Blue Olives

As we gear up for a new world in the war on climate change and global warming (meaning that the Obama Administration will soon provide laser-like, focused leadership for both this nation and, eventually, the global community), the idea of Zero Waste needs to have a major seat at the table. While mainstream energy and environmental policy groups talk about high-tech technology solutions not quite here yet like fuel cells, carbon sequestration, plug-in hybrids, smart transmission systems, and, of course, the magic of bio-fuels, Zero Waste solutions are fully loadable today. Zero waste is not so much a single technology, but an approach to manufacturing and resource utilization that seeks to maximize recycling, reuse and reduced material inputs. As Philadelphia Dumpster Diver Neil Benson has said, "Waste is a failure of the imagination." Indeed, while many people recycle most of their paper, cardboard, bottles and cans, another 70% of the nation's waste stream still gets th...

In May of 2007, I published an essay at GetUnderground called New Lords of the Moving World . It's worth a read even a year later now that the business community is so hopped up on Green Koolaid. In "New Lords" I add to my argument that the business and corporate sectors around the world are pulling the rest of the social institutions along in the fight against greenhouse gases. For those interested in finding out about solutions, there's a good number of resources that I offer in my essay. This is an important point as we move toward nominations in August -- and elections this fall. People who worry about which candidate has the best plan to attack global warming may be missing the point: it's not about the best plan, it's about who can work properly with the private sector. Solutions are going to come from invention, investment, and intention -- not regulation or master plans (a cap and trade system and an escalating carbon tax wouldn't hurt, though). Tw...

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...

A version of "Freezing Our Asses Off at the Feet of Al Gore" has been posted at GetUnderground.com . Watch out for the indie music that plays at will when you go to the site, but listen to it anyway. I've found some great stuff there. Also, if you've got a second, go check out The Formality of Occurrence for my poem on September 11th called "The New World."

The last time we went out on a date was back in 1990--before $3.00 gallons of gasoline; before the Prius; before the iPod; before the World Wide Web; before frickin' Harry Potter. We saw Darkman , and Marion was so disgusted by the opening scene where the bad guy cuts off Darkman's finger with a cigar trimmer she walked out of the packed theater (I got her to come back and there were no more problems; it was a bad movie--very dark, but that's about it). Last Friday night, sixteen years later--one boy off in Maine, one in Florida, and the youngest at his friend Charlie's for an overnight--we decided it was time to rekindle our pre-child relationship. There was only one movie to see: An Inconvenient Truth. We're so happy we went, even if it cost $19.00 to get in, the popcorn line was insanely long (we went without), and we felt lost in the Big Box suburbs of Philadelphia. The movie is fascinating, disarming, and important for everyone in this great country of ours to...

First of all, there's hope for the world. The photo to the left is me with my oldest son Sam at his high school graduation earlier this summer. I believe in the future. I believe in Sam and his generation. I hope you do too. Now, to the business at hand: Gregg Easterbrook has a well argued commentary piece in the September Atlantic Monthly , entitled, "Some Convenient Truths" (you may need to register with The Atlantic to read his piece) which asks why global warming has such a negative aura surrounding it. At one point in the piece he writes: "Yet a paralyzing negativism dominates global-warming politics. Environmentalists depict climate change as nearly unstoppable; skeptics speak of the problem as either imaginary (the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated,” in the words of Senator James Inhofe, chairman of the Senate’s environment committee) or ruinously expensive to address." Easterbrook points out that there is ample evidence that numerous environmental me...

The April 3, 2006 issue of Time Magazine is out just as oil prices begin to rise again . It is a special report on global warming with its cover proclaiming: "Be Worried. Be Very Worried: Climate change isn't some vague future problem--it's already damaging the planet at an alarming pace. Here's how it affects you, your kids and their kids as well." For anyone not really following this issue closely, the articles in this McDonald's of periodicals offer a great, fairly simple foray into some of the main issues surrounding climate change and global warming. For those of us who think we know everything (which, in this field, is impossible), reading each of these admittedly short, sound-bite-like pieces is essential. The problem of global warming is still in the "convince-the-voter-that-it's-real" phase. Reading these Time pieces will give you a good feel for what is currently being digested by lay-people. Going further, the journalists who wrote...