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The problem in a nutshell

A majority of Tennesseans approve of President Bush's job performance, but most doubt his ability in several key areas -- cutting taxes, improving health care, protecting the environment, healing the nation's political divisions and protecting the Social Security and Medicare systems, according to a Middle Tennessee State University poll released yesterday.

It is to weep.

Campus Progress

Via The American Prospect, I found CampusProgress.org, a new initiative from the Center for American Progress. It's an attempt to foster progressive action among college students, and as far as I can tell from browsing around, it's not the sort of painfully faux-hip thing you usually see from an effort like this. There are some great articles up, including a basic primer on global warming, a story on student efforts to move their schools over to clean energy, and -- best of all -- a reprint of the very funny Larry David essay on how he became an environmentalist. Here's hoping this reaches somebody other than the earnest middle-aged lefties that conceived it.

Easterschtick

Gregg Easterbrook writes in the NYT today that Bush's Clear Skies legislation is peachy, and darn it, Dems should get behind it. As my boss Chip aptly wondered, why do they keep letting this guy write the same column over and over again?

Hot wind

Frequent Grist contributor Bill McKibben has a column in today's NYT saying that environmentalists should get behind wind energy. He is sympathetic to some enviros' objections and rather gentle toward them.

I fully agree with McKibben, but I can't say I share his sympathy.

Oil and gas exploration is ravaging the American West. The nuclear industry is resurgent. And oh yeah, the globe is frying.

If environmentalists take global warming seriously, and expect others to take it seriously, maybe they shouldn't become bitchy provincialists the minute you want to build a wind turbine that impedes the scenic view off the back porches of their vacation homes.

So Ted Kennedy? Shut up.

(Speaking of wind, there's breaking news on the hotly contested Cape Cod wind farm. Looks like the NIMBYs may win after all.)

Kids say the darnedest … wait a minute …

Who knows where they found them, but yesterday the BBC talked to eight well-spoken young people from around the world about environmental issues. Besides filling your heart with oodles of warmth and light, these teens -- who hail from Japan, India, Ecuador, Kenya, the U.K., and the U.S. -- will probably also make you feel kind of lazy and dumb. They talk about poverty and free trade and sustainability, and describe starting a recycling program, serving as a representative for the U.N. Environment Program, and running a project for street children. Even the kid from the U.S., a country not known for molding the keenest minds, sounds like he knows what he's talking about. Although, curiously, he does use the word "advert."

The new economic powerhouse

This book review of China, Inc. scares me. While green design and social responsibility have taken firm root in Europe and are penetrating the American consciousness, China, as this book review makes clear, is a ruthless economic machine devoted to one thing only: undercutting everybody else's prices. (I wouldn't want to be the one introducing CSR in sweatshops staffed by desperate ex-peasants churning out plastic bunnies, way cheaper than anyone else can make plastic bunnies.)

Gallons and gallons of Kyoto

Kyoto goes into effect tomorrow. You kind of think you generally know what it's about, but you're not really clear on the details. I feel your pain. Luckily, Bruce Sterling's latest Viridian Note -- "Ten Gallons of Kyoto" -- tells you everything you need to know. And I mean everything, all ten gallons of it. I must quote his intro:

Let's face it: it's a big deal that Kyoto has come into force in February 2005. People who are genuinely serious about the Greenhouse issue need some kind of nodding acquaintanceship with the ins and outs of this multilateral national agreement. The following analysis and history was written by Canadian enviros, so at least it seems to be factual and objective, and it lacks the contemptuous, fraudulent bullying and panic-stricken, handwringing qualities typical of every mention of Kyoto in contemporary American media. Therefore I've dumped the thing here in its entirety.

By the way, Sterling is cool, and Veridian is cool, and I don't know why I don't link over there more often. I'm gonna start.

An interview with Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai

If the leaders of America’s environmental movement need a shot of adrenaline, they would do well to sit down with Wangari Maathai, winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. Maathai […]

Mission statements

I promise I won't point to everything Mark Schmitt writes (though that would be no small public service), but I do want to draw attention to this follow-up to the issues covered in this post. It seems both Yglesias and I misunderstood Schmitt in a subtle but telling way.

A no-nukes argument with no waste

OMFG. This essay from Tom Paine's Patrick C. Doherty just made my day. It's a concise, effective argument against nuclear power that isn't based on nuclear waste.

Don't get me wrong -- nuclear waste is nasty. Nasty and more-or-less permanent. It's a compelling reason to be leery of nuclear power. But I'm not sure it's enough. The argument of the industry, taken up by some prominent enviros recently, is that we need a non-CO2-producing energy source, a big one, now, and nuclear is the large-scale source that's available. If you're convinced that nuclear power is viable, that it's a large untapped source of non-polluting energy, the problem of what to do with waste isn't all that compelling. Many people's intuitive reaction is: We're smart. We'll figure something out.

So Doherty doesn't even mention waste. He has two parallel arguments.