Stimulating the Environment
A lot has been made about what the stimulus package will do for renewable energy, but there is significant funding for traditional environmental restoration as well.
Check out these numbers from the Washington Post:
- $115 million for Fish and Wildlife for construction projects, including habitat restoration.
- $165 million to FWS for natural resource management.
- $320 million for the Bureau of Land management for resource management, construction and wildfire prevention.
- $6 billion for water infrastructure improvements.
- $6 billion for weapons-site clean-up
- $1.2 billion for superfund clean-up.
This is not pork. These are projects that need to be funded and have languished over the last eight years while.
No Updates? Read David Roberts
I know, I know… It’s been like a week since I’ve posted to the blog, I haven’t updated to WordPress 2.7 yet and I got five plugins screamin’ at me that they need to be updated.
Well, what can I say? I’ve been busy at work and at home, so I haven’t been as attentive as I should.
Now that that’s out of the way, I’d like to recommend two posts from Gristmill today.
First, a post from the organization’s best all-around blogger David Robert on why a gas tax isn’t a cure-all for the climate crisis. Roberts says a gas tax essentially wouldn’t provide a big enough effect on GHG levels. He also presents myriad other options to reduce greenhouse gasses in the transportation sector.
Fuel costs are a relatively small fraction of total costs for car owners. So why would raising fuel taxes be the “easiest” way to change drivers’ behavior? Why not incentives that address vehicle choices, like feebates? Or incentives that more directly address driving choices, like pay-as-you-drive auto insurance? Or measures that directly take the most polluting vehicles off the road, like junker credits? Or investments that create alternatives, like public transit?
The main crux of Robert’s argument seems to be that a gas tax would waste too much political capitol with the “drill-here, drill-now” crowd without enough GHG reductions. I tend to agree with him.
I’d also add that a gas tax seems like the quick and dirty solution — aka. the typical American solution — where we do something symbolic that seems like a big sacrifice to us, but is essentially meaningless — it’s shopping our way through 9/11.
A gas tax would be easy to implement and relatively painless — especially now that gas prices are so low– but it isn’t going to get us anywhere near where we need to be on GHG levels and is therefore not a solution in-and-of itself.
The other thing to look for in Grist today is their Ken Salazar write up. It’s a fair and informative look at the man who will be the next Secretary of the Interior.
After reading the piece, Salazar strikes me as a guy who’s going to do the right thing for our public lands — particularly our national parks — but will be able to listen and negotiate with other interests when needed. In other words he’s pragmatic, just like our new Pragmatist-in-Chief.
FSC-Certified Gift Guide
(Digg, nature.org) Buy good wood! This gift guide compiles products found online that are certified by the Forest Stewardship Council – meaning the trees used for the making of these products came from healthy forests and were sustainably managed. So shop till you drop, not until the trees drop, and check out The Nature Conservancy’s FSC-Certified Gift Guide.
read more | digg story
Will Democrats Overreach on Climate Change?
The Economist weighs in on the dangers of a Waxman Energy and Commerce Committee chairmanship:
A few politicians, including Mr. Obama, are beginning to hone a cannier sales pitch: that tackling climate change is a way to revive America’s economy, not weigh it down further. But Mr Dingell would have been a much more convincing exponent of this view than Mr Waxman. The risk now is that environmentally-minded lawmakers will over-reach, and push for a measure that big business cannot stomach.
link: Industry and the environment | California dreaming | The Economist
It’s Shmeat! Flesh Grown in a Test Tube Coming Soon
(Digg) Shmeat is grown from a cell culture, not from a live animal. Shmeat could, in theory, be harvested in vast quantities and used in minced meat products and help to meet the protein needs of a growing and protein-hungry world. Would you eat it?
Editorial Comment: Me, personally, I would totally eat meat from a test tube if it tasted good, like good meat should.
Sun Chips: Our Time, Our Snack Food
Like almost everyone I know, my lunch usually consists of a sandwich at my desk — or something frozen from Trader Joe’s — a Diet Coke and a bag of chips from the vending machine. Today, those chips were Sun Chips.
As I munched on this purportedly healthy snack and perused the marketing literature on the bag, it dawned on me: Sun Chips are the perfect snack food for our time.
Think about it, what do people want now more than anything?
Answer: A functioning economy.
Dammit… OK, What else do people really, really want — almost as much as a functioning economy?
Answer: To do the right thing for their bodies, the planet and society with absolutely no effort whatsoever. In fact, we want to do the right thing for our bodies, society and the planet — and be rewarded for it with good taste, popularity and fabulous wealth.
Ladies and gentlemen: I give you Sun Chips.
Healthy for your body: My bag of Original Flavor Sun Chips contains 10 grams of fat. This seems bad, until you consider that it is 30 percent less fat than regular old potato chips. (Potatoes? Do they still make those?)
And, here’s the kicker: Sun Chips are made with coveted whole grain — 18 grams of whole grain in fact. Therefore, you are offsetting your fat intake with the whole grain. In fact, you get a net positive of 8 grams of whole grain out of the entire equation. So, eating a delicious bag of Sun Chips is actually good for you.
Good for the planet: As I learned from my bag, One of the plants (don’t say factory, ick!) that Sun Chips are made in is actually powered by, wait for it… THE SUN! Yep, they use solar power in their Modesto, California plant (not factory).
OK, so that’s not where all Sun Chips are made. Some Sun Chips are made in plants powered by dirty, coal-fired power factories (ICK!). Well, to make up for this, the good folks at Frito Lay purchase Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) that help fund some other renewable power plant or forest project, or no-till farming operation, somewhere in the world completely unrelated to the manufacture of Sun Chips. They do this to offset the dirty power they use while making the Sun Chips.
Good for society: OK, so this wasn’t actually on the bag, I had to go to the website for this one. But here’s the deal: Leonardo DiCaprio is helping this town called Greensburg, Kansas rebuild after it was wiped out by a tornado, and Sun Chips gave him $1 million to build a solar-powered business incubator for the town (Seriously, they LOVE the sun). And, it’s all going to be on TV on the Discovery Channel’s Planet Green, where I’m sure you’ll see all sorts of Sun Chips ads.
So, to recap: One bag of Sun Chips gives you a net gain of 8 grams of whole grain, a carbon neutral snack that may or may not be made using solar power and the chance to rebuild a shattered town as a new green utopia. All for just 85 cents in the vending machine. Clearly you can’t afford not to be eating Sun Chips.
Obviously, I’m being sarcastic. And, because it’s late, I’m also being incredibly unfair. Frito Lay, and Sun Chips should be applauded for coming up with innovative ways to make their products more healthy and more environmentally benign. I actually believe that carbon offsets do have their place in the market (Not RECs necessarily, but that’s a different post for another night.) And, I think the Greensburg renewal is actually a really wonderful project.
But, my point is this: We can’t save the world with 85 cents and a bag of chips. We can’t do what we really need to do to leave our kids with a better planet and rid ourselves of foreign oil without making real and lasting sacrifices. (Or lose weight for that matter.)
What we need to do is fundamentally change every aspect of our current system — from the way we generate our energy, to how it’s transmitted, to the way our towns are built, the cars we drive and the things we buy. And we needed to start doing it five years ago.
By all means, let’s have our Sun Chips — they truly are delicious — but let’s not be under any delusion that that’s all we need to do.
Technorati Tags: California, carbon offsets, coal fired power, dirty coal, discovery channel, energy, Environment & Science, frito lay, green living, green washing, greensburg kansas, healthy snack, Kansas, leonardo dicaprio, marketing literature, modesto california, planet green, potato chips, renewable energy, renewable energy credits, renewable power, snack food, solar power, sun chips, whole grain
Obama’s Security Adviser Calls For Energy Action
(Digg) President-elect Barack Obama’s choice of James Jones as national security adviser brings a retired Marine general who advocates a comprehensive overhaul to U.S. energy policy in the name of national defense. Jones was announced on Monday as part of the Obama administration’s national security team.
International Action is Only Way to Address Global Warming
(Digg) Global Warming has become too big an issue to address only through personal actions and at-home conservation measures. There must be an international agreement to address climate change through reducing all emissions and saving forests. World leaders must act now in Poznan.
Islands Impacted by Global Warming Now
(Digg) For island communities and species, global warming is not a distant threat – it’s something that is happening now. Islands hold 10 percent of the population and more endangered, threatened and rare species than anywhere else in the world. Can these communities survive?
Political Odd Couple Take on Global Warming
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger got the support of President-elect Barack Obama last week at the California Governor’s Global Climate Summit when Obama delivered a taped address to attendees pledging his support for a comprehensive international climate change agreement.
The summit was the latest in a series high-profile international meetings that are expected to lead to a December 2009 climate treaty replacing the kyoto protocol. Schwarzenegger’s summit was largely symbolic — the parties did sign a few somewhat meaningful MOU’s — but the symbolism of two prominent politicians of both parties, along with several governor’s, should signal to the world and to Congress that the United States is ready to act with earnest on climate change.