The food system as ‘largest quasi-public utility in the world’

Apropos of the recent debate on Gristmill sparked by James Galbraith’s polemic on free markets, I got to thinking about...

USDA scientist: Some crop residues may be too valuable for biofuels

Converting crop residues into cellulosic ethanol sounds to many people like a good idea -- certainly better than using food crops themselves. Yet according to respected USDA soil scientist Ann Kennedy, the stems and leaves left over after crops are harvested may have more value if they are left on the ground, especially in areas receiving less than 25 inches of precipitation annually.

That includes most of the United States (click on link to see map) west of the 100th meridian, which runs roughly from Bismark, S.D. through Laredo, Texas.

Can sustainable farming provide a sustainable living?

In “Dispatches from the Fields,” Ariane Lotti and Stephanie Ogburn, who are working on small farms in Iowa and Colorado...

A review of Fields of Fuel

Fields of Fuel, directed by Josh Tickell, is visually compelling and technically polished, which unfortunately bestows a veneer of legitimacy the film does not deserve.

Promotional films are stereotypically one-sided, ignoring or glossing over negatives while exaggerating and or fabricating positives. That is to be expected, but what set this film apart from your generic promotional film is Tickell's success at manipulating viewers' emotions.

Harrison Ford’s chest wax as PSA

Remember that whole "Harrison Ford got a chest wax to illustrate the pain of deforestation" thing? Yeah, here’s the resulting...

Umbra on sea-level rise

Dear Umbra, I’m a bit confused about the possible rise in sea level that may be caused by global warming....

Farm animals consume 17 percent of wild-caught fish

Here's a guest post from Jennifer Jacquet of the Sea Around Us Project and the UBC Fisheries Centre in Vancouver, B.C.

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It is one thing to grind up wild fish to feed to farmed fish, but it is quite another to grind up these perfectly edible fish to feed factory-farmed pigs and poultry. After all, when is the last time you saw a chicken catch a fish?

In the not-so-distant past, pigs and chickens ate grass, some grains, and food scraps. Today, in the throes of a perverse industrial food system that favors cheap protein and quick growth (with often astonishing results such as Mad Cow disease), we now feed farm animals lots of small, tasty fish.

Lots.

Now that L-W is dead, Barnes’ sky trust is looking good

Revkin speculates that Barnes' proposal is a way to break the deadlock stopping climate change legislation.

I think he may be right. Tax emissions. (Or cap them and auction permits.) Refund the revenue to everybody. It has the following political advantages:

• It is simple and easy to understand.
• It puts a price on emissions without really penalizing anybody. It is a no-hair-shirt solution.

This last point is worth emphasizing. It does not punish consumers, because the increased prices they pay are made up for by the dividend check. It does not really punish fossil fuel companies, because the tax they pay gets passed along to customers who have new money to pay those increased prices. Of course, fossil fuel companies do lose, as people use less of their product, but that is not punishment; it is an inevitable result of their selling a product whose side effects can no longer be tolerated. Since it will take time to phase out fossil fuels, oil and coal companies are free to use the time tax-and-dividend gives them to make the transition to other businesses, perhaps by expanding the investments they have already made in wind and solar.

I'm going to post soon on why I think the people who think tax-and-dividend (or any mechanism depending on price) can be the sole, or even main, solution are wrong. Price is insufficient by itself; public investment and rule-based regulation have to remain the primary solutions. But price is not avoidable as part of the solution.

Offshore drilling will have no impact on oil prices through 2030

McCain has flip-flopped his position on offshore drilling, pandered to the oil companies, and embraced the exact same strategy endorsed by the man McCain is trying so hard to run away from -- President Bush. He must have a damn good policy reason:

"Tomorrow I'll call for lifting the federal moratorium for states that choose to permit exploration," McCain said. "I think that this and perhaps providing additional incentives for states to permit exploration off their coasts would be very helpful in the short term in resolving our energy crisis."

Short-term? If only the facts supported that position. If only the man who wants to be the next president bothered to check the analysis by the current president's own energy analysts.