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Just Around the Blend

EPA proposes Renewable Fuels Standard; biofuel firms get excited The U.S. EPA proposed renewable-fuel rules yesterday to comply with the 2005 energy bill, which requires that U.S. biofuel production nearly […]

Mary, Mary, Not Contrary

Enviros give thumbs-up to Bush’s pick for National Park Service director President Bush this week nominated Mary Bomar to serve as director of the National Park Service, and conservationists let […]

Searchable database of government expenditures to be created

The Obama-Coburn pork tracking bill, which will create an enormous, searchable database of government spending, passed in the Senate this evening. It was held up for a while by a single mysterious Senator, who finally gave up the ghost today. Now each and every Bridge to Nowhere can be surfed.

I wonder if it has an open API.

A new video about the product that’s sweeping the nation

An amusing new video from the Rainforest Action Network:

If the U.S. could get happier and poorer, would it?

Here's a quick question for you.

Assume for the sake of argument that we had some kind of reliable way of measuring happiness (defined however you like).

If we could cut our GDP in half but double the level of national happiness, should we do it?

Would we?

How a phony petition attacking global warming science gained a life of its own

The following is a guest essay by John Tirman, Executive Director of MIT's Center for International Studies.

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Recently I have encountered the counterattack on climate-change science, and it is a sobering experience.

When I was giving a talk at a book store on Manhattan's Upper West Side late last month, a young man began to pester me with hostile questions. My book, 100 Ways America is Screwing Up the World, has "Altering the Earth" listed at No. 1, a chapter that briefly tours the science and politics of climate change. The young man (among other obstreperous comments) upbraided me for saying there was scientific consensus on climate change, telling the audience that he had a petition signed by 17,000 scientists denying the threat of global warming.

It was the first I had heard of such a petition, but in the days to come I noticed emails from people I'd never heard of on this same topic. The book, I knew, was bound to stir some passions, and it has. I have a dozen ecological topics listed, so anti-green zealots were bound to find me. And the main way they have attacked the book is by wielding this Global Warming Petition.

Shady oil funds traced to Washington senate candidate

The FBI raided the offices of six Alaskan legislators last week, looking for evidence of illegal dealings with the oil firm VECO. The investigation has prompted beneficiaries further south to quickly stash evidence of their own shady dealings, including Washington State Republican Senate candidate Mike McGavick.

Wacky cult thought highly of the fear & environmentalism series

One of the troubles in discussing the issues of fear and violence is that any attempt to condemn them, or suggest alternatives, is inevitably cast as fuzzy-headed and idealistic. It doesn't help that such attempts tend to attract the genuinely fuzzy-headed and idealistic.

I hoped my F&E posts had done something to circumvent that.

Then yesterday, I got a letter in the mail that began thusly:

Fool Me Rice

Unapproved GM rice from China pops up in European stores A variety of genetically modified rice from China has made it into Asian specialty stores and Asian restaurants in the […]

No environmentalism is complete without consideration of animal welfare

Under a previous post on whaling, a commenter pointed out the hypocrisy of those in the environmental movement who oppose whaling while tacitly supporting other forms of animal slaughter no less morally offensive. The commenter made the point that as long as an animal species is being managed sustainably, there is nothing inherently wrong with using that animal, no matter how sentient, in whatever ways we desire.

This contention gets at a key weakness in the environmental movement, which deserves significantly more discussion and debate. According to this ethic of sustainability, all that matters is the quantity of the environment, not the quality, in terms of how non-human animals are treated.

This environmental ethic is almost by definition amoral; it provides space for such practices as: