should worry Elizabeth Kolbert continues her exploration of climate change in the second of a three-part series in The New […]

Grist wins Webby Award.

So, a few weeks ago we mentioned that Grist was up for a Webby Award in the magazine category. Well, if you haven't heard, Grist is the People's Voice winner! Woo-hoo!

While our friends at AlterNet.org won the Webby Award, Grist got the vote of the people, which is what really matters. (What does a panel of judges know anyhoo?)

Needless to say, everyone at Grist appreciates all who supported us.

Deathy death death blah blah

The Week, the newsweekly you've never heard of, briefly covers the hoo-hah over environmentalism's doldrums.

Oil spills: peachy

I know it's two years old, but it's not every day you stumble across a defense of oil spills, so I thought I'd share it. Here's the conclusion:

The truth is, oil spills cause no long-term damage. Spills do not kill off animal species. The chance of oil spills is greatly reduced by new technology. There is no reason not to drill for oil anywhere. Now you know the truth. Go out and educate America.

Well, what are you waiting for? Go!

At least one member of Congress realizes the size of the problem.

Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Maryland) gave a series of speeches about peak oil on the floor of the House of Representatives. Mike Millikin of Green Car Congress -- who is, ahem, this week's Grist InterActivist -- discussed them here and here. Now (via Jeff), Global Public Media has an interview with Bartlett. It's absolutely fascinating -- the guy has obviously thought about and studied the issue extensively. It's rare to hear frank talk like this from a public official:

If we're going to get through this crisis period without an awful lot of pain, we're going to have to have the equivalent of a Manhattan-like Project. We're going to have to challenge, not just the American people, but the people of the world because the first thing we have to do is to have an enormously conservation effort so that we buy time. ... Not only do we need to meet the demands of our economies, we need to have a surplus of energy to invest in the renewables, an investment we have got to make. If we just let the clock run down we are going to face a very uncertain future with very traumatic dislocations. We should've started 25 years ago ... Putting it off is going to make it just more and more painful and more expensive.

Yup. Anyway, read the whole thing.

(If this were a Daily Grist story, I would title it "Roscoe Peak Oil Train." Lucky for you it's not.)

Update [2005-5-3 14:21:42 by Dave Roberts]: OMG, and I just noticed this bit. When he's asked what his colleagues' reaction has been to his speeches, he says:

They’d like to know more about it. It’s not something that they even thought about before. Most people have assumed, I have no idea why you would assume that, that oil is forever.

"Most people," perhaps, but the leaders of our country? Truly we are in good hands, no?

Greenpeace co-founder passes away — an appreciation.

Bob Hunter, Canadian journalist and co-founder of Greenpeace, died yesterday of prostate cancer.

Reader Stephen Best forwarded us a nice appreciation of Hunter, written by his friend and fellow rabble-rouser Captain Paul Watson. It's below the fold.

Mother’s Day

The Green life has some tips on eco-friendly Mother's Day Gifts. (Yup, it's this Sunday. Get on it!)

Management guru ponders its weakness.

Business/management guru Tom Peters reads the ongoing series on global warming in the New Yorker and wonders:

Why is an issue that is so grave and so real so poorly understood? Why has the issue of global warming been so poorly marketed? Why is the brand called "The Global Warming Catastrophe" such a weak brand? What can—and should—be done?

Read the comments under his post. It's a pretty revealing snapshot of current attitudes on global warming.

(On an unrelated note, what possible justification can Powers have for having his site -- and presumably his "brand" -- be titled "tompeters!" Did he not get the exclamation-points-are-odious memo?)

(Via Treehugger)