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.
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 mostrecent 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.
June 5th, 2008 By SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
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.”
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…
May 23rd, 2008 By SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
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…
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?
“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.”
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 »
April 25th, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
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.
April 22nd, 2008 By SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
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.”
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.”
April 17th, 2008 By SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
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 »
April 16th, 2008 By DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, Assistant Editor, TMV Columnist
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.
April 16th, 2008 By DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, Assistant Editor, TMV Columnist
“–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 »
I had just recently finished reading about the results of Earth Hour Chicago and the tons of carbon emissions which were not released into the atmosphere when I was suddenly put in mind of a sandwich I made recently - and my grandmother. The combination may sound strange, but programs such as Earth Hour nudge me to remain mindful of some efforts my family and I have undertaken recently to be less wasteful. You see, my grandparents grew up during the great depression. The lessons they learned during those hard times and the habits they adopted stayed with them throughout their lives, though both lived to near the century mark.
Nothing went to waste in my grandmother’s house, and very little was ever purchased at a store if it could be created at home. All “wet trash” went into a compost pile for the garden. Paper towels were unheard of, since rags could be used for years on end with regular washing. And wasting food was a sin punishable by a spanking that could make you long for a prison cell. Taking a long, hard look at our own lifestyle last year, I realized that we were not only tremendously wasteful, but we were acting that way foolishly and for no reason at all.
As to the sandwich, you may ask? Among a number of my wasteful ways, I noticed that we had gotten in the habit of taking the two crusts of bread at either end of a loaf (known in this part of the country as the “heel” of the loaf) and tossing them outside to feed the birds. What could be nicer than feeding the local sparrows? I can assure you, no bread would ever be tossed outside at my grandparents’ home. In fact, I don’t believe my grandmother ever bought a loaf of bread in her life, proclaiming that she could bake five loaves for what one would cost at the grocery store.
As such, I’ve gotten in the habit of keeping the heels and making a sandwich out of them as a reminder. Last year my wife began the process of buying compact fluorescent bulbs in bulk and replacing all of our old style lights as they burn out. (I’ve yet to have one of the new ones die.) I’ve also gone around my home and sought out all of the “vampire” appliances which run constantly and slowly drain energy from our house. You would be shocked how many there are.
A disturbing trend I’ve noted around the blogosphere of late, though, is a tendency for some authors to scoff at any such efforts, up to and including Earth Hour. Why? Because it seems to be immediately associated with global warming – a subject which has become such a partisan political football that any suggestion of it sends some of our more conservative friends into an apoplectic tizzy. Should you find yourself in a similar state of mind, however, allow me to put a few questions to you. Read the rest of this entry »
Supposing I were to tell you that financial markets were over-regulated. That the way to ensure endless economic well-being was to lessen the government’s oversight of these markets. That these markets are in fact self-regulating, and that the risk management tools already built into them eliminate the need for growth deadening outside interference.
Hearing this rap today you would immediately think about recent upheavals in world financial markets caused by under-regulation and judge the above arguments quackery.
You would note that regulations of the kind instituted during the New Deal expedited rather than detracted from steady and impressive economic growth for decades. You would also note that the withering away of such regulations since the 1980s, climaxing with the present Bush Administration’s extreme efforts in this realm, brought about the present financial crisis.
Such negative consequences, however, are nothing, utterly nothing, compared to the harm under-regulation could cause when it comes to environmental protection. Economies can recover from mistakes, even very serious mistakes. Natural ecologies, once lost, are lost forever, with potentially devastating impacts on entire civilizations.
With this in mind consider Wall Street’s latest budding cash cow. It’s a market that will trade pollution credits, credits that give companies and other polluting entities who find it inconvenient to meet regulated pollution standards a means to buy emission credits that give them an out from doing so.
The so-called “cap and trade” system to make this possible works like this: Emission caps are set on pollution-emitting entities, the traditional regulation way of controlling these emissions. Polluters who emit less than their assigned caps, however, can trade away these surplus reductions to polluters exceeding their own caps, allowing the latter to meet cap standards in a backhand way. Exceeding polluters can also buy other offsets for their excess emissions from unspoiled natural ecologies such as rainforests, whose owners guarantee they will continue to soak up more pollutants than emission exceeding companies produce over their assigned caps.
What’s the rationale for this convoluted approach to emission reductions? Why is it supposedly better than the straight forward cap on all polluters, which long experience and plain old common sense indicate is the best way to meet the challenge of controlling pollution?
The Wall Street crowd peddling this commish-generating nostrum bill its “counter-intuitive” advantages. They say it is example of “thinking out-of-the-box” when it comes to emission reductions. And the clincher, that it’s “a free market-based solution to pollution.”
The market mechanism that’s supposed to be at work here involves the totally unproved, and indeed, unprovable contention that polluters best able to reduce their own emissions will become even more avid in this regard in order to generate emission trading credits they can then sell in a free market. And that owners of pristine, emission absorbing lands will become better protectors of these properties in order to generate their own saleable emission trading credits.
Move beyond this counter-intuitive, think-outside-the-box, free markets solve everything blather, though, and the real potential of emissions trading becomes apparent. Read the rest of this entry »
There is a confluence between our national mania for drug testing and the news that as many as 41 million Americans are drinking from water supplies tainted with traces of pharmaceuticals ranging from anti-seizure medications to mood alterers.
Americans are obsessed with drugs, but the wrong kind of drugs for the wrong reasons, and that’s not the half of it.
I understand the rationale behind drug testing nuclear power plant operators, to name an obvious example, but why are registered nurses and many other professionals required to regularly pee in a cup in order to be gainfully employed?
Because we get a false sense of security believing that Uncle Leo will get better hospital care if Nurse Nancy didn’t have a puff of marijuana the night before.
The trouble with this “logic” is that it is far more likely that Nurse Nancy is stressed out from too little staffing and too much mandatory overtime and has medicated herself to a faretheewell with sleeping aids, anti-depressants and stimulants to get through the day that may not be caught in a drug screen, and even if they are would not necessarily raise concern that she’s going off the deep end.
And that these very pharmaceuticals are turning up in increasing quantities in those municipal water supplies. Not at harmful levels for the time being, but the long-term consequences are disturbing.
The reason for this crisis in the making is that Americans are taking ungodly amounts of drugs and peeing or flushing away more and more of them in un-metabolized or unused form.
February 22nd, 2008 By SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
The river-systems in the world are under heavy strain with many facing serious crisis owing to a variety of reasons. Many civilisations prospered on the banks of the mighty rivers…and then perished when the rivers suffered. Although Murray-Darling is Australia’s longest river system, draining a basin the size of France and Spain combined, it no longer carries enough water to carve its own path to the sea.
The Murray and its main tributary, the Darling, are the lifeblood of Australia’s crop farms. It supplies four of the country’s six states. In the past two years, the volume of water flowing into the Murray from the rivers that feed it in New South Wales and Queensland was the lowest since records began in 1892. Officials now say there is a 75% chance of even less water in the Murray system by next June than a year ago.
A few months ago the same magazine carried a similar warning…which began like this: “The mouth of the Murray-Darling river sets an idyllic scene. Anglers in wide-brimmed sunhats wade waist-deep into the azure water. Pleasure boats cruise languidly around the sandbanks that dot the narrow channel leading to the Southern Ocean. Pensioners stroll along the beach. But over the cries of the seagulls and the rush of the waves, there is another sound: the mechanical drone from a dredging vessel. It never stops and must run around the clock to prevent the river mouth from silting up. More here…
February 13th, 2008 By SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
‘Gondwana Link’ —- It is an ambitious project that attempts to restore the ecology of a more than 25-million hectare swathe of land in Western Australia, running from the arid red interior of the continent to the wet forests of the southwest coast. It aims to convert the farmland, that fragments it (and is dedicated to the monotonous hectares of wheat and sheep progressively cleared over the past 60 years), back to bush.
According to the New Scientist: “The belt of land lies mainly within one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. To give you some idea what that means, it’s been estimated that the 329,000-hectare Fitzgerald River National Park that lies within the belt has as many plant species as all of Australia’s rainforests combined.
“Named for the geologically ancient southern supercontinent that was fragmented by shifting tectonic plates, Gondwana Link has now involved private donors, local farmers, big companies such as Shell, and a variety of non-governmental organisations, including The Nature Conservancy and The Wilderness Society. The 10% of the swathe they plan to restore is still a huge chunk of real estate, so for now Gondwana Link is concentrating on two areas, where they are buying up strategically placed farms and replanting them with indigenous species.
“When they do buy a property, sometimes they plant native peas and wattle in strips, which may not look particularly natural but does provide protection for certain rare species of wallaby. The next year, aromatic sandalwood trees are sown. Sandalwood is a native, but it can also be harvested, and profits used to fund future restoration.
“One short-term goal is to restore some relatively small regions that were cleared only 30 years ago. Securing such pockets of land for perpetuity could be Gondwana Link’s most important contribution to plant conservation, according to Stephen Hopper, director of the Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew, London, UK.” More here…Read the rest of this entry »
February 12th, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
Here’s another Guest film Review by Dan Schneider, who has this heavily-visited website and whose reviews for TMV have been highly popular.
DVD Review Of An Inconvenient Truth
Let me state, up front, I have never been a fan of former Vice President Al Gore. He was a right of center Democrat who worked in an administration whose environmental record was considered, by most ecological groups, worse than the two Republican administrations that preceded his, and held that office at a time when the earliest stages of global warming, which he now decries, were first becoming known.
As the second most visible politician in the country, did he sound the alarums then? Well, no. He wrote a book or two, but did nothing of any real consequence with the power he had. However, his Johnny Come lately status as an environmentalist, which led to his winning of the Nobel Peace Prize, as well as an Oscar for the 94 minute 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, has nothing to do why it’s a bad film. That’s due solely to the film’s director Davis Guggenheim, most noted as a network television director.
Of course, if one Googles the film at such sites like Amazon or IMDB, there will be plenty of negative reviews of the film. Almost all of them will be unveiled ad hominem against Gore or simply blatant pro-global warming propaganda.
I did not find a single negative review based solely on the film’s art. On the other hand, many of the film’s staunchest defenders praise the film solely because they are pro-green. Even the Chicago Sun-Times’ venerable film critic, Roger Ebert, seems to feel that bending down on two knees is not enough praise for the Buddha Gore, writing:
I want to write this review so every reader will begin it and finish it. I am a liberal, but I do not intend this as a review reflecting any kind of politics. It reflects the truth as I understand it, and it represents, I believe, agreement among the world’s experts….He provides statistics: The 10 warmest years in history were in the last 14 years. Last year South America experienced its first hurricane. Japan and the Pacific are setting records for typhoons. Hurricane Katrina passed over Florida, doubled back over the Gulf, picked up strength from unusually warm Gulf waters, and went from Category 3 to Category 5. There are changes in the Gulf Stream and the jet stream. Cores of polar ice show that carbon dioxide is much, much higher than ever before in a quarter of a million years. It was once thought that such things went in cycles. Gore stands in front of a graph showing the ups and downs of carbon dioxide over the centuries. Yes, there is a cyclical pattern. Then, in recent years, the graph turns up and keeps going up, higher and higher, off the chart….In England, Sir James Lovelock, the scientist who proposed the Gaia hypothesis (that the planet functions like a living organism), has published a new book saying that in 100 years mankind will be reduced to “a few breeding couples at the Poles.” Gore thinks “that’s too pessimistic….In 39 years, I have never written these words in a movie review, but here they are: You owe it to yourself to see this film. If you do not, and you have grandchildren, you should explain to them why you decided not to….Am I acting as an advocate in this review? Yes, I am. I believe that to be “impartial” and “balanced” on global warming means one must take a position like Gore’s. There is no other view that can be defended….What is the look? It’s the look of no fear….
To say that there is not a critical (in any sense of the term) thing in the whole review, is manifest. But, even though I did not want to quote as much of the review as I did, this needs to be known.
As bad and uncritical as Ebert’s review is, the film is manifold worse in hagiographizing St. Al.
And that is its chief flaw, artistically.
Whereas Michael Moore sticks his ugly mug into his agitprop films every three minutes or so, I don’t think that there’s a single three minute span in this agitprop film that we do not see Gore, up close, and too close, so that his every pore is seen, that his nostrils are not heaving with passion. Read the rest of this entry »
This Guest Interview by Bill Steigerwald, columnist at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, is with former George Bush speechwriter David Frum, who argues that conservatives must change their message and adapt if they want to win elections.
David Frum: Conservatives Can Make A Comeback
by Bill Steigerwald
Conservatism has lost much of its appeal to young and independent voters. The Republican Party is on the ropes. The White House and Congress increasingly look like they’ll be controlled by Democrats for a long time. In “Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again” (Doubleday), David Frum, the American Enterprise Institute scholar and former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, says if conservatives and Republicans want to recover their power they must change their message and adapt to new political realities. The National Review Online columnist says conservatism’s red-meat issues — low taxes, gun rights and promises to restore traditional values — don’t cut it anymore. I reached Frum on Wednesday at his hotel room in Toronto.
Q: What’s the 60-second synopsis of what your book is about?
A: The Republican Party, which was so dominant in American politics from about 1970 to about 1995, has been running out of gas for the past decade. It’s not just Iraq, and it’s not just George Bush. We’ve got deeper problems of exhaustion of our message and we must renew that message. I am trying in “Comeback” to offer specific ideas based on the needs of the country for renewal
Q: Why did you write this book and who is it for?
A: I wrote the book because of my own concern that the conservative movement that I had grown up in was in so much danger. I wrote it for anyone who would care to read it, but I mostly wrote it for my fellow conservatives and fellow Republicans, to make them feel the seriousness of the problem; second, to offer some conclusions; and third, even if people don’t like the particular solutions I offer, to show them how we ought to be thinking about politics — how we need to have an approach based on empiricism and reality and less on the way we wish things were than on accepting things as they are.
Q: How do you define your conservatism and is it fundamentally at odds with Goldwater or Reagan conservatism?
A: I don’t go in for these factional subdivisions. I don’t like to say I’m this kind of conservative or that kind of conservative. I’m somebody who believes in markets, who believes in rule of law, who believes in less government and I’m certainly a strong believer in America’s mission in the world. That’s where I tend to come from. What I’m struck with by Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater, each of them was an innovator. One of the questions you get asked a lot is “What would Ronald Reagan do if he were alive today?” I can’t really answer that question. I do know this: He would not do what he did in 1980, because he was an innovator. Great politicians are like artists. They are sensitive to their times. They absorb what’s in the air. They sense the needs of the country at a particular moment.
For example, one of the great concerns that America felt in the late 1970s … it wasn’t just that government was failing in the late 1970s. All of the institutions in American life were failing. The car companies were failing. You couldn’t put up a beautiful building anymore. Nothing seemed to work. People were unhappy that government wasn’t working, but in a funny way they weren’t shocked, because nothing worked.
Today, 2008, almost all the institutions of American life work brilliantly. You want to send a package — the package goes. You walk into a new building – it’s gorgeous. You take delivery of your new car – it works. So the fact that government doesn’t work is a much more specific problem. That’s why events like Katrina were so terribly damaging. We are in an era where Americans have great confidence in their society in a way that they didn’t in Ronald Reagan’s time, but they are just disappointed again and again by their government – and Republicans have been in charge of that government for a long time. So when they are disappointed in their government, they are disappointed in Republicans.
Q: You essentially are saying the conservatives or Republicans have to adapt to a changed America. How so?
A: Let me give you one example: We know that how you vote when you are in your 20s casts a shadow that affects how you vote for the rest of your life. The people who turned 20 between 1985 and 1990 are the most Republican cohort in the entire electorate; these are the Reagan voters. They saw Reagan, they saw his politics work, and they’ve been rewarding him ever since. The people who turned 20 between 2000 and 2005 are the most anti-Republican group in the entire electorate – more anti-Republican than the “Watergate babies,” more anti-Republican than the G.I. Bill Generation, the people who turned 20 after World War II. This is a big problem. One reason they are so anti-Republican is that we neglect the environmental issue, which is very important to them.
Another way the country has changed is that in Ronald Reagan’s time immigration was a challenge and a difficulty, but it was not an overwhelming problem in a way that it has since 1980 become an overwhelming problem. We’re looking at a situation where since 2000 about 8 or 9 million people have entered the United States, at least half of them illegally. These immigrants are of very low skill. They are not catching up to the incomes of the native born. When they are legal they are net beneficiaries of the tax system, they are not net contributors. This is a problem that was once at the margins of politics and it’s come to the center.
Q: For instance, environmentalism, what does conservatism or Republicans – are you more worried about the Republican Party of conservatism?
January 4th, 2008 By SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
What is common between Kelesau Naan of Malaysia, Sister Dorothy Stang of America, Kinkri Devi of India, Chico Mendes of Brazil, and Aldo Zamora of Mexico? The real heroes who laid down their lives to protect the forests from loggers and miners. Except for Kinkri Devi, who died of natural causes recently, others were allegedly murdered by those who thought that they were providing obstacles in the rape of the forests.
Although armchair environmentalists/NGOs play a crucial role in highlighting conservation/Global Warming/other issues and raising them at the national and international fora, the sacrifices made by grassroots heroes usually goes unsung. The Times of London has done a fine job in bringing into focus the contribution of some such people…
“Kelesau Naan (of Malaysia) never went to school. He signed his name with a thumb print and spent his entire life living in the jungles of Borneo. But among his tribe, the Penan, he was a visionary and an inspiration.
“Now he is dead, possibly murdered, allegedly by agents of the loggers whose lucrative business he was putting in jeopardy. His broken skeleton was found last month – two months after he was reported missing – and yesterday 100 relatives and neighbours lodged a police report demanding an investigation. Micheal Ipa, his nephew, said: ‘We believe he has been killed by people involved in logging’.
“For years, he had organised his people in a desperate defence of their home and heritage: the pristine rain-forest in the deep interior of the Malaysian state of Sarawak.
“Similar accusations were made in 2000, when Bruno Manser, a Swiss shepherd who became a prominent campaigner on behalf of the Penan, disappeared without trace while travelling alone through the forest. His remains were never recovered and he was declared dead by a Swiss court two years ago.”
Among others who died for the cause:
— Sister Dorothy Stang, a 73-year-old American nun, was shot dead in Brazil in 2005 while fighting to protect the Terra do Meio region from loggers. Within days, the area was declared a protected site
— Chico Mendes, a rubber tapper and environmental activist, became a posthumous icon in Brazil after he was murdered in 1988 by ranchers opposed to his campaign to protect the Amazon from deforestation
— Aldo Zamora was collecting data on illegal logging for Greenpeace in Great Water forest, Mexico, when a logging gang ambushed his car and killed him in May 2007
— Kinkri Devi went on hunger strike against a court’s refusal to hear her case against a mining project in Himachal Pradesh in India. She won her case and an award for her efforts. She died this week (To read her Obituary in The Times of London please click here…)
(Sources: Amnesty International; Times archives)
Photo above, courtesy The Times: Tied logs are hauled through the forests by bulldozers.
of pie throwing:
