For the past couple of weeks I have been spending more and more time inside as the air outside has gotten worse and worse. Looking into gray skies caused by literally hundreds of fires all over Northern California caused me to take a look at the causes of these fires.

Of course the primary cause of the fires was a freak thunderstorm that produced hundreds of lightning strikes. Also at fault was an unusually dry spring (one of the driest on record). But there is a deeper cause which allowed for the buildup of tons of fuel for this fire to grab hold of.

Read the rest of this entry »

Entire forests have been pulped to provide the paper for all of the commentaries in the day and a half since the Supreme Court overturned the District of Columbia’s handgun ban, but when all is said and done this is what it comes down to:

Justice Antonin Scalia, who in vociferously opposing the majority in the Gitmo detainee decision two weeks ago wrote that it “will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed,” has no such concern when it comes ignoring the literal meaning of the Constitution, let alone the well being of residents of violent inner city neighborhoods.

A few blocks from the Supreme Court, David Addington and John Yoo, the two key players in justifying the use of torture on those detainees and other guests in the Rumsfeld Gulag, cozied up to microphones and did a bad cop-good cop routine that would make Heinrich Himmler blush.

The graceless Yoo showed none of the fire he exhibited in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed piece justifying his infamous torture memos and copped a poor-pitiful-me attitude in trying to blow smoke up the asses of his questioners by asserting that he was merely a bit player — and a misunderstood one at that. Nobody, of course, believed him.

There is an emerging consensus in the wake of that Supreme Court ruling that Gitmo has to go, but where? John McCain proposes the Army prison at Ft. Leavenworth, but the base commander and Kansas’ two Republican U.S. senators are crying NIMBY.

Lieutenant General William Caldwell IV says the Disciplinary Barracks, as the prison is formally known, would require a major revamping if foreign prisoners were to be brought in. This presumably would not mean having to add running water, a requisite for waterboarding.

The Fourth Branch of the U.S. government is unhappy about President Bush’s conciliatory gestures toward North Korea.

Mr. Fourth Branch answered question after question during an off-the-record sit-down with foreign reporters, but when the subject of the newly de-listed member of the Axis of Evil came up, participants say he froze and stared unsmilingly at his questioner for several long seconds, harrumphed that he was not the one to announce the decision, declared he was done taking questions and left.

Who are those people?

With 75 percent of Americans blaming George Bush for a hydra-headed economic meltdown, including the worst June on Wall Street since the Great Depression, and nearly that many people disapproving of the president’s overall job performance, you have to wonder who the holdouts are.

Why affluent John McCain supporters, of course, while Barack Obama is making substantial inroads among Americans who are struggling to make ends meet.

In a grown-up but no less immature version of a brat sticking his fingers in his ears and humming loudly so he can’t hear bad news, the White House told the Environmental Protection Agency that it would not open an email containing a document concluding that greenhouse gases are pollutants that must be controlled. The EPA found that there would be $500 billion to $2 trillion in economic benefits over the next 30-plus years if auto emissions were curtailed.

The email remains in cyber-limbo, but the EPA was back this week with a sufficiently watered-down version that offers no conclusion.

Washington is full of boobs, but we’re not talking about politicians here. It’s exposed women’s breasts and even men’s willies, and Robert Hunt is very unhappy over this rampant immodesty.

The Texas rancher was appalled to find so many statues and art work of naked women and men when he visited the nation’s capital and recently proposed that the Texas Republican Party adopt a resolution calling for this filth to be removed from what he termed “our sacred cities.”

Daryl Cagle, MSNBC.com

Republican presumptive Presidential nominee Sen. John McCain has made it clear: although he has called for renewed offshore drilling as a way to help get America out of the energy crunch and has shifted his position on that — he is not dropping his opposition to drilling in ANWR:

Senator John McCain reiterated his opposition to drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on Thursday, a day after his statement that he would be willing to “go back and look at it again” sparked speculation among both opponents and proponents of drilling that he might change his mind.

“My position has not changed,’’ Mr. McCain said here on his campaign bus.

“People have said to me, ‘I’m going to bring you new information about ANWR, how environmentally we can make it safe,’” he said. “I’ll be glad to accept new information but my position has not changed.’’

Mr. McCain did change his position this week by proposing lifting the moratorium on off-shore drilling – in which he was quickly seconded by President Bush – but he said his position on drilling the the wildlife refuge was unchanged.

[UPDATE: It turns out ANWR drilling would take about a decade to kick in and lower gas prices two cents per gallon….]

It’s actually a very smart position for McCain, going into the general election. It means he is not appearing to be Bush Lite on the drilling — taking a middle-stance between those who want unfettered drilling and always mention ANWR in the same breath and those such as Democratic presumptive Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama who oppose drilling.

The issue is more complex than it may appear at first glance: despite a widespread perception that most Americans remain opposed to drilling in once-taboo areas, a recent Gallup poll found “57 percent of Americans would support drilling in the nation’s coastal and wilderness areas that are currently closed to exploration if it helped reduce gasoline prices and if the drilling was conducted under strict environmental controls,” US News reports.

But the wildlife refuge?

Those who oppose it have pointed to experts who say it would do little for a short or even long term fix, and mostly be a big, fat ladle of gravy handed over to the oil companies. Here’s one of the websites arguing against it. Some mainstream news media also reached the same conclusion — as you can see here and here.

“One reason why I’m now far more in favor of off shore drilling is the price of oil,’’ he said. But he said that he did not believe that the price was so high that he would reconsider his position on drilling in the wildlife refuge.

Bush and his talk show and web supporters have made ANWR a kind of rallying cry, but have been thwarted repeatedly. And to environmentalists, perhaps more than the thorny issue of offshore drilling, it has become a kind of line in the ice.

Add to that a slew of images of the preserve that are online — images showing pristine scenery and endangered Polar Bears — and it’s hard to believe any Republican who claims to be a descendant of conservationist President TR Roosevelt could ever advocate drilling there.

McCain often likes to paint himself as a modern day Teddy Roosevelt. And while he’ll take lots of heat for changing his position on offshore drilling, and will have environmental groups working against him, sticking with his position on ANWR will set him apart from both packs — and maintain some of the independent image he had that eroded as he has tried to please the GOP’s conservative base and show loyalty to George Bush.

McCain again when asked about changing his position:

“No, but again, if somebody says, ‘will you look at this information,’ that the guy stood up at the town hall meeting, `I know how you can make it environmentally and totally safe,’ I’ll be glad to look at that information,’’ he said. “I think it’s incumbent on me to review it. But I certainly haven’t changed my position.”

And unless he changes his position, his current position now puts him between the viewpoints of establishment Republicans (yes on offshore drilling and drill in ANWR) and most Democrats (no on offshore drilling and don’t drill in ANWR).

So McCain’s precarious political tightrope walk continues — shaky, but it continues..

Suggesting that tough times call for tough measures, presumptive GOP Presidential nominee John McCain is calling for ending the federal offshore drilling ban — putting him at odds with environmentalist groups he was wooing and his own 2000 presidential campaign position on the issue.

The call is likely to mean environmentalists who have been counting the days since the Bush administration — considered by many environmental groups to be the worst administrations in American history on environmental matters — could work against him. And it also will likely be added to the list of issues on which Democrats say McCain has changed his positions. The Washington Post reports:

The move is aimed at easing voter anger over rising energy prices by freeing states to open vast stretches of the country’s coastline to oil exploration. In a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, nearly 80 percent said soaring prices at the pump are causing them financial hardship, the highest in surveys this decade.

“We must embark on a national mission to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil,” McCain told reporters yesterday. In a speech today, he plans to add that “we have untapped oil reserves of at least 21 billion barrels in the United States. But a broad federal moratorium stands in the way of energy exploration and production. . . . It is time for the federal government to lift these restrictions.”

McCain’s announcement is a reversal of the position he took in his 2000 presidential campaign and a break with environmental activists, even as he attempts to win the support of independents and moderate Democrats. Since becoming the presumptive GOP nominee in March, McCain has presented himself as a friend of the environment by touting his plans to combat global warming and his opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and in the Everglades.

Representatives of several environmental groups criticized him for backing an idea they said would endanger the nation’s most environmentally sensitive waters.

This is the quote that could be a harbinger of what McCain can expect in campaign 2008:

Sierra Club political director Cathy Duvall said McCain “is using the environment as a way to portray himself as being different from George Bush. But the reality is that he isn’t.” The group began running radio commercials yesterday that criticize McCain’s environmental record in the battleground state of Ohio.

Democratic presumptive nominee Sen. Barack Obama responded as you would expect with a comment linking McCain’s call to Bush administration policies.

But McCain’s comment did trigger other responses:

–Florida Gov. Charlie Crist has now made it known that he, too, has a change of heart on this issue and would support offshore drilling, a position not exactly seen as popular in Florida.
–Most New Jersey politicians let it be known that they oppose the idea.

The Financial Times’ Washington correspondents underscored the perception problem this is likely to create for McCain:

Nobody is yet calling John McCain a “flip-flopper”. But the Republican nominee’s increasingly finely balanced efforts to shore up his support among the shrinking Republican base while reaching out to independents is starting to fire up the critics.

On Tuesday morning, he launched an advertisement reminding voters of his repeated clashes with President George W. Bush over climate change, which Mr McCain believes is real and requires urgent action.

In the afternoon, he delivered a speech to the oil industry in Houston, calling for a lifting of the moratorium on offshore drilling in order to reduce petrol prices.

Mr McCain’s shift on offshore drilling – which contrasts with his strong support for upholding the moratorium in his 2000 bid for the Republican nomination – could further chip away at his reputation for being a “straight talker”.

But is McCain’s use of the energy issue a mistake, given all the pitfalls? Perhaps not: U.S. News’ James Pethokoukis talked with some political types and he argues the issue offers McCain 7 ways to beat Obama.

Europe this week bade President Bush farewell - and if it was a fond farewell, it is because they know he’s leaving not only Europe, but the corridors of American power.

In a scathing column, Uwe Vorkotter writes for Germany’s Frankfurter Rundschau:

“This was never going to work. George W. Bush and the Germans. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday I quoted Stephen J. Dubner’s criticism of Michael Pollan and the local food movement and concluded, generously, that “Dubner’s contribution to the [food] debate is to keep it real.”

Then I listened to his appearance (mp3) on The Takeaway. Dubner apparently hardly even bothered to prepare for the show. Said he, straight off, when the interviewer assumed he had “actually been investigating the impulse…to grow it yourself and you’ve come up with some hard cold reality-based conclusions:”

Well, investigating is a generous word for what I’ve been doing but I’ve poked around a little bit, right, so it’s a complex problem which is part of the issue here. The minute we talk about food miles… the math gets pretty complicated.

Yes, it does, Stephen. That’s what we need you for!

Dubner goes on to tell us that “the grocery store is the end product of a couple centuries of food production research.” Ipso factso the food coming from it “ends up having probably a smaller footprint than a hundred people growing locally.” In case you missed it, the emphasis on that probably is mine! It would have been helpful had Stephen done some research prior to coming on the show, and maybe cited some of it!

He goes on to cite his personal farm experience, as if to suggest that childhood experience is evidence of anything other than the single instance it represents. (Like the ice cream anecdote I quoted yesterday that was so ably dismissed by my commenter, thank you GreenDreams!) Anecdotes without standards and testing do not add up to evidence, Stephen. 

The last of the whoppers is his notion of “the average grocery store” providing variety and freedom of choice. He says, “If I don’t want to buy the agribusiness, I don’t have to.” In fact, it’s very important to understand that we can only choose from the choices presented.  The entire discussion on that program was a missed opportunity for the worthwhile discussion this nation wants to have. We’re hungry for it, that’s why they booked you Stephen!

Even remembering that Dubner is the journalist half of the Freakonomics duo (Steven Levitt, the wunderkind economist, is the other) he owed it to his audience to have done better. A good place to start might have been the February 25, New Yorker, Big Foot: In measuring carbon emissions, it’s easy to confuse morality and science:

Many factors influence the carbon footprint of a product: water use, cultivation and harvesting methods, quantity and type of fertilizer, even the type of fuel used to make the package. Sea-freight emissions are less than a sixtieth of those associated with airplanes, and you don’t have to build highways to berth a ship. Last year, a study of the carbon cost of the global wine trade found that it is actually more “green” for New Yorkers to drink wine from Bordeaux, which is shipped by sea, than wine from California, sent by truck. That is largely because shipping wine is mostly shipping glass. The study found that “the efficiencies of shipping drive a ‘green line’ all the way to Columbus, Ohio, the point where a wine from Bordeaux and Napa has the same carbon intensity.”

The environmental burden imposed by importing apples from New Zealand to Northern Europe or New York can be lower than if the apples were raised fifty miles away. “In New Zealand, they have more sunshine than in the U.K., which helps productivity,” Williams explained. That means the yield of New Zealand apples far exceeds the yield of those grown in northern climates, so the energy required for farmers to grow the crop is correspondingly lower. It also helps that the electricity in New Zealand is mostly generated by renewable sources, none of which emit large amounts of CO₂.

Researchers at Lincoln University, in Christchurch, found that lamb raised in New Zealand and shipped eleven thousand miles by boat to England produced six hundred and eighty-eight kilograms of carbon-dioxide emissions per ton, about a fourth the amount produced by British lamb. In part, that is because pastures in New Zealand need far less fertilizer than most grazing land in Britain (or in many parts of the United States). Similarly, importing beans from Uganda or Kenya—where the farms are small, tractor use is limited, and the fertilizer is almost always manure—tends to be more efficient than growing beans in Europe, with its reliance on energy-dependent irrigation systems.

I get that it’s tricky problem. But the answer’s not glib bromides about the history of supermarkets!

We often hear that the world is now a “global village” and “globalization” is inevitable. But there are warning signs we cannot overlook. Two experts point out that “for the first time in more than 200 years we are moving into a world not wholly dominated by the West.

“If we want to influence this environment rather than be held to ransom by it, and if we want to take hold of some of the worrying features of globalisation, then real, practical multilateralism is a strategic necessity, not a liberal nicety…

“Today’s security agenda is often presented as a long list of threats: international terrorism, transnational crime, the threat of a new pandemic, energy insecurity and the dangers of climate change. These are all pressing issues but it is too easy to present them as disparate and unconnected…”

The two experts are Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, a former General-Secretary of Nato, and Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon, formerly the High Representative of the International Community in Bosnia & Herzegovina. They are co-chairmen of the IPPR Commission on National Security in the 21st century.

Read their full article here…

We’ve done quite a lot of posts on this subject over the past few years — and here is a great concise look at the issue via Dyre Portents. It’s today’s MUST READ:

Recently their have been a lot of calls from Republican politicians to open up ANWR for drilling in order to lower gas prices. Having done my homework on this issue I believe that those that are doing so are either ignorant of the facts or have an ulterior motive that has almost nothing to do with lowering gas prices.

Read it in its entirety.

Stephen J. Dubner wonders, do we really need a few billion locavores? And with that wonder he skewers the notion that the local food movement can really enhance the economic, environmental and social health of our planet as much as some Michael Pollan adherents might hope. His piece starts out with this anecdote:

We made some ice cream at home last weekend. Someone had given one of the kids an ice cream maker a while ago and we finally got around to using it. We decided to make orange sherbet. It took a pretty long time and it didn’t taste very good but the worst part was how expensive it was. We spent about $12 on heavy cream, half-and-half, orange juice, and food coloring — the only ingredient we already had was sugar — to make a quart of ice cream. For the same price, we could have bought at least a gallon (four times the amount) of much better orange sherbet. In the end, we wound up throwing away about three-quarters of what we made. Which means we spent $12, not counting labor or electricity or capital costs (somebody bought the machine, even if we didn’t) for roughly three scoops of lousy ice cream.

As we’ve written before, it is a curious fact of modern life that one person’s labor is another’s leisure. Every day there are millions of people who cook and sew and farm for a living — and there are millions more who cook (probably in nicer kitchens) and sew (or knit or crochet) and farm (or garden) because they love to do so. Is this sensible? If people are satisfying their preferences, who cares if it costs them $20 to produce a single cherry tomato (or $12 for a few scoops of ice cream)?

I am both a Pollan fan and a Freakonomics fan. We need both Pollan’s aspirational hope — as expressed most recently in his April 20 NYTimes Magazine, Why Bother?, which urged us all to start vegetable gardens in our backyards as a means to both battle climate change and combat consumerism — and the gritty statistical reality Dubner provides:

…specialization (which Michael Pollan mostly dislikes, and which has been around for a long, long time) is ruthlessly efficient. Which means less transportation, lower prices — and, in most cases, far more variety, which in my book means more deliciousness and more nutrition. The same store where I blew $12 on ice cream ingredients will happily sell me ice cream in many flavors, dietetic options, and price points.

Dubner spoke more on the topic yesterday on The Takeaway, available for download here. Having read both of Pollan’s most recent books, I agree completely with his critique of nutritionism — that reducing food to its component parts takes away some of its vital essence — and I have to think that even Dubner would believe there’s a middle ground between the locavores and an industrial food system that has produced the kind of horrific waste lagoons exposed in this December 2006 Rolling Stone story.

While industrialization of the food system has brought about the specialization Dubner praises, deadly tomatoes from Connecticut to California underscore that it’s long past time for food reform. There is clearly room for real and needed improvement. Michael Pollan has done a good job of making us more aware of the harmful commoditization of food. Dubner’s contribution to the debate is to keep it real.

The blame game has already been going on, and is likely to become ugly and fierce as to who is causing maximum pollution and contributing towards visible changes in environment.

On the one side we have “developed” countries refusing to have a critical look at their reckless consumerism. While on the other are the “developing” countries wanting to mindlessly ape the Western lifestyle and thus putting an unbearable burden on the scarce resources on our planet earth.

All this has been been convincingly discussed in detail in the latest must-read article in The Economist. However, it does more finger-pointing towards China and India rather than suggesting ways how and what the “developed” nations should do towards sustainable living.

“Now that the American presidential race is down to two candidates who are both committed to cutting emissions, China and India, the world’s most populous nations, are seen by many as the world’s biggest climate-change problems. Russia’s economy is more profligate with energy, but China is widely believed to be the world’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, and India is rapidly moving up.

“Their exploding emissions are America’s main excuse for failing to take action itself; and their intransigence exasperates those trying to negotiate a global agreement on climate-change mitigation to replace the Kyoto protocol. Meanwhile, both countries are awakening to the problems that climate change will cause them.”

More here…

It goes without saying that without equitable distribution of resources the world would be witnessing increasing migrations, poverty and terrorism in the coming years. One option has been shown by the Bush administration — survival of the fittest. The other revolves round urgent evolving of a consensus on such critical issues through serious deliberations by world leaders. The latter option may provide effective long and short term strategy so essential for world peace and harmony.

Meanwhile a study centre, described as the world’s first legal research centre into climate change, will be opened in Canberra at the Australian National University today by environment minister Peter Garrett. The centre would focus on issues such as the international legal regime for tackling climate change, after the Kyoto agreement runs out, climate litigation, and issues involving renewable energy, transport and forestry. More here…

We bloggers/journalists love to chase political stories, while our response to the critical economic issues is generally similar to those related to climate change. I wonder when our fraternity would realise that environmental and economic issues are as much “political” and important as the ones perceived as the “real political” ones.

I was again reminded of this when I read a report in a recent issue of The Economist that “double-digit price rises are about to afflict two-thirds of the world’s population”. At times I wonder what right the media/blogs have to criticise the political leadership when the former itself triviliazes (or fails to understand) the real and important issues.

“Ronald Reagan once described inflation as being ‘as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber and as deadly as a hit-man’. Until recently, central bankers thought that this thug had been locked up for life. Thanks to sound monetary policies, inflation worldwide had stayed low in recent years. But the mugger is back on the prowl.

“Even though America is close to recession and growth in other developed economies has slowed, inflation is rising. Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, this week gave warning about the mistakes of the 1970s, when inflation was let loose at huge cost to growth. His words were aimed at rich-country central banks, but policymakers in emerging economies are the ones who should most take heed.

“In countries such as China, India, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia even the often dodgy official statistics show prices have risen by 8-10% over the past year; in Russia the rate is over 14%; in Argentina the true figure is 23% and in Venezuela it is 29%. If you measure the numbers correctly, two-thirds of the world’s population will probably suffer double-digit rates of inflation this summer (see article).

“Taken as a whole (and using official figures), the average world inflation rate has risen to 5.5%, its highest since 1999. The main cause has been the surge in the prices of food and oil, which briefly soared above $135 a barrel this week. But Mr Trichet’s concern is that higher headline rates could push up inflation expectations, leading to bigger pay demands, and so trigger a wage-price spiral, as in the 1970s.” More here…

Deng Coy Miel, Singapore

Is it possible that in the midst of the most grueling political ordeal of his life, Barack Obama took time out last week to negotiate with Nigerian Militants?

Just a day after an attack on an a huge Shell Oil pumping station on the Niger Delta, the Nigerian government reports receiving an e-mail that reads in part:

“The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta command is seriously considering a temporary ceasefire appeal by Senator Barack Obama. Obama is someone we respect and hold in high esteem.”

No word yet from Senator Obama.

Read the rest of this entry »

It seems that the Iraq invasion has doomed the United States to being an object of suspicion for many nations, and for some time to come.

A case in point is this article written by a member of the Brazilian lower house, the Assembly of Deputies.

After describing how the United States invaded Iraq under false pretexts and pointing out his perception that the U.S. actually invaded for the sake of the region’s oil resources, Eliene Lima, a member of parliament from a Brazilian state bordering Amazonia, writes for Brazil’s Jornal Nortao:

As we all know, this is the country with the largest reserves of drinking water in the world. And where is the water? In the Amazon! Read the rest of this entry »

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman went to Brown University to give a speech on Earth Day and he was greeted by a big student crowd — and pies in his face thrown by environmental activists.

Note when you watch the video how this form of pie-in-the-face is not funny at all but is done in a way so that it resembles an assault. And it is dealt with (correctly) that way by the legal system:

The legalities and proprieties of pie-throwing aside, what’s notable in the video above is that these students were the gang that couldn’t throw pies straight.

They should have studied the undisputed mastersof pie throwing:

Kevin Rudd’s tenure as Australian prime minister would be ‘historic’ in more ways than one. Recently he invited 1000 “brightest” among his countrymen for an “ideas summit” to develop key goals for Australia. And now comes the sensational news that suddenly Australia gains more territory equivalent to 20 times the size of the United Kingdom!!!

“Australia, already the world’s largest island, has just become substantially larger. A United Nations commission has ruled that the country can expand its continental shelf by nearly a million square miles,” reports The Independent.

“The ruling clarifies the extent of Australia’s control over the part of the continent that is submerged beneath the sea and follows requests by successive governments for clarification. The result could mean a ‘bonanza’ in oil and gas reserves. But while Australia acquires rights on the resources beneath the seabed, it does not gain control over shipping or whaling in the areas.”

More here…

Last weekend Rudd interacted with 1000 “brightest” Australians to chart out the future course of action. ” ‘Today we are throwing open the windows of our democracy to let a little bit of fresh air in,’ Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told the gathering of 1,000 scientists, unionists and central bankers, as well as actors Cate Blanchett and Hugh Jackman.

“Inscribing Aboriginal rights into Australia’s constitution, abolishing states and a fresh push for a republic led ideas at a summit of the nation’s top minds on Saturday, bringing Hollywood together with corporate chiefs.”

More here…

And here…

Why is the media, and the blogs, overlooking the “real” issues? The recent Clinton/Obama debate once again brought under spotlight a serious lack of professionalism among journalists and their growing penchant to trivialize serious issues. To give another example, few seem interested at the looming food crisis that is likely to have worldwide political and economic ramifications.

Would the media wake up only when the wolf reaches their doors or the dinner table (when it is too late)? Even if the media is looking for “sensational” news there is plenty to be found in the “real” issues. How about this….?

“Food riots have erupted in countries all along the equator. In Haiti, protesters chanting ‘We’re hungry’ forced the prime minister to resign; 24 people were killed in riots in Cameroon; Egypt’s president ordered the army to start baking bread; the Philippines made hoarding rice punishable by life imprisonment. ‘It’s an explosive situation and threatens political stability,’ worries Jean-Louis Billon, president of Côte d’Ivoire’s chamber of commerce,” reports The Economist.
Read the rest of this entry »

Much talk recently about the administration wanting to block any number of measures in Congress that are rowing against the President’s mindset on what will and what work re the environment… The President has characterized all measures there as ‘a regulatory trainwreck.’

Today, in a news conference, the President said he had not signed the Kyoto agreement because

– it did not bring all players to the table
– it would have interfered with growing the USA economy, requiring the USA to do what others who were polluters were not doing.

He said he had hope for the future of ‘cellulosic’ fuels, and that the USA economy would grow as “a new generation of nuclear plants” were built with responsible putting away of dead fuels, and responsible oversight in running nuclear plants

and

that the economy would grow as a result of building infrastructure (roads and all attendant small businesses and jobs that come with new spurs, etc) to now narrowly or non-populated places, “sparse land” in the USA where such structures would be built and have to be connected with large city centers.

He said “the G8 has now embraced” bringing together all parties (meaning other nations such as India, China and certain African nations, in particular, who are thought to be growing the most economically –and also creating more greenhouse gases– to plan forward from Kyoto Treaty’s expiration in 2012– so that “none are given a free ride.”

President Bush also offered the idea of 35mpg for cars in the USA by 2020, (no specifics)
that we’re making progress as planned on reduction of greenhouse gases in the USA by 1212 (no specifics)
and billions of gallons of renewable fuel be available by then (a useful wish)
and to ’stop growth’ of greenhouse gas emissions 2025, (which is far beyond the deadline of many other countries)
and to capture carbon, to expand storage (good idea, but without funding or specifics)
and to “decrease dependency on foreign oil”…

Well.

And I don’t mean oil.

What does this all mean? Again.

WAR AND SCARCE RESOURCES

I don’t know all that it affects. But, one thing it means, is that the ties to warring endlessly about environmental resources is not well understood or meaningfully intervened in by our administration. The connection between oil and death. Ongoing oil. Ongoing death.

There are no doubt other meanings, and the pragmatics of not being able to stop by tonight the dependence on foreign oil. But is enough being done to develop any other ways and means? Is enough being done as priority? Is enough being done in a timely way? Is it writ large enough, clear enough in the sky for all to see yet, that death and dependence have married each other?

KING MIDAS

There is a connection between ongoing war and scarce domestic environmental resources, no matter where in the world those two polarities exist… a domestic scarcity such as oil, yes, ‘black gold’. It seems more and more apparent that the quest for ‘ever more of what we don’t have that we say we must have,’ puts endless numbers of innocent souls in the path of sure death.

That wake up call has apparently not yet dawned on various ones in charge. Or not knelled loudly and relentlessly enough.

King Midas wished for gold too; black gold, green gold, yellow gold, no matter which.

Maybe George Bush remembers the end of the story.

Midas’s wish was granted. And he was delirious that everything he touched turned to gold; golden chair, golden doors, golden carpets, the finest filigree of raindrops that fell onto his face turned to gold too, his footprints in the sand turned to gold …

he was awash in gold and happy until…

he touched something he loved more than anything;

he touched his own child, who immediately fell dead

and turned to gold.

Then Midas lay weeping with his child stiff in his arms.

He had only wanted gold, but instead, had killed the innocent Life Force of his own young.

Black gold, green gold, yellow gold, no matter which.

“–Wherever the land is dry and hard, you could be the water …
–or you could be the blade disking the earth open;
–or you could be the acequia, the ditch that carries water from river to fields;
–or you could be the just engineer mapping dams that must be taken down, and those which would serve the venerable all, instead of only the very few;
–or you could be the battered vessel for carrying water by hand;
–or you could be the one who stores the water, protects it, blesses it or pours it;
–or you could be the tired ground that receives it;
–or you could be the scorched seed that drinks it;
–or you could be the vine green-growing overland in all your wild audacity …”

“If there is an ancient secret to caring for and mending the significant lacerations to this “Oh-my-dear-God-beautiful” earth we’ve been given, by soul’s light it might be just a tiny four-word prayer from Creator to humanity:

““Please, just start anywhere.”

”
(from “The Rainmakers: Beer Bottle Old Woman, Tin Can Old Man” by Dr.E, see here)

The Pope, this morning, in response to President Bush’s welcome at the White House sprang up from his ceremonial chair with the vitality of a young man, no ooofs or ehhhs, (the Pope is 81 years old as of today, April 16, 2008).

This morning President Bush ritually asked that the Pope keep the USA in his prayers. But the Pope in response, said with verve, that in addition he would exhort the people of the USA to be in spirit and “even more responsive/responsible to the life of their nation,” the USA.

This does not mean, “There there, nice people, just separate paper from plastic, and you’ll be doing your part.” It means to unleash convenings, meet to ask questions, to plan, to think of how to bring to bear, to implement, in millions of ways, and sustainedly.

The Pope’s heartfelt “God Bless America” at the end of his address at the White House today, held a sincerity and timbre not seen for years in the usual GodblessAmericabyrote at the end of many politicos’ speeches here in the USA.

President Bush noticed, and in one of his best traits when well aimed, which is a very sweet boyish enthusiasm, he leaned toward the Pope and said of the prelate’s speech, “…that was an awesome speech.”

The contrast between predictable official welcomes, and a rather startling vitality in the Pope’s opening volley, is becoming an increasing part of this Pope’s pronouncements publicly. Just as such was when the Pope recently began to describe for the first time… the debt of honor earth’s people have toward caring for the planet.

Recently, in L’Osservatore Romano, an interview entitled “New Forms of Social Sin,” offered Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti’s remarks about “ecological” sin, which undergirded Pope Benedict XVI’s now ongoing public expressions of concern about global Read the rest of this entry »