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Enviros should adopt some animal welfare concerns

Many environmentalists strongly advocate sticking with a platform that focuses exclusively on the large global challenges of biodiversity preservation and natural-resource sustainability, and stays clear of animal welfare. They correctly point out that environmentalism has traditionally concerned itself not with the treatment of individual animals, but with protecting whole populations. At a time when we face mass species extinctions, it is certainly a risky strategy to contemplate the expansion of environmentalism into a realm fraught with both ideological and political difficulties.

But I believe this is what environmentalism should do.

CEO of nation’s largest auto dealer gets behind the latter

"Who Killed the Electric Car?" conspiracies aside, why do I think plug-in hybrids will make it where strict plug-ins didn't?

Because, at a gut level, I think more people would buy them. Americans are congenital dreamers. No matter that most trips are under 25 miles. If the car purchase in question does not let you indulge in the fantasy that one day you might just take that road-trip to Jazzfest, wheels hissing on the wet moon-lit roads through the bayou, air heavy with frangipangi and Spanish moss; or a surfari to Baja, camping in the dunes and eating nothing but the fish you spear -- well, what's the point?

An electric car with a 200-mile range may get your groceries, but at the cost of cherished self-image. Practicality and reality have never been much of a driving force in purchasing decisions.

Just my opinion, which doesn't matter much in the scheme of things. But here's an opinion that matters a bit more: check out this op-ed from from the CEO of AutoNation, the nation's largest car dealer:

An interview

An interesting interview with James Lovelock, though his defense of nuclear power is maddeningly sketchy. I'd like to see the original transcript.

Advocate for eating horse needs to go

In a sane universe, if someone singlehandedly tried selling off America's national parks -- our collective inheritance -- they would be arrested.

In this world, we have to settle for voting them out of office.

So, if you were planning on getting involved in helping defeat Richard Pombo, chair of the House Resources Committee, big jerk, anti-ESA zealot, and single largest advocate of eating more horse and whale meat*, now would be a good time.

Not only is time growing short, but if you act now you can listen to a song and get a free CD, too.

* Short list.

Can we stabilize atmospheric CO2 at safe levels?

As you probably know by now, the cover story of The Economist is on global warming, unimaginatively titled "The heat is on."

I commend you to the extraordinarily good op-ed that kicks off the package:

Republican candidate will be forced to testify in environmental lawsuit

As a native of the great not-too-bad state of Tennessee, I'm somewhat ambivalent about the Senate race there, which is enormously important to both parties and, at least at the moment, a dead heat.

The Dem, Harold Ford, is something of an empty suit, considerably more interested in his own greater glory than in policy or governance. His R opponent, Bob Corker, is by all accounts a moderate technocrat who's been extremely effective as mayor of Chattanooga, a city that has transformed itself over the last few decades from an industrial backwater to a thriving, liveable urban center with one of the nation's best affordable-housing programs and nicest waterfront parks. (See Q&A with Chattanooga urban planner Karen Hundt here.)

Behavioral science shows that demanding short-term change activates the brain’s fear centers

Taking a cue from my boss, I just finished this article on behavioral economics -- a growing field that explores how, and why, flesh-and-blood humans don't behave like the "rational" profit-maximizers that underpin most economic models. It seems to me there are some lessons here for the theory and practice of social change.

In a nutshell: calling for immediate action to address a long-term problem may prompt resistance from the emotional and fearful sides of our brains; but calling for delayed action may put emotional reactions on hold, and allow for a more sober (and potentially more favorable) response to the issue.

Goshute in the Foot

Interior Department blocks interim nuke-waste site in Utah The Interior Department has blocked an interim nuclear-waste storage plant on a Native reservation in appropriately named Skull Valley, Utah. The department […]

I Found My Thrill on News-Bury Hill

EPA proposes easing air-pollution rules for oil refineries and other plants The Bush administration EPA has had some trouble with the whole protecting-the-environment thing, but it has mastered one important […]

Nothing to Fear But Air Itself

Government fails to tend to the many left sick by the 9/11 attacks The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, left behind a grim legacy. No, we’re not talking about the […]