I’ve been off work since Wed., so a ton of stuff has accumulated in my browser. As I would prefer to start Autumn ’07 blogging with a clean slate, I hereby give you a Gargantuan Post-Labor Day Linkapalooza. Here we go!
A while back, the indispensable Jeff Goodell wrote a piece in Rolling Stone decimating "The Ethanol Scam." Bob Dinneen of the Renewable Fuels Association, a corn lobby group, has written a letter to the editor in response. It is a marvel of smug ad hominem attacks, distractions, and deceptions — really a piece of work. You gotta read it. Goodell has a point-by-point response.
In other ethanol news, Robert Rapier — renowned throughout knowledgeable circles as a fair-minded energy analyst but dismissed by Dinneen as "a blogger" — has an ethanol FAQ he’s updating on an ongoing basis. Good reference.
The UK’s Liberal Democrats have, per my suggestion (I have people on the inside), proposed a plan for a carbon-neutral Britain by 2050. That’s officially the left end of the debate now — further pushing the Overton window.
Our own Amanda Griscom Little has a new piece on environmental justice in New York Times Magazine. (And she’s got a book on the way!)
One writer I read frequently but for some reason have never linked is Tyler Hamilton up in Toronto. He maintains a blog on clean energy and writes a weekly column on the subject for the Toronto Star. Check out his latest, on a company called Regen:
The way the bees come together as part of a larger, seemingly more intelligent collective is an example of an emergent system — a controversial area of study that’s sometimes called "swarm logic." We see it with crickets, with ants, with all kinds of animals, and now a Toronto-based company called Regen Energy is applying the concept of swarm logic to the area of energy management.
Regen has developed a wireless device that allows major electrical appliances in a building to communicate with each other at a very basic level, with the goal of minimizing how much power these appliances collectively use at a given point in time.
Emergent systems were a big thing for me back in my school days. Looove that stuff.
In the Washington Post, Juliet Eilperin covers all those renewable energy sources that aren’t wind and solar.
Via Mike Millikin, Mexico City has announced a "Green Plan" that will attempt to boost cycling and walking and reduce traffic. The story’s in Spanish — check Millikin for the details.
Before everyone knew him for having a wide stance, greens knew Sen. Larry Craig (R-Closet) for his implacable opposition to salmon protections, and for single-handedly killing the nonpartisan Fish Passage Center, which monitored salmon stocks. In the Idaho Statesman, Rocky Barker admirably — even heroically — refrains from more salacious topics and instead analyzes how Craig’s resignation will affect the salmon debate.
From Alaska, Bob Shavelson says coal is the enemy of the human race. From the UK, John Harris says coal is the enemy of the human race. Meanwhile, green business columnist Marc Gunther was kind enough to quote me in his latest column, on the dispute over clean coal. Sadly, the quote was not: "coal is the enemy of the human race."
A little over a week ago in the San Francisco Chronicle, Erica Etelson wrote one of the clearest, most comprehensive op-eds on peak oil I’ve ever read in a mainstream outlet. Forward it to your friends.
In Newsweek, Fareed Zakaria interviews that borderline parodic apogee of corpulent corporatism, ex-Exxon CEO and current National Petroleum Council president Lee Raymond, who says there’s plenty more oil. As for global warming? "No comment."
DeSmogBlog is doing a crack investigation into who killed DSCVR, NASA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory.
The ten fastest green cars on the planet. (Part of an ongoing series: "You Can Be Green and Macho, Really You Can.")
I suck.
