Articles by John McGrath

Fossil fuel morality II

I absolutely agree with David, and I'd just like to point to this article from a few days ago: The Bishop of London (Church of England) has said that needlessly contributing to global warming is a sin. This is the case whether you fly somewhere for a vacation, or simply fail to winterize your home.

Making selfish choices such as flying on holiday or buying a large car are a symptom of sin. Sin is not just a restricted list of moral mistakes. It is living a life turned in on itself where people ignore the consequences of their actions.

The Apollo creed

You can't swing a drowned polar bear without hitting a new report that says America needs a massive, Apollo-like program to rebuild its bloated, fossil-dependent industry into something more sustainable. The latest isn't about sustainability per se, but rather my nemesis, the dread "energy security." The Southern States Energy Board commissioned a report (PDF) charting America's survival in an age of precious oil, as the age of cheap oil passes.

The study's conclusions are about what you'd expect -- and exactly the problem with the whole energy security notion: Essentially, a military-industrial problem is identified and a military-industrial solution is proposed (coal-to-liquids, enhanced oil recovery, even oil shale for @$%#'s sake). There's a nod toward biomass, but no real effort at sustainability.

Ignoring the feast, obsessed with the ramen

Via TH: GE has collaborated on a report concluding that America could meet its entire electrical demand through offshore wind power alone. This may not be an altruistic gamble (hi Dave!), but I'll sure take it.

Words fail me. Well, not really.

So Andrew Sullivan says global warming is like the WMD "debate" before the Iraq War:

It occurs to me that the global warming debate is not unlike the WMD-terrorist debate, except the sides are reversed ....

In both cases, however, the evidence is complicated and hard to pin down with absolute certainty. We know we are at much greater risk now from Islamist terror than we were a decade ago - but measuring how much, and where from specifically, is very hard. Equally, we know that global warming is real, but whether it has reached or will soon reach a dangerous tipping point is not a given.

Riiight. I can think of a number of ways that Iraq and climate change are similar, but that isn't one of them. Let's count the ways: