Gristmill Blog
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Revisiting Malthus
By David Roberts
Nevertheless, if Malthus is wrong, then why is it necessary to prove him wrong again and again, every decade and every century? Perhaps because a fear exists that at some fundamental level, Malthus is right. For the great contribution of this estimable man was to...
The grill of victory
By Kate Sheppard
The survey you've all been waiting for: 52 percent of Americans say they would prefer to have Barack Obama at their 4th of July shindig.
Only 45 percent reported that they would prefer McCain, according to the latest Associated Press-Yahoo! News poll.
Says the AP: "People...
Chipotle grilled
By Tom Philpott
Chipotle Grill has received a lot of good press over its efforts to support local food systems in the areas where it operates.
Even I've gotten into the...
The drill of the chase
By Kate Sheppard
Roll Call reports ($ub. req'd):
The Republican National Committee is launching $3 million in independent expenditure television ads in four states, focusing on the energy issue.
The ad is slated to run on network and cable television in Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and...
Milking sustainability
By Meredith Niles
Last week, we witnessed the dairy industry hold their first ever Sustainability Summit for U.S. Dairy. The week long conference culminated in the announcement of an industry-wide commitment and action plan to reduce milk's "carbon footprint" while simultaneously increasing...
Sweetening the deal
By Kate Sheppard
Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) stopped by ($ub. req'd) the American Enterprise Institute yesterday to give a speech arguing that Congress should lift the 54-cents-a-gallon tariff on imported ethanol.
"To demonstrate leadership the United States should lift its tariff on Brazilian...
Notable quotable
By David Roberts
"As you all probably know, in Alabama and Mississippi and Louisiana and Texas, they think oil rigs are pretty."
-- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), self-styled "Godfather of Green"
Drilling offshore vs. fuel efficiency
By David Roberts
Over at CEPR, Dean Baker makes a somewhat cutesy but still quite illustrative comparison: the barrels of oil per day we could get by 2027 through offshore drilling (when production rate will max out) vs. the oil savings we would have gotten per day if we'd continued ramping up the...
My other candidate is a bike
By David Roberts
Great story in CQ this week on bike politics.
Did you know that Obama met a few weeks ago with 160 cycling advocates and promised them his support? I didn't.
The 600-pound gorilla in transportation politics is the 2009 negotiation of a new highway bill, which according to CQ "is...
Driver down
By Ken Johnson
In my last post I touted the benefits of a fully refunded emissions tax. Let's take a look at how it could work in California.
When it comes to a refunded tax, more money for industry doesn't mean less money for consumers. Case in point: Today's gasoline prices in California are...
The media is (almost) onto McCain's cynical doubletalk
By Joseph Romm
McCain has a new ad titled "Purpose":
The AP critiqued it with a piece titled, "McCain energy ad short on specifics." Okay, mainstream media, half credit.
The ad has a much bigger problem than lack of specifics -- McCain is trying to get a political boost by claiming he will...
Summit like it hot
By Kate Sheppard
On Monday, George W. Bush will travel to Hokkaido, Japan, for his eighth and final G8 summit, where climate change is likely to be the subject of heated (ahem) talks. At last year's meeting, leaders agreed to seriously consider a goal of cutting global greenhouse-gas emissions 50...
Olympic trials
By Sara Barz
With a mere 37 days until the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, Qingdao, the port city where Olympic sailing events will be held, has sailed into troubled waters. Since June 12, municipal and Olympic officials have been wrestling with an algae bloom in Fushan Bay that has...
A fuel's errand
By Kate Sheppard
More than 50 Republican representatives sent a letter [PDF] to the Environmental Protection Agency last week urging the agency to lower the mandate for ethanol production in response to both the recent flooding in the Midwest and drought in the South.
They argue that one-third...
Well-
By Holly Richmond
No, he didn't ride a Trek to the premiere of his new movie (I can hear the cars-aren't-green comments already!), but Jason Bateman did show up in a BMW Hydrogen 7 -- billed as "the world's first hydrogen-powered car for everyday use." Um, maybe if your "everday" activities include...