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It’s as bad as it looks.

Approaching the summer "driving season" when gas prices often spike, President Bush has pumped up a new set of energy proposals. Even the mainstream media regard them as window dressing. (Witness the Washington Post.) But I'll take the proposals as serious and comment.

1. The Bush administration proposes to allow oil refineries on abandoned military bases, claiming that limited refinery capacity is driving up gas prices and that it's hard to get permission to build new refineries. Military bases, as federal property, are exempt from most local regulations.

GOP to force Dems to release hold on Johnson?

Looks like the Senate GOPers may be looking to force a vote on Stephen Johnson's nomination to head the EPA.

As all the hip bloggers say:

Developing...

Walking the halls

You know, people bitch a lot about the mainstream green groups, but how many other people could write a blog post about the ongoing battle over the Arctic Refuge that includes this sentence?

So we are walking the halls, trying to strengthen the resolve of people like Congresswomen Nancy Johnson, and to find a way to persuade the few remaining leaners to come our way.

Good luck, Carl.

(See also Pope's longer post on Congressional shenanigans.)

Our fearless leader is interviewed; the masses swoon.

Our fearless leader Chip Giller is profiled and interviewed in the latest issue of Evergreen Monthly. If you can get past the slightly bizarre photo (he fairly glows with eco-goodness! or was it raining light...?), it's a good read.

DaimlerChrysler’s SMART division not doing well.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news.

Daimler-Chrysler, which manufactures the very chic SMART cars, posted some dodgy 1q earnings today. The bad news is that the SMART division (smart GmbH) appears to be struggling.

The press release doesn't say much:

Stuttgart/Auburn Hills, 04/28/2005 - First-quarter unit sales decreased by 7% to 247,000 vehicles, while revenues were 11% lower at 10.4 billion euros. The operating loss of 954 million euros (Q1 2004: 639 million euros) was affected by expenses of 800 million euros relating to the realignment of the smart business unit. At smart there was an operating loss from ongoing business activities.

...nor does this (subscriber-only) WSJ story:

Mercedes's results are also burdened by Smart, a unit of the division that has been losing money since it started churning out its colorful, two-passenger cars in 1998. DaimlerChrysler earlier this month announced a restructuring of Smart that includes a reduction of the unit's model line and the canceled development of a diminutive sport-utility vehicle. The restructuring is expected to cost DaimlerChrysler as much as €1.2 billion this year, the company has said.

More below the jump.

Umbra on whether to eco-retrofit an old car

My husband is an environmentalist. He wants one of the new alternative-fuel cars, but I have a dream to surprise him for his birthday with a 1970 muscle car (a […]

Men pollute so they can take over the world

Men: Can't live with them. Can't overpopulate without them.

A new study of Swedish fishermen suggests that pollution alters the ratio of chromosomes in sperm. But the news isn't half-bad: those in the study -- which focused on exposure to POPs, or persistent organochlorine pollutants -- harbored more Y chromosomes than X. Which means, if any of them settle down with a Swedish fisherlass, they might just create more boys than girls.

Dudes, we're on to you. Pollute this place with your "mercury's good for you!" logic and feeble regulations. Mess with your own sperm. Then make more of you to inherit the earth.

Hell, you can have it.

You Just Keep on Pushing My Love Over the Borderline

Former Iron Curtain may become continent-spanning greenbelt The fabled Iron Curtain that separated Western Europe from the communist countries of Eastern Europe was once one of the most dangerous places […]

Woodpecker long thought extinct shows back up!

Chris Mooney is following the breaking story of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker. Everyone thought it was extinct, but apparently one has been spotted (grainy video here). Cool!

Start here and keep scrolling.

Is the ‘creative class’ driving green building?

Worldchanger Jamais Cascio has a long, linktastic post about Richard Florida and his argument that there is an identifiable "creative class" of mobile workers that values, well, urbanism: a high quality of life, culture diversity and tolerance, thick labor markets, etc.

I live in Pittsburgh, where Florida got his start, so I'm well acquainted with his ideas and his, ahem, penchant for self-publicity. Unfortunately, Florida doesn't actually delve into the relationship between the environment and thriving cities; instead he uses a generalized quality of life measure of somewhat dubious reliability (it's hard to quantify this stuff).

So I'm glad that Jamais is looking beyond Florida's initial focus and talking about sustainability and the prospect that the "creative class is taking on a distinctly Viridian shade of green." Jamais looks at the top cities on Florida's creative index and wonders if it's the creative class that's driving the growth of LEED-certified green buildings. From my experience here in Pittsburgh, where the city recently unveiled a massive and beautiful LEED-certified convention center, it's actually the presence of several likeminded progressive foundations that has been decisive in these early years. The irony is that the wealth built up during Pittsburgh's famous period of rapid industrial growth--which led to Pittsburgh's equally-famous moniker as the "Smoky City"--is now the primary catalyst for a green renaissance.