Investing in 'Clean Coal' a Misstep By Both Candidates

Last week, Barack Obama promised to tackle the problem of global warming in his acceptance speech in Denver:

As president, as president, I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology , and find ways to safely harness nuclear power. I'll help our auto companies re-tool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America.

And tonight, John McCain also promised to tackle the issue during his own acceptance speech in St. Paul:

We will produce more energy at home. We will drill new wells offshore, and we'll drill them now. We will build more nuclear power plants. We will develop clean coal technology . We will increase the use of wind, tide, solar and natural gas. We will encourage the development and use of flex fuel, hybrid and electric automobiles.

But as Rob pointed out earlier this week, clean coal is still pretty bad , and won't be any real solution to global warming or be better environmental policy in the long term.

Cross posted at Pushback.

Gingrich, Hannity: Tire Inflation Benefits "Big Oil"

Via Steve Bennen, here's Newt Gingrich on Sean Hannity's show giggling about Barack Obama's suggestion that properly inflating your tires can help you save gas:



Gingrich says that because gas stations make a bigger profit on the tire inflation service (duh) than on gasoline, somehow Obama is promoting "Big Oil." Apparently Gingrich doesn't understand that oil companies don't distribute air compressors.

Isn't Gingrich supposed to be a "visionary" who is promoting sound environmental policy? Oh yeah, that's right--Gingrich is just another conservative who takes up the mantle of environmentalism when it's popular but doesn't actually show any real commitment to changing environmental policy. Gingrich goes along with Hannity's "more drilling" mantra even though science shows that drilling would do little to impact the price of gasoline. Gingrich shows here that he's the same old partisan hack he's always been.

Cross posted on pushback.

Aviation Slowdown

This article by Brad Plumer (which was published last week and I finally got around to reading it) in the New Republic left me pretty depressed about the future of, well, everything. Apparently our entire lives have been affected by cheap air travel. Now that oil prices are rising exponentially, people are going to have to stop traveling. As someone that lives about 1,200 miles from my family, I find this infinitely depressing. I also never did the college travel junket, and it seems that now I probably will never be able to really afford traveling abroad. I think we need some renewable fuel air travel -- fast.

On Clothing Recycling

I saw this article on Utne's site about recycling your clothing. It seems like a good idea.

Even accounting for the environmental impact of shipping to the recycling plant, [one clothing recycling outlet] reports a 76 percent decrease in energy use and a 71 percent decrease in carbon dioxide emissions compared to using virgin materials.

The article has more details about specific ways to recycle, but there seems to be a void to fill here. Many of the clothing companies recycle only their own clothing, or only one type of clothing (like jeans). Meanwhile, when I clean out my closet I end up with a mix of dresses, pants, shoes, shirts, and various, um, underitems. While it seems that Goodwill, when it partnered with Banana Republic, worked to recycle items, most of the time you're left with an assortment of goods. Maybe there should be a nonprofit that specializes in collecting all used clothing items and finding ways to recycle them. Meanwhile, I'll go back to cleaning out my closet and drop a bunch of stuff off at Goodwill.

Cross-posted.

Environmentalism V. Gingrich

I have a (slightly overdue) piece on Newt Gingrich's Contract with the Earth up at Campus Progress today. Note: when you request a Gingrich book from the publisher for review they send a signed copy. Apparently they can't give those away.

Here's the main crux of my argument:

In A Contract with the Earth, a book he recently co-authored with conservationist Terry L. Maple, Gingrich argues that the environmental movement has become too polarized, and that, at least when it comes to climate change, both the left and the right need to meet the rest of the country in the center. What we need to move forward, the authors say, is a consensus.

The problem with this argument, of course, is that we don’t need to build a consensus about the environmental movement. One already exists, and the left is already on board.

Go on and read the whole thing.

Popluation Control

Jill says she can't endorse Daniel Engber's odd framing of the population question in Slate. This is actually something that the Sierra Club has been advocating for some time, mainly in other countries. To me, I think framing it the way Daniel proposed is not really a good idea. The whole "babies make pollution" sentiment triggers a vicious reaction. I do think that all of the things that feminists advocate for (better access to contraception, access to abortion, advocacy for better education for women, better equality at work and at home) are things that that would correct the whole population problem anyway. If women have better access to birth control and feel more value than just a baby producer, they'll probably tend to produce fewer children. So feminists don't need to throw their weight behind a scary term like "population control," they just need to advocate for the same policies they have been for years.