Are our grandchildren safe now? It seems that a lot of the removal of protections for them is being seen for the threat to our future that it was, and in its turn removed. Today, the forest service has been returned to actual service, instead of used as another environmental hazard.

A federal judge has struck down the Bush administration’s change to a rule designed to protect the northern spotted owl from logging in national forests.

U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken ruled from Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday that the U.S. Forest Service failed to take a hard look at the environmental impacts of changing the rule to make it easier to cut down forest habitat of species such as the spotted owl and salmon on 193 million acres of national forests.

“I am hopeful that this is the last nail in the coffin to (President George W.) Bush’s assault on our public forests,” said Pete Frost, an attorney for the Western Environmental Law Center in Eugene, which represented plaintiffs in one of two cases challenging the rule.

At stake was a provision of the National Forest Management Act that required maintaining viable populations of species that indicate the health of an ecosystem, such as the spotted owl. The Bush administration changed the rule last year so it required a framework of protection, rather than maintaining viable populations of wildlife.

The ruling marked the third time federal courts have turned back attempts to change the 1984 version of what is known as the viability rule within the National Forest Management Act.

The judge wrote that an environmental impact statement done by the Forest Service “does not evaluate the environmental impacts of the 2008 rule,” and the agency failed to comply with Endangered Species Act requirements to consult with other federal agencies on whether the rule changes would jeopardize the survival of endangered species.

The world is safe for now from the depredations that were perpetrated over the years that the wingers dominated. The threat continues, though, while destructive claims continue to be heard equally, through the media, with reputable voices.

The Senate now has a sufficient majority of Democrats, which should keep the world safer for awhile. This assumes that the new majority will see through the winger sham of deregulation’s being good for business. As one safety scare after another has disrupted our markets (food poisoning from spinach and peanut butter for instance) it should have become clear enough that deregulation is a threat, not a benefit.

The future of our world is in better hands today. Now, while they have the advantage, the sane members of Congress should put in place solid members of the judiciary and executive branch, continuing protections for the public for as long as possible.

(This post also at http://cabdrollery.blogspot.com/ )

The House passed the Waxman-Markey energy bill last night.

There’s a lot of dicussion in the progressive community about whether this bill was indeed worth passing. My personal view is a bit split. On the one hand, the Senate is still a large hurdle that needs to be cleared, and this bill in its current form might not actually do much for our energy and climate problems. On the other, when it’s this late in the game, you’ve lost most of your ability to affect the outcome anyway, so might as well pass it.

But I’m curious to know what others think. Care to weigh in?

With an atmosphere of muted hysteria prevailing after the death of a few star ‘personalities’, I am more aware than usual of our neglect of the issues that are urgent, and will be eclipsed. Today the congress has the opportunity to make vital decisions on the future of the planet.

The energy bill that is at the forefront gives our legislative branch the opportunity and duty, along with the hazards, of giving life to alternative energy production for our business community.

From the malfeasance of the oil companies to date, we can easily see how poor performance can endanger the entire world. In its attempts to counter scientific observation of climate change with its self-centered created counter-arguments, Big Oil has shown a profit motive set against the value and quality of life. Such juxtaposition is overwhelming in its indifference to life, and its enormity.

The influence of the lobby that promotes an interest in fossil fuels so dangerous to civilization can only be a detriment to negotiations. Sadly, it will be a major influence, particularly on the salacious legislators who have embraced it as their abiding interest. Under the influence of that lobby, some members of Congress will fight for their BFFs against the world and its life forms.

The Waxman-Markey climate change bill is now scheduled for a vote in the House by the end of the week, and online there has been much gnashing of teeth andpressing of keyboards over the last-minute deals Waxman and Markey have cut in hopes of securing passage.

Of course, the last-minute dealing is all Democrat-to-Democrat action. The Republicans see the whole thing as fatally flawed. “Waxman-Markey is a 1201-page economic suicide note,” says Ianin Murray at National Review. “Those Members of the House who vote for it are voting for long-term economic decline and for turning the United States into a second-rate economy.”
(snip)
David Roberts takes a more psychological approach to Waxman-Maxwey acceptance:

The green world is grappling with these unpleasant facts right now, fluctuating between rage (kill it!), dread (we’re screwed), and resignation (it’s better than nothing). Or maybe that’s just me.

Writing at Grist, Roberts says he is “reasonably optimistic, despite the flaws in Waxman-Markey, that history is on our side, and that the arguments happening today in Congress will soon be seen as peculiar and archaic.”

At risk in the influence peddling of everyday legislation happens to be the air we breathe, of course.

The process that subjects matters of such import on the lives of the entire world to grappling for power by deeply flawed individuals, with their constituencies, has seldom been exposed as so dangerous. While it’s a topic that is a bit large to throw into a discussion of energy legislating, the depths of political influence are raw and bleeding when our life on the planet becomes a matter for jostling among moneyed interests and their minions.

Today the White House may be able to get a vote, and that is none too soon.

(This post also at http://cabdrollery.blogspot.com/ )

Oilman T. Boone Pickens has proposed that Congress include billions of dollars of subsidies in a future energy bill to encourage the trucking industry to convert some of its trucks to run on natural gas. Mr. Pickens says the cost is justified by the benefit of reducing the nation’s dependence on foreign oil, especially from places like the Middle East. In an email to supporters, he recently wrote, “If we can get just 350,000 of the 6.5 million 18-wheelers running on natural gas, we can cut our foreign oil dependence by over five percent…. About a quarter of [imported oil] is used for diesel fuel to run 18-wheelers.”

Unfortunately, Pickens’ numbers don’t add up and the subsidies could slow efforts to reduce gasoline consumption and green-house gas emissions.

The Secretary of Energy is struggling to get the U.S. going in the right direction after much too long spent with the powers of government aimed at a target of profits for oil company forces. His aims are those we all share, a better and more survivable world. To get there, he has to get through a congress that has long-established enemies of the popular interest ingrained in its innermost recesses.

My area representative in Congress is among the worst. Rep. Ralph Hall makes no pretense of putting his constituents’ interest in the place of honor when he exercises the powers of congressional office.

To get through the gauntlet of oil company representatives, Secretary Chu is trying by starting with achievable goals. In a time when climate change is a growing threat, that has brought a lot of criticism.

The American political system is in the throes of a fierce battle over climate policy. President Barack Obama says he wants cuts in greenhouse gases but has left it to Congress to make the political running.

The House of Representatives is debating a climate and energy bill but even if it passes it may be rejected by senators, many of whom are funded by the energy industry.

Prof Chu is a Nobel prize-winning physicist and a world expert on clean energy. But he said it was impossible to ignore political reality.

“With each successive year the news on climate change has not been good and there’s a growing sensation that the world and the US in particular has to get moving,” he said.

If you could convert (with photovoltaic cells) 20% of the Sun’s energy into electricity you would need 5% of the world’s deserts. This is not much land
Steven Chu, US Energy Secretary

“As someone very concerned about climate I want to be as aggressive as possible but I also want to get started. And if we say we want something much more aggressive on the early timescales that would draw considerable opposition and that would delay the process for several years.

The US energy secretary said that awareness of climate tipping points had increased greatly only in the past five years. He added: “But if I am going to say we need to do much, much better I am afraid the US won’t get started.”
(snip)
Damon Moglen from Greenpeace USA was alarmed by Prof Chu’s comments. “Obama has had something of a honeymoon with environmentalists,” he said.

“But we are getting very concerned. Professor Chu is a good man and a good scientist, but the science on global warming is clear and he should be guided by the science not the politics…When asked whether he was frustrated, he (Chu) said: “No, I am realistic about the politics and as in time we can make adjustments.”

In the best of all possible worlds, considerations of personal gain would never come before the interests of humanity as a whole. Needless to say, this is not that world. Working within the bounds of reality may sometimes verge on defeat of the best. The new administration operates as an effective and rational voice for concerns that were shut out for the previous maladministration, and has much lost ground to make up for.

Trying to do everything at once would make our hearts glad, but would make the way rockier to achieving the ends we desperately need. Secretary Chu has the towering intellect to qualify for the office he holds, which has a huge struggle ahead of it.

Maybe Diane can lend him that Feng Shui kit I sent her when she had a broken arm.

This administration has many struggles ahead of it, and will need all the energy and intelligence we voted for to get through the obstacles which constitute the right wing.

(This post also at http://cabdrollery.blogspot.com/ )

This was taken during a walk out to the little garden, in my yard. It’s been raining a lot lately. Last year, we had drought. Our winter was the driest on records. Anyone with a rain utilizing system would have done better than the general public, and I did a lot of plant watering from my improvised cisterns.

Last night Bill Moyers’ Journal talked about some of the things we can do to preserve our environment, and one is thoughtful consumption. We need to pay attention, and one of the ways to start individual effort is walking more. The stuff we buy is worth scrutinizing as well. Personally, I must stop stocking up on frozen meals when they’re on sale, as buying the raw ingredients saves a great deal in the packaging system wastes. My recycled cloth bag is a help, but what do I put in it?

Last night Bill Moyers said he was heartbroken to find out his efforts are doing so little to stave off the environmental disasters we’re bringing on.

BILL MOYERS:… you tell me I’m entering the land of fantasy.

DANIEL GOLEMAN: Well, let me reassure you. Everything that we’ve done that’s green is to the good, you know. I recycle my papers and plastics. And I try to get the green product. But once you realize, through the lens of the life cycle assessment, that every product has 1,000 environmental health, social impacts, and you see that what we call green has taken one of those, one slice and improved it, there’s still the 999 other things that we need to get better. The stuff we have now is a legacy of innovations and inventions from a very innocent time when nobody thought about ecological impacts.

BILL MOYERS: The industrial age. An age that gave, that made life comfortable and convenient for my-

DANIEL GOLEMAN: It made it-

BILL MOYERS: Great grandmother in ways she couldn’t imagine.

DANIEL GOLEMAN: Exactly. And at a hidden cost for us today. Because the way we make concrete, which involves taking limestone and some chemicals, and heating it for 48 hours at very high temperatures, was invented in the 1820s. The way we make glass, which is a similar process, you take sand and you take a caustic soda and some things, you mix them together, you heat them for 24- I mean, it’s energy intensive.

That brilliant idea, which made life so much better for our grandparents, is now, unfortunately, one of the great causes of global warming. And, you know, that invention for glass was from 1850. It’s still done the same way. There’s a vast innovative opportunity here, Bill.

BILL MOYERS: Let’s take some examples from your book.

DANIEL GOLEMAN: Sure.

BILL MOYERS: I went to the grocery store the other day. And I came home with the plastic bag that they gave me. And feeling, knowing that I was going to see you I felt guilty because I know what we all know about plastic bags, right? It takes 500 to 1,000 years to dispose of it.

DANIEL GOLEMAN: There you go. Yeah.

BILL MOYERS: So I thought, well, I should have asked for a paper bag. And then I read in here, paper is not a lot better?

DANIEL GOLEMAN: Well, here’s the problem. There is no manmade product that nature loves. Everything has these impacts. So what we need to do is either change our habits. You could, of course, get a cloth bag. And cloth has its own problems.

But, still, if you use a cloth bag every time you go to a store, and replace 1,000 paper bags, or 1,000 plastic bags, the net benefit is in your favor. And in nature’s favor. …Actually, if you look around, you know, while this really expensive, very appealing, rather toxic shampoo, is very pricey. And, in fact, the more we show companies we care about this, the more they will use their economies of scale to make the better stuff even cheaper.

BILL MOYERS: But it’s been my experience that people don’t always, and don’t often, act on information. They need some emotional investment in it.

DANIEL GOLEMAN: That’s true. And I think as we all become more knowledgeable about the hidden impacts, particularly the impacts of industrial chemicals on ourselves and our loved ones, if you think about it we don’t want to bring toxins into our families. We don’t want to bring them into our homes. I think that is actually the biggest emotional hook. It is for me. Global warming is a danger that’s far removed. But, you know, the health of the people we care about and ourselves, that’s very immediate.

Most of the people we know personally are of the kind who care about their world, and don’t want to pass on the pollution we have been battling back since we woke up to its encroachment over a decade ago. When I visit Los Angeles today, my skin doesn’t sting from the air pollution the way it did in the 60’s. And my Honda is much better for our environment than my first car, my roommate’s Triumph Spitfire (that I bought when she moved to Italy). We have come along in a good way, even those wingers who have to be dragged along by economic factors from their Hummers and rug-like lawn with the accompanying sprays.

There is increasing realization that each of us can do better. The resistance we’re developing to all that packaging is good for more than just our pocketbooks. We can buy locally, avoid the plastic, and walk, bicycle or take public transportation, instead of drive, whenever we can. I can do better, and so can we all.

A suggestion; just think of my picture of being sunk into the lawn when you buy. It will take your appetite back a peg, anyway.

(This post also at http://cabdrollery.blogspot.com/ )

These days, clean energy ranks right up there with Mom, apple pie and ice cream as an All-American attribute. You can barely sit through a TV show, listen to the radio, or even read a blog without coming across an ad from someone extolling the virtues of some “clean” energy form or another. Never mind that some of them—from nuclear power to “clean” coal—bear no resemblance to  the cleanest solutions like wind, solar and energy efficiency. Some industries have more money to spend on ads than others….

But clean energy has become All-American for good reason: we need clean energy for the 21st century. I’m a huge clean energy advocate, and I spend my days working to encourage implementation of clean, sustainable energy technologies.

So what could be more virtuous than a federal Clean Energy Bank? On the surface, the idea sounds perfect: the federal government would set up a bank to support the development and implementation of clean energy technologies, especially those that private investors can’t or won’t fund. In fact, it’s so perfect the Senate Energy Committee has already approved the concept as part of its upcoming energy bill, and the House Energy Committee is considering adding a Clean Energy Bank proposal from genuinely clean energy advocate Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) to the Waxman-Markey cap and trade climate bill.

So why is the environmental community lining up to oppose the Clean Energy Bank and considering it must-defeat legislation? Well, there are a couple of teeny-tiny little problems with the concept as written in both the Senate energy bill and Inslee bill in the House. Kind of like there were teeny-tiny little problems with unregulated derivatives trading, or lack of federal oversight and regulation, or corporate greed, that brought our economy to its knees last October.

It is not at all far-fetched—indeed, it’s completely foreseeable—that, as the Clean Energy Bank legislation is currently written, we could see trillion dollar or more taxpayer bailouts of “clean energy” technologies within the next decade. You didn’t like TARP? Wait until taxpayers have to bail out the likes of Duke Power, UniStar Nuclear, Southern Company and even your local mom and pop solar and wind concerns at levels that would make even Citigroup or General Motors blush—except that there are a lot more “clean energy” companies and projects out there than there are national banks or car manufacturers.

I could be wrong, of course, but it’s my personal wild guess that taxpayers are getting a little tired of bailing out corporate America. And, if you follow my personal wild guess reasoning, the idea that taxpayers might be forced to bail out a trillion dollars, or even a few hundred billion, in “clean energy” failures would probably destroy any hopes of building a genuinely sustainable energy economy or effectively dealing with the climate crisis; not to mention, coming on the heels of what we are still going through as an economy, raising the specter of permanent recession. And, of course, any presidential administration that oversees such an eventuality is not likely to be around to cope with the next such eventuality. These are high stakes, folks, and all from the innocuous, even virtuous-sounding, Clean Energy Bank.

Last December, Republic Windows, maker of energy-efficient windows, gained worldwide attention when members of United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers (UE) Local 1110 occupied the plant after their company refused to provide them with severance pay. After a six-day occupation, in which President Obama declared his support for the occupying workers, the UE members won their struggle for severance pay and established a committee to look for buyers to reopen the Chicago plant.

Serious Materials CEO Kevin Surace, at the urging of the Sierra Club, became interested in buying the plant to produce energy-efficient windows. The Sierra Club had a long relationship of working with the UE on economic and environmental issues, and they facilitated the initial conversations about reopening the plant between UE Local 1110 President Armando Robles and Serious Materials CEO Kevin Surace. As a result, the union was able to work out a contract with Serious Materials and helped the company purchase the factory in bankruptcy court.

On Monday, Republic Windows and Doors reopened and started producing energy-efficient windows. Vice President Joe Biden attended the opening ceremony and praised the CEO of the company for bringing back the workers and their union:

“Instead of doing what has too often been the case in the last, I would argue, 10 to 15 years, you reached out for the most qualified workers in the world. Instead of saying, if you want to come back I’m going to break your union, you said, come back, union and all. That’s a big deal.”

I would not be so quick to highly praise Serious Material’s CEO. This window manufacturer recently reopened a less famous factory in Vandergrift, Pa., without recognizing the union. The Pennsylvania facility had been unionized under its previous employer. When Serious reopened the facility, the workers were without the protection of their union and, unlike the workers at the reopened Chicago plant, were hired back without the seniority rights established under their previous contract.

Yesterday, I asked Surace why he brought back the union in Chicago and not in Vandergrift. Mr. Surace said it was because the union in Chicago had been very active and had he not brought the union back the “workers would have been outside protesting.” In the Pennsylvania factory, Surace said the union had not been as “active” as the UE workers in Chicago and hence he saw no reason to bring the union back.

Last Saturday night, people all over the world celebrated an event called “Earth Hour” by turning off their lights for one hour beginning at 8:30 pm.  For an event that started just two years ago, it has achieved a remarkable level of attention and participation. According to the official Earth Hour website:

Earth Hour began in Sydney in 2007, when 2.2 million homes and businesses switched off their lights for one hour. In 2008 the message had grown into a global sustainability movement, with 50 million people switching off their lights. Global landmarks such as the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Rome’s Colosseum, the Sydney Opera House and the Coca Cola billboard in Times Square all stood in darkness. In 2009, Earth Hour is being taken to the next level, with the goal of 1 billion people switching off their lights as part of a global vote.  VOTE EARTH is a global call to action for every individual, every business, and every community. A call to stand up and take control over the future of our planet.

Many people who know me and my passion for environmental issues will be surprised to learn that I intentionally did not participate in Earth Hour.  I left my lights on, I watched NCAA basketball, and I Twittered and Facebooked about how and why I was blowing off the global demonstration.  The reason I did so is because I believe that such events can actually do detriment to the environmental cause.  In fact, a lot of things we do in the name of good causes do little but get in the way of real progress being made.  

About 10 years ago, I was driving with a group of friends from Richmond, VA to Florida.  We stopped for gas just before we got into South Carolina, because we were being careful not to spend any money in a state that flew the Confederate flag over its capitol.  Joining the economic boycott of the state that was in effect until the flag came down, we felt good about the fact that we were doing our part to fight racism. 

As I look back on that trip, though, I realize that the good feeling we got in our hearts was pretty much all that we achieved.  We didn’t do a damn thing to actually fight racism.  We did nothing to help eliminate the systemic evils in our government, our culture, and our economic system that do much more to oppress minorities than any piece of cloth ever could.  Even now, when the boycott has succeeded and the flag has come down, the deep racial divisions and inequalities in South Carolina remain as strong as ever.  Our well-intentioned “activism” turned out to be nothing more than a self-serving cop-out.  It took the place of more difficult and more effective forms of activism that would have required much greater commitment and sacrifice than just spending our money in one state instead of another.

And that’s the concern I have with Earth Hour.  Of course there is nothing wrong with turning your lights out for an hour and saving a little electricity.  Of course there is nothing wrong with finding solidarity with millions of other people who are doing the same thing.  And of course there’s nothing wrong with raising awareness and making a statement about the fight against global warming. 

But I fear that these mostly symbolic benefits of Earth Hour are outweighed by the practical detriment of what has been called “Point and Click Activism,” of choosing overly simple and convenient methods to address very difficult and complicated problems. 

Certainly, some of the people who turned out their lights on Saturday night are highly dedicated environmentalists who are deeply involved in struggles with corporations, governments, institutions, and entire cultures.  They are working hard and spilling their blood to reverse the suicidal cycles of consumption and destruction that our species is trapped in.  For them, the symbolic event of Earth Hour represents their very real involvement and activism.

But for most who sat and enjoyed the candlelight, an hour in the dark is about as far as they’re willing to go.  Or at least it’s as far as they’ve been asked to go.   At 9:30, when the lights came back on, the lion’s share of Earth Hour participants went right back to the same old lifestyles they had been living before - with one exception - they now have that warm feeling in their hearts that they did something good for the environment, just like my friends and I had when we thought we were fighting racism in South Carolina.

So here’s my suggestion for making Earth Hour more effective:  Make it an event that happens not just one night a year, but every single night of the year.  Imagine if we took the urgency and the spirit that has made Earth Hour so popular, and ingrained it into our culture until it became a part of our everyday lives.  Imagine that the first hour of darkness, the hour when we tend to use the most electricity, becomes a time when we habitually light our candles, sit around the table, and share food and fellowship with one another.  No lights.  No television.  No computers.  Then an hour after dark, we all switch on our electricity and get back to usual evening business. 

Now that really would make a difference, wouldn’t it?

Thirty years ago, Americans stood in shock watching unfold what had been officially deemed by federal officials as “incredible”—a major accident at a nuclear power reactor. Americans watched their fellow citizens flee their homes and businesses in panic, watched as regulators and utility employees tried to address the accident, watched and tried to understand why poisonous radiation was being released into the atmosphere when they had been told such an outcome was impossible.

The accident at Three Mile Island was a watershed moment in American history. It is perhaps difficult for people who did not live through it to understand just how momentous the event was. People throughout the country realized their government had been lying to them: that nuclear reactors could in fact—just like the movies said—cause severe disruption and possibly destruction across large parts of our country; and, just as many Americans feel today about the breakdown in regulation that is in no small part responsible for our economic crash, that the regulatory system they had counted upon to protect them had failed.

Thirty years after Three Mile Island, unfortunately, not much has changed. Indeed, the regulatory system intended to protect Americans from the inherent dangers of nuclear power has become more lax and complacent than ever. A very brief aggressive period of regulation immediately following the accident, which brought about a Three Mile Island Action Plan that resulted in numerous improvements to nuclear reactors, has long since been replaced by an attitude that not only allows, but encourages a regime of self-regulation by the nuclear industry; that is sluggish to respond to demonstrated safety issues; that is encouraging licensing of new reactors at the expense of meaningful safety reviews and public participation; and that will, inevitably, lead to another Three Mile Island—or much worse.