GetUnderground.com

For a good blast of thoughtful (and in your face) history on how the U.S. has stumbled around in the Middle East, check out the current edition of www.getunderground.com and read The House of Cards, by Dan Benbow. Near the bottom of the features section GU is still running Part II of my long essay, The Green Emperor Gets Naked. Part III will be out in early November and will deal pointedly with government's role in the environmental community--particularly with respect to Global Warming (believe it or not, there are some good things happening out there as well as the many dumb things you read about and hear in the mainstream press...it is not time yet to give up the ship).

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Short-Sighted Buffoonery: Send me in coach!

I'm getting ready to re-enter the fray. I recently agreed to take on a job in the City of Philadelphia that I can't provide details on, but it's not soon enough apparently. Leaders in Washington and state governments all over the country are doing their best to turn solving the climate change problem into another example of oafish, mercenary, short-sighted, buffoonery. Check out the rather direct posting at the Center for American Progress today, "Facing Reality." I'm fighting mad. You should be too. Personally, I've been on the sidelines way too long and I'm itching to get back in the game. Yesterday, I listened to the news that President Obama is authorizing $54 billion in loan guarantees for the nuclear power

The Path to Green

A January 23rd article by Usha Lee McFarling in the LA Times, "Studies Support Emissions Plans" gives the lie to the notion that mitigation of greenhouse gases will be bad for the economy. This is an extremely important issue. One study produced by the Center for Clean Air Policy says, "Based on our independent analysis of greenhouse gas mitigation (GHG) options for the State of California, we conclude that Governor Schwarzenegger's goal of reducing GHG emissions to 2000 levels by 2010 can be met at no net cost to California consumers." Another study performed by the California Climate Center at Berkeley found that climate protection measures proposed for the state would boost economic activities, creating 20,000 new jobs and increasing gross state product by $60 billion by the end of the state's mitigation date of 2020. The executive summary for their 10-chapter report says, "Preliminary modeling indicates that just eight policies that were analyze...

Bashing Recycling for Confusion and Profit

The following essay is a work in progress. I invite all readers to give me criticism and direction. --------------------------------------------------------------- Recently, the ABC show, Good Morning America , ran a segment interviewing columnist and author Stephen Dubner (co-author of the book Freakonomics ) on whether recycling works. You can watch it by clicking here . While Dubner's basic argument about recycling turns on the idea of market economics (which is sensible), he also says some really weird things that drew me back into the good old early 1990s when bashing recycling was the sport of kings. In particular, Dubner says that plastic water bottle recycling doesn't make sense because it costs more to recycle water bottles (they aren't as valuable as aluminum cans) than it does to make new ones. He also says that old newspapers have such a low value that cities often simply landfill them after they go to the recycling center. He doesn't really provide us with...

Blue Olives

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