On oil and the dollar, Bush and McCain acknowledge their own cluelessness

This post was originally published at the just-launched Think Progress Wonk Room, the new public policy rapid-response blog of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Brad Johnson, the climate specialist for the Wonk Room, was a writer for Hill Heat.

Skyrocketing gas prices are crippling the budgets of Americans, as Bush has newly discovered. But he doesn't have a solution. Nor does Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). Bush's every response to energy problems is to drill for more oil and blame China. McCain has a more evolved position: his solution is to drill for more oil and build nuclear power plants, and blame China and terrorists. But neither will address a major culprit in the recent shocking spike in oil futures and gas prices -- the collapse of the American dollar due to a vicious circle of shortsighted right-wing economic policies.

Messing with nature more won’t fix the messes we’ve already made

This post is by ClimateProgress guest blogger Bill Becker, executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project.

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[JR: Geo-engineering is to mitigation as chemotherapy is to diet & exercise. You can find some more specific reasons geo-engineering is unlikely to make sense at these posts: "Geo-engineering remains a bad idea" and "Geo-engineering is not the answer." I will be blogging again on this shortly. In the absence of strong mitigation efforts, geo-engineering will not stop catastrophic outcomes, like the end of most ocean life.]

Time magazine has declared geo-engineering one of "10 ideas that are changing the world."

"Messing with nature caused global warming," Time wrote. "Messing with it more might fix it."

What are they thinking?

Carbon taxes work when there’s substitutability and revenue is locked down for environmental goals

This is a guest post by Monica Prasad, who wrote an op-ed in Tuesday's New York Times called "On Carbon: Tax, Don't Spend." It elicited responses from David Roberts and Charles Komanoff.

 

A call to action: Street Speakout Seders

The traditional Passover Haggadah teaches that in every generation, some Pharaoh will arise in destruction, and that in every generation, every human being -- not just every Jew -- must look upon herself or himself as if it is we -- not our ancestors only -- who must go forth to freedom. In this generation, what Pharaoh do we face, and what freedom must we seek?

 

Power plants’ costs doubled since 2000

According to a new index by Cambridge Energy Research Associates:

The cost of building a U.S. power plant has risen 130 percent since 2000, and 27 percent in the 12 months to October 2007 alone.

CERA's Candida Scott explains most of the implications:

Walker/Cat’s coal-happy ads in rural West Virginia

Prompted by Pompey Road in comments, I went looking for some commercials that have been running in rural West Virginia,...

Slim down with the ‘Waste Diet’

There are people who talk about reducing, reusing, and recycling -- and then there's Maren Engelmohr.

Engelmohr, a St. Louis architect with an impressive set of green credentials, her husband, and her two children are embarking on a year-long "waste diet," and are challenging you (and me) to do the same:

Lieberman Warner criticism, Part 4

This is the fourth in a five-part series exploring the details of the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act. See also part 1, part 2, and part 3.

I grew up in New York and was a die-hard Knicks fan. I can still remember the lump in my throat when I was at a Mets game in 1985 and the Diamond Vision announced that the Knicks had won the draft lottery, ensuring that they'd get Patrick Ewing and build a franchise around him. And yeah, they never won a title with him (damn that Michael Jordan!), but you always got the sense that they could.

Suffice to say, things have changed. They have a massive budget, a high profile, the biggest media market ... and yet they built a team around guys with neither the talent nor will to make the playoffs, much less win.

Lieberman-Warner is essentially taking a New York Knicks approach to GHG policy. It's got a huge budget. It's got a huge profile. It appears to be too big to fail. And yet its success is, to a large degree, dependent upon the actions of individuals who have neither the ability nor motivation to lower GHG emissions. Right game, wrong team. This is perhaps the deepest flaw with the Lieberman-Warner approach as currently structured, but also the most subtle. Here's why:

Putting a bounty of paper towels to the test

Are your paper towels poisoning the planet? OK, I admit it: it’s not the sexiest product to test. Hard as...