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He Never Promised Us a Rose Garden

2008-04-17T01:38:25Z

President Bush delivered a much-hyped speech on the administration's supposedly new global warming policy agenda today in the White House Rose Garden.

Here are my initial reactions:

The plan, if you can call it that, lags far behind the political curve in either political party. Once again, the President seems to be trying to turn back the hands of time on this issue.

Today’s proposal is much weaker than what all three presidential candidates, dozens of members of Congress and many state governors are talking about today. It’s weaker than the proposals backed by many leading companies whose business would be covered by a global warming policy.

The President’s plan wouldn’t even stop the *growth* in global warming emissions until 2025.

By contrast, Senate legislation offered by Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and John Warner (R-VA) – neither one of them exactly Mr. Woodsy Owl – would stop the emissions increase by 2012, and require actual pollution reductions of 25 percent or more by 2025.

The real story right now is how quickly congress can agree on a concrete limit on global warming pollution backed by an effective market-based system that rewards smart companies for quick action and makes the overall cost of this transition away from old, polluting energy technologies as low as possible.

The White House likes to talk about technology. But businesses and investors need to know that there will be a market for it before that innovation is unleashed on a large scale. That’s why we need to set the rules of the road now.

Frankly it’s hard to see how the White House proposal makes any serious contribution to that conversation, or does anything to move our nation forward. It will, however, probably add ammunition to those who would try to sink real solutions.

Business is saying it’s time to act. Scientists are saying it’s time to act. Now finally politicians are saying it’s time to act.

“Green Collar” Jobs -- A Political Misnomer

2008-02-14T20:58:52Z

Presidential candidates have been out and about this week talking about their respective plans to create thousands of new “green collar” jobs.

It’s the right idea, but the wrong way to talk about it.

Building the clean, sustainable, energy efficiency economy we need to meet the both environmental and energy resource challenges of the coming decades is indeed a giant opportunity – and also the best economic stimulus idea out there.

In fact, we can’t afford NOT to make these investments.

And we’re talking about much more than wind farms and solar panels. Some of the biggest and most important opportunities today involve big changes in the way we use energy in buildings and homes and factories.

But “Green collar” is not an aspirational term. Who raises their kids to think of their future in terms of collars? The language sounds too much like make-work to my ear, at best a sort of niche endeavor. It doesn’t begin to capture what is at stake.

It is going to take a tremendous amount of cement and glass and steel to save the natural habitats that ultimately sustain our lives (and our economy) on this planet.

That means we’re talking about all kinds of jobs -- Architects and engineers; drywall contractors and air conditioning guys. Software designers and lighting installers. Plumbers and loan officers. The lawncare crew that mows your green roof.

In other words, white collar, blue collar, and no collar.

We’re talking about the whole economic pie.

Much of this work is in the very sectors that are in the worst shape today. And these are jobs that can’t easily be shipped overseas.

Maybe pollsters and focus groups have tested this out. But they’ve been known to get it wrong before.

There’s a bigger vision here. It would be great to hear about it from every candidate in both political parties.

GM's Lutz is in a Ditch. Again.

2008-02-13T21:28:25Z

In a closed door session recently, General Motors product development chief and granddaddy of Detroit automotive management Bob Lutz announced to a group of reporters in Dallas that global warming is “a crock of sh*t”.

Yes, this is the very same Bob Lutz who spent the last year or so pitching GM’s deathbed conversion to environmentalism, promoting an assortment of mild hybrid products and touting the Volt, a spectral concept electric car that might or might not appear on American roads somewhere in our future.

(Those who recall the massive hype around GM’s hydrogen-powered Hywire concept car back in 2002 will be familiar with the foaming coverage devoted to these just-out-of-reach by the automotive press. They will also be forgiven for their cynicism.)

Now comes the news this week that GM has officially posted the largest annual loss in American corporate history, a stunning $38.7 ~~million~~ billion in 2007. That comes atop several years of cash hemorrhage already.

General Motors and other leaders in Detroit management bet the farm on a gas guzzler-based business model, and went so far as to double down with a new crop of full sized trucks and SUVs in 2005 and 2006 at the very time pump prices were exploding.

Now tens of thousands of white- and blue collar workers and the communities where they live have paid for their bosses’ gross misjudgment with their jobs, and one of America’s last bastions of manufacturing might – an industry that for all its faults has considerable high-tech prowess – is on the ropes.

So much for seeing the light.

Political side note by way of our friends at GRIST:

Barack Obama delivered a speech today at GM truck plant in Janesville, Wisconsin. Hillary was at a GM plant in Baltimore on Monday, singing the praises of hybrids. http://www.grist.org/news/2008/02/13/election/index.html

Bali Climate Talks: Inside the Diplomatic Showdown

2007-12-17T19:19:17Z

Global warming treaty talks wrapped up this weekend in Bali delivered a stirring international rebuke to the intransigent "diplomacy" of the Bush administration, and produced a remarkable last-minute breakthrough in the stalemate over US versus developing country action.

My colleague (and former climate treaty negotiator) David Doniger lays out the basic story and what it means. The New York Times and Reuters have good overview perspective, too.

What these reports don't quite capture is a feel for the true drama that unfolded in the final, extened hours of the session. But an e-mail from Bali by my old friend Peter Riggs of the Forum for Democracy & Trade paints quite a picture of an unprecedented showdown.

While somewhat long on procedural mechanics, it is as succinct and illuminating an accounting of the obscure but utterly crucial process by which these global talks unfold. If you're interested in getting a real feel for the event, this is as good as it gets.

It is repubpished here with his permission.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Hello Friends and Family--

As the day begins in North America some of you have probably already heard the news that a deal has been cut here in Bali at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of Parties [COP].

The meeting was scheduled to end yesterday Indonesian central time at 6pm (Friday), but was extended overnight, and the crucial final plenary commenced at 1:10pm this afternoon (Saturday).

I wanted to write while it's still fresh and give you all a taste of what it felt like.

Given that working groups convened overnight -- finally breaking up at 4:30am -- it's perhaps not surprising that this morning started a little rough. The President of the COP, Indonesian Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar, re-convened a plenary at a time when the G-77+China (the main grouping of developing countries) was still at work on an alternative text for the critical parts of the 'Ad-hoc Working Group' review process.

Meanwhile, overnight, Indonesian President Bambang Yudhoyono, and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, each flew to Bali to push parties to come to an agreement. So doing raised the diplomatic profile of the end-game substantially.

At 1pm the President and the Secretary General swept into the main plenary hall along with Minister Witoelar and the Conference's top diplomat Yvo de Boer. Witoelar proceeded to take note of what had already been agreed to -- "every item on the agenda has been read over carefully, and between 80 and 90 percent of all the items have already been adopted."

This felt ominous in and of itself, because everyone in the room knew it was that last ten to twenty percent that would make all the difference. Witoelar then apologized "if I have tread on your sensibilities,"--the reasons for that statement shortly becoming apparent.

He then introduced President Bambang Yudhoyono, who noted that he had come to Bali "to make a special appeal," asking delegates to do more to make the Bali Road Map a complete package.

[. . .]

Ban Ki Moon then took the podium. He startled the audience by stating that he was coming before us "reluctantly," reluctant because the UN's top diplomat was essentially forced to acknowledge his disappointment in the lack of progress at Bali. He urged us not to risk all we had achieved thus far; he praised the "strong and good draft" put forward by the President of the COP; and he said, "it's time to decide."

Two speeches that turned up the temperature on what would happen next. And with that, these two dignitaries left the room, their entourages scurrying after them, and Minister Witoelar turned us to Item 4 on the Agenda -- the crux of the Bali Road Map -- the "Ad-hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention."

An aside here to describe the evolution of text [...] during the week:

The draft put forward by Witoelar and his Indonesian team last Saturday was really very good.

It reiterated the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities," which notes the historical responsibility of industrialized countries for [the lions's share of global warming emissions to date]. The second thing it did was to note the need for urgent action -- something even the United States embraced -- on the basis of those common but differentiated responsibilities. Third, it set a near-term target for reductions from Annex I countries of 25- to 40 percent reductions.

While the European Union embraced this language, it drove the Americans crazy.

In side-meetings throughout the week, the Bush administration's negotiators -- as well as Minority [Republican] staff from Congress -- repeatedly and often quite savagely noted that no current legislation, not Warner-Lieberman, not any other bill, contemplated that level of near-term reductions, and they said flatly that they were not going to agree to something in text on which they saw no prospect of delivering.

Finally, the draft also noted the need to reduce total global emissions by 50 percent by the year 2050.

[. . .]

The Americans immediately set about attacking the text.

By mid-week we had a text that had removed all the quantitative language except the 'reduce by half' language, which given the time-frame is more aspirational than operational. It was replaced with qualitative language, and included a phrase regarding the need for a "peak and decline" in emissions.

[. . .]

The science indicates that we have no more than ten or fifteen years to put total global emissions on a downward slope to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change. One can imagine then that countries other than the United States -- most conspicuously China -- might have concerns about early-action 'peak and decline' language.

So this too was part of the negotiating dance -- how to get and keep China on board, so as not to drive them into the arms of the Bush science-deniers.

(Meanwhile, at 3am on Friday morning, the United States had put on the table a pathetically awful text which tried to demolish ANY distinction between developed and developing countries -- which is the way that this convention has been structured since its inception in the early 1990s. Almost none of the language in that submission survived into the draft presented to the plenary this morning.)

[. . .]

And then the moment of truth: India presented the alternative text from the G-77+China. The essential point is that it takes into account "differences in national circumstances" amongst developing countries -- that is, not just in relation to industrialized nations, but in relation to each other -- but without the binding reduction commitments that the U.S. had sought from countries like India and China.

From the developing world, this was seen as a compromise that indeed not all developing countries could be treated equally -- the bigger emerging economies might have to do more -- but it preserved flexibilities for them to pursue those commitments at a time to be worked out later.

Portugal, speaking on behalf of the European Union, let the other shoe drop.

"We support the proposal made by....India." Deliberately echoing a phrase used by the Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, Portugal noted that we must "travel the road together." The room erupted in a standing ovation.

Bangladesh, on behalf of the 'least developed countries' (LDCs), took the floor to note that they had continued concerns about the text--it was worried about what 'differences in national circumstances' would mean in practice for least-developed countries. Perhaps anticipating U.S. objections to one of the two contentious paragraphs, Bangladesh pointedly noted that it was not going to block consensus on the basis of the one paragraph with which they had a quarrel.

[. . .]

Even the freakin' Saudis rose to say they could live with the G-77 text.

And then it was the turn of the United States. Assistant Secretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky, with only the absolute bare minimum of diplomatic language, stated flatly that the United States rejected the changes. It was not prepared to accept the G-77 text.

Then occurred one of the most remarkable sounds that has perhaps ever been heard in the annals of international diplomacy--like a collective global groan--descending then to a murmer, then increasing in volume to a full-throated expression of rage and anger and booing and jeering, lasting for a full minute, so that finally the Minister had to call the meeting back to order.

Japan, predictably, followed the United States with a statement that was completely opaque, from which we could conclude only that Japan supported the G-77 text while also supporting the "Major Economies" convening process begun by President Bush as a supposed-counterbalance to the Kyoto Protocol.

(The Americans, with almost unspeakable rudeness, issued invitations to the next 'major economies meeting' on the first day of the Bali COP. Sort of like making a big show of announcing your engagement while at someone else's wedding.)

Then the backlash began.

South Africa's representative, with great eloquence, noted that the U.S. statement was "most unwelcome" and "without basis." He hammered on the science and winded up by wondering how, if the administration had accepted the science, it could possibly want to block progress. Echoing Bangladesh's earlier statement, he noted that the Developing Countries were making commitments (in one of those two contentious paragraphs), and yet the U.S. was not.

Referring to redrafts from earlier in the week, Brazil noted that the EU and China and the G77 had gone along with most of the amendments offered by the U.S. -- they had not blocked progress.

The small island states noted their survival imperative.

Pakistan's ambassador stated that "the text before us would not have come about without the flexibility shown by the G-77+China." Uganda lamented that U.S. views were taken into account in this redraft, and yet the U.S. was blocking.

Tanzania stated the situation flatly: "the United States has the power, and that is the power to wreck the progress made thus far."

Casting all diplomatic niceties to the winds, the representative from Papua New Guinea stood up and said: "If you're not willing to lead, please get out of the way."

(This was a superb slap at a disgusting comment made by White House Council on Environmental Quality chief James Connaughton at a press conference a day earlier, when he had implied that the United States was leading, and other countries needed to "fall in line.")

A pause. A lull. Witoelar on the dais, puffy-eyed, anxious. de Boer, returned to the stage, head in hands, peering between his fingers.

Dobriansky signals she wishes to speak, and Witoelar calls on the United States.

"We are heartened by the strong commitments made by the major developing countries here at Bali," says the Under Secretary. "We appreciate the contributions of Japan, the EU, and Canada in emphasizing the need to half emissions by 2050."

She went on to argue that the United States had made three commitments at Bali.

And then: "The United States will join the consensus" regarding the proposed compromise text.

A surge of emotion through the hall, and then a collective sigh of relief. No standing ovation, no cheering--but a sustained, respectful applause.

* * * * *

Let me end with two personal notes.

This is rainy season in Indonesia. When I lived here in the late 1980s, you could count on it raining in December every afternoon. A drenching rain. The rice fields were electric green. The smell was sweet. The rains knocked the humidity out of the air.

And this year--it rained only once, for perhaps ten minutes, during the entirety of COP13. In almost twenty years coming to Indonesia, I have never felt it so hot, the humidity so crushing, the air so acrid.

At dinner last night, I spoke with a young server from a village in the mountains. From a family of rice farmers. They planted in early November, anticipating the rains. But there has been no rain. The seedlings dried up. His father has had to go into debt. The son was sent from the mountains to go work in a tourist mall south of the provincial capital.

Elsewhere in southeast Asia, where this is no easy access to the tourist cash economy, families resort to other strategies to stay alive when their crops fail. They mortgage their homes and fields first. Then they sell their daughters. Climate change is now.

My second personal note is a Christmas wish.

There is domestic climate-change legislation working its way through Congress. It's not nearly good enough, far-reaching enough. But it's also analogous to the first draft that Minister Witoelar put on the table last Saturday--a great start, destined to be hammered and picked at and watered down and possibly thrown off the bridge in the end anyway.

We can't let that happen.

So family and friends, let me ask for some of your time in the coming weeks and months, to be ready to lobby, to call your members of Congress, to spend a little time on this issue, to stay with this. It's time the United States really and truly joined the global consensus--that climate change is now.

And now, to sleep. From Bali, over and out.

Game On: China Wind Comes to Montana

2007-12-07T02:04:00Z

Mark your calendars, folks. This is the week that China starts exporting wind turbines to the United States. According to the Wall Street Journal’s energy blog, Mingyang Wind Power Technology Co., Ltd., has inked it’s first American deal for more than 70 1.5 MW turbines.

The machines are destined for a windfarm in Montana.

Further example of the competition that is only just beginning to see who is going to dominate the markets for clean, efficient and renewable energy technologies in the coming years.

Turbines are in huge demand, and the market is extremely tight. That means profits for anyone who can deliver good product reliably.

So far in 2007, only eight turbine makers have provided turbines to the U.S. market. GE is the big domestic player. Seimens (Germany), Vestas (Denmark) and Gamesa (Spain) are the big players from Europe.

It will be fascinating to see how this new competition, combined with the sinking US dollar, does for the wind market.

“What’s interesting about Guangdong Mingyang’s mid-sized machines,” the Journal also notes, “are their two flavors: one turbine is specially-designed for cold-weather, low wind speeds in northern China; another is built to withstand typhoons in southern China.”

By the Numbers: McKinsey Tallys Up Climate Solutions

2007-11-30T00:53:58Z

Today McKinsey & Company, one of the world's leading management consulting firms released a sweeping new assessment of the more than 250 measures that together would get us into the ballpark of the global warming emission cuts now on the table in Congress.

The analysis is deep, detailed and dense.

The bottom line, as we have detailed elsewhere, is that we can still achieve the results we need in the necessary time frame at something close to zero net cost to the US economy -- but only if lawmakers get it in gear soon.

Several reporters asked us today why this study matters.

The answer lies much more in the context than actual pages of the report.

This year is a major turning point in the global warming debate. The logjam is cracking. It’s clear to anyone paying attention that some sort of global warming solution is coming soon to the US.

That means that business and political leaders are suddenly rushing back to the table, and taking a whole new look at their strategy. The horses are back at the starting gate, and there is jockeying afoot.

At that happens, a new dividing line is emerging that will shape the entire conversation for the next year or two at least.

On one side is a group that acknowledges - if grudgingly - that global warming might indeed be a real problem, but says we should bank on a technological miracle but oppose policies that would actually drive that market.

That’s effectively the Administration line today. That’s Newt Gingrich in his new book. That's where the "Skeptic Environmentalist" Bjorn Lomborg comes down. That’s talk-jock Glenn Beck, too. And that’s where we find many of the Republican political candidates.

(Whether any of them really believe it or it’s just pollster-driven cover for inaction, who knows.)

Then you have folks like NRDC, US CAP and a growing list of leaders in both parties who recognize deliberate steps are needed to get the solutions we HAVE NOW off the shelf, out of the lab, and into the economy.

THAT is what the whole battle is going to be about next year. THAT is why this report is so important.

Wishes alone won’t make it come true. A whole lot of furniture needs to be rearranged.

Companies making hundreds of billions of dollars in capital investment in the next few years need a clear, concrete signal about where the market for energy and emissions is heading.

According to McKinsey (and NRDC), the key variable in determining whether or not we beat the global warming challenge is not some far-fetched miracle technology, but rather whether there is a clear policy signal to business that the marketplace is ready to start deploying solutions already at hand.

That’s why we need policy, and that's why this is all very relevant to the very core of the climate story for the next year or so.

Bali-Hoo

2007-11-30T00:27:35Z

Starting next week, planeloads of negotiators from around the globe will be meeting in Bali, Indonesia to begin mapping out a successor to the Kyoto global warming treaty inked 10 years ago and which expires in 2012. The procedings are prelminary, but the stakes are high. An unusual number of reporters and luminaries will be on hand, which means the spotlight will be a bright one.

What exactly is on the table?

The answer is that this that meeting is laying the foundations for the next major global warming deal, the one that is going to carry the world through the make-or-break period where we will determine whether or not we are going to fix the problem in time. If the countrys of the world don't get a solid handle on heat-trapping pollution in this timeframe, scientists say it will be too late to stave off the all too familliar list of devastating consequences.

The economic stakes are as big as the environmental ones.

The agreements hammered out in this process will shape hundreds of billions of dollars worth of capital flows, trade, and investment strategies for the entire globe.

You'd think that America would want a seat at this table. But the Bush administration remains steadfast in its refusal to engage, and all expectations are that the official U.S. delegation will spend most of the meeting on the policy sidelines.

That's a small step up from the last few meetings, where they were more intent on monkey-wrenching. But hardly a giant leap for mankind.

The good news is that back home, concrete measures to start limiting emissions is shaping up in 25 states, and the US Senate Environment Committee is expected to report out a national emissions bill within the next few weeks.

Chicago Newsman Shills for Climate Skeptic Group

2007-11-20T18:01:43Z

Out in Chicago, beyond the radar of coastal elite media watchers, a serious journalism ethics scandal is unfolding.

Some have framed it as free speech and open debate, but that is manifestly not the issue.

The real question is whether a newspaper editor should be lobbing other journalists on direct behalf of a special interest group that holds a very distinct position on a major, politically charged issue -- one that falls squarely in his own beat.

The story involves Chicago Sun-Times Business Editor Dan Miller, who lent his name (or rented it…nobody seems to have asked whether money changed hands) and the name of his paper to the conservative/free market Heartland Institute to pitch a skeptical global warming documentary to journalists in Chicago and elsewhere, urging them to “keep an open mind” about global warming.

("Open mind" meaning open to the idea that more than a decade of global scientific consensus is wrong, apparently. But that's really beside the point.)

Heartland is the group that for months has been running ads in the New York Times and elsewhere challenging the view that global warming is a serious threat to the economy and our environment. They do not disclose their funding sources, but have strong, well-documented ties to far-right foundations as well as big tobacco. If the scope of their ad buys are any indication, they are not hurting for resources. Accounts have put the spend at at least $1.2 million.

The cover letter on the press kit carried the specific heading “From the Desk of Dan Miller, Business Editor, Chicago Sun Times.”

Miller himself has so far not commented.

But the public affairs talker at Heartland gave this surprisingly honest explanation for the pitch, telling the Chicago Tribune that “If it came from just ourselves, it would look like an advertisement and just get lost."

Still not convinced that this is a deep breach of journalistic ethics?

Try replaying the same scenario, but substitute “Hillary Clinton” or “Rudy Giuliani” for “global warming.” If the business editor for a leading metropolitan daily had sent a letter nakedly encouraging fellow reporters to take a second look at one of the presidential candidates, he would fast be looking for a new job.

Here, he has done essentially the same thing by throwing himself into one of the most important political debates today.

(For comparison's sake, note that *former* ABC News correspondent Carole Simpson yesterday had to offer up her resignation from the journalism program at Emerson College for publicly endorsing Hilary Clinton for President.)

To be clear: It would have been perfectly legitimate for Miller to raise this sort of question in a column, under the cold hard light of day. Or to assign a reporter to a news story examining the issue.

But it is *not* OK for him to be using his name and that of the paper as part of a one-sided, behind-the-scenes sales pitch from an organization with an expressly unbalanced view of a critical public issue. (It wouldn’t be any more appropriate for him to stick his name on something from us, for the same reason.)

Miller would have a hard time claiming he was taken in by the interest group, since he used to work there himself.

All this is particularly significant given where we are now in the global warming conversation. The Supreme Court ruled this spring that EPA can no longer ignore the problem. Last week, the 9th Circuit Court threw out the administration’s proposed fuel economy rules for light trucks because they did not take into account global warming impacts. At least a dozen states are beginning to regulate CO2 emissions. There are several bipartisan bills now moving through Congress to do the same thing at the federal level, and a growing list of major companies are now calling on Washington to get moving on the question.

In other words, this is no backwater that Miller waded into. In doing so, he not only crossed the line…he seems to have ignored it entirely.

At minimum, his bosses at the paper have some serious ‘splainin to do.

Phil Rosenthal at the Chicago Trib has a good write up here, but misses the full gravity of the story.

The journalism mavens at PoynterOnline mentioned it yesterday, as well.

It appears that a science writer at the Houston Chronicle also got the package.

UPDATE: The St. Pete Times has weighed in as well: http://blogs.tampabay.com/energy/2007/11/using-smoke-mir.html

The folks at ExxonSecrets.org have a nice writeup on Heartland: www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=41

Here’s what sourcewatch has to say on the group: www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heartland_Institute

Hummers vs. Hummus

2007-08-30T01:07:30Z

Don't be alarmed on your way to work if the Hummer in the next lane is being driven by a chicken. Two animal rights groups have launched high-visibility campaigns arguing that eating meat causes more global warming pollution than your friendly neighborhood SUV.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) will put a person in a pullet outfit behind the wheel of one of the famous guzzlers and send it on the road to the White House, among other places, for a global warming conference later next month. The Humane Society of the United States, PETA and other groups are also making the case in a series of ads.

In addition, PETA is threatening to take the caravan to the doorsteps of major environmental groups that don't get with the program (thought what precisely they want green groups to do isn't clear).

It is a very clever campaign that is going to get a lot of ink. The story was the most e-mailed story on the New York Times website today. But it might be a little too clever for its own good.

The question shouldn't be hybrids versus hummus. They're both important parts of the puzzle. But setting up a false choice may very well undermine progress on both fronts.

There's no question that our dietary choices have major environmental implications — from overfishing tuna to overgrazing the West to the rivers of chemicals that keep much of modern agriculture afloat. Runoff from appalling factory animal farms is an ongoing ecological disaster in communities all around the country.

And don't forget the heat-trapping carbon dioxide released clearing forest for pasture, or the supercharged greenhouse chemical methyl bromide, which is used to wipe out naturally occurring microbes in the soil so that we can grow eerily huge strawberries and tomatoes.

The problem with putting gas on par with geese is that it creates even more confusion about global warming at precisely the time when so many business and political leaders are turning the corner in response to growing public pressure.

And just as they're running out of excuses, the campaigns give polluters, cynics and ideologues a brand new pretext to keep right on guzzling gas and pumping out emissions. You can hear it now: "It's not my fault; blame old Wilbur here."

Rush Limbaugh, eat your heart out. And enjoy that steak while you're at it.

No doubt the campaign will succeed in moving a few green-spirits the next step into the vegetarian column. And that's a fine thing. Meanwhile, millions of others will take away a message that insulating their home or buying a cleaner, more efficient vehicle is a waste of time so long as Ronald McDonald, Colonel Sanders or Mister Greenjeans are still in business.

This matters.

It matters because for many perfectly decent people, good environmental stewardship is still a lot like eating right or getting enough exercise. We all know it's the right thing to do. But it doesn't take much of an excuse before the right thing goes right out the window in favor of that second helping.

If there are two gaping holes in the roof, it would be pretty foolish to waste time during the rainstorm arguing about which leak is more important. Fix them both, and do it together. Instead of moving forward based on ostensibly common objectives, these inflamatory new media campaigns force potential allies into shortsighted polemic. That is an unfortunate choice.

We should all be on the same side of the global warming challenge, not taking the wind out of each other's sails.

Dirty Laundry

2007-08-25T20:42:08Z

Claudia Deutch has an interesting interview with George Feldenkreis, Chairman of the Perry Ellis clothing label in the Saturday edition of the New York Times (which I am increasingly convinced is a more interesting paper than the vaunted Sunday bundle).

Most people don't think of their clothing as having much of an environmental footprint. To the extent it's come up, the conversation has tended to center on raw material. Under the heading 'Green and Fashionable', Feldenkreis discusses challenges the company faces greening the 72 million garments it sells each year, and how hard it is to obtain sufficient quantities organic cotton.

Growing cotton, of course, consumes vast quantities of both water (often in places where it is scarce) and pesticides. Various alternatives including the near-totemic hemp are often discussed as the answer.

What rarely comes up is the tremendous environmental impacts that occur once processing begins.

As NRDC has delved deeper and deeper into the Chinese production chain supplying clothing to big American retailers, we have become more and more aware of the tremendous mess that is being created.

A page one story this week the Wall Street Journal describes the devastating toxic legacy flowing into local rivers from a massive 230-acre textile plant in Dongguan that supplies Nike, Wal-Mart and Lands End among others.

In fact, the Journal points out, the textile industry is among China's dirtiest:

In addition to heavy metals and various carcinogens, fabric dyes may contain high levels of organic materials, and thread is often dipped in starch before it is woven into fabric. The breakdown of large amounts of organic compounds such as starch can suck all the oxygen out of a river, killing fish, and turning the water into a stagnant sludge."

After residents complained that pollution from the mill had turned their river dark red, investigators discovered a pipe buried under a factory floor through which, each day, the company was pumping 22,000 tons of water contaminated in chemical dying operations straight into the local waters.

There's no shortage of easy blame to go around here – corrupt officials, lax standards, greedy companies, careless retailers. They're all part of a larger set of economic circumstances brought about by intense economic forces. The article points out prices on fabric and clothing imported to the U.S. have fallen 25 percent since 1995 thanks to competitive pressures traveling in both directions across the Pacific. That means a lot of corners are being cut, literally as well as figuratively.

"Prices in the U.S. are artificially low," Andy Xie, former chief economist for Morgan Stanley Asia, who now works independently, tells WSJ readers. "You're not paying the costs of pollution, and that is why China is an environmental catastrophe."

The article notes that problems like these have escaped the scrutiny of even the best, most sincere corporate social and environmental initiatives, because the environmental disaster is unfolding farther down a tangled network of supplier relationships than they are used to looking. The Gap, for instance, has almost 100 people monitoring 2,000 contractor factories worldwide, but they are looking only at companies sewing the clothes -- not the ones dying fabric.

Ultimately, that's no excuse. But our own experience in China confirms that even following these webs – never mind untangling them – is tremendously difficult. It is a challenge that will be at the centerpiece of our work in China in the coming months.

It's an area that Mr. Feldenkreis, Wal-Mart, the Gap and everyone else in the business needs to be looking at, too.

Everybody Talks About the Weather; China is Doing Something About It

2007-08-14T07:07:49Z

Coverage of the heatlh and environmental challenges that await athletes and spectators at the 2008 Summer Olympics in China is starting to heat up.

Chinese officials have been promising significant cuts the country’s famously terrible air pollution, but results so far are disappointing. June saw the worst air quality levels in seven years, with three times the particulate loading found in our not-so-fabulous New York City air. China’s nitrogen dioxide levels exceed World Health Organization standards by 78 percent.

Come next summer, U.S. athletes competing in the games will be equipped with activated charcoal masks, ibuprofen and asthma medication to combat Beijing's pollution, according to a team spokesman.

So far Olympic organizers are measuring their words carefully, and there has been little in the way of public criticism. But last week International Olympic President Jacques Rogge warned in an interview on CNN that said certain highly aerobic events like cycling at the games could be postponed if the city's air quality is too poor.

Watch the tea leaves carefully as this story develops.

Meanwhile the Chinese do appear to be making headway in efforts to prevent bad weather during the games. As reported in USA Today and elsewhere, officials have dispatched a fleet of 37mm anti-aircraft guns west of Beijing that will fire chemical shells into cloud system, triggering rains that are supposed to exhaust themselves before the weather can reach the capital.

China has been seeding clouds this way since 1958, but never for the sake of a sporting event. Never let it be said that this country lacks for ambition.

It's In The Bag

2007-08-14T06:58:17Z

I did an hour-long segment on plastic grocery bags today on the Diane Rehm Show, a nationally syndicated NPR program produced by WAMU in Washington, D.C.

The other guests were Sam Shropshire, Alderman from the Seventh Ward in Annapolis, Maryland and sponsor of a bill to ban plastic grocery bags; Donna Dempsey from the too-craftily-named Progressive Bag Alliance; and Barry Scher from the Giant Food supermarket chain.

This is one of those stories where the facts make it pretty hard for industry to make much of a case. America goes through at least 30 billion plastic grocery bags each year. Donna and Barry go to great pains explaining that the bags are fully recyclable. But in practice the recycling rate is between one and four percent. Which means somewhere between 96 and 99 percent wind up as waste.

Because the bags are so thin and light, they tend to cause problems when they get into the mixed recycling stream. We go through about 12 million barrels of oil a year making these things, which wind up in trees, incinerators and down the gullets of both livestock and wildlife.

Salon had a nice piece last week (hyperbolic headline notwithstanding).

As consumers become more aware of the tradeoffs, interest in alternatives has skyrocketed. Earlier this year San Francisco moved to ban non-recyclable plastic bags altogether; other communities are looking to follow suit. Retailers like Whole Foods have dropped plastic altogether, while Ikea and others are now charging customers by the bag.

The interesting thing about today's radio discussion what how much sense the industry folks made so long as they acknowledged the problem and sounded like they were actually interested in fixing it. In fact, it sounds like Giant could make some legitimate progress if they cranked up their attempts a bit.

But it went off the rails for both Dempsey and Scher whenver they started falling back on talking points that were designed to minimize or dismiss the reality that we all need a better way to get our groceries home. And at times both of them were way too willing to blame consumers – their consumers.

Paper bags have their own problems, of course. In most cases, the customer has know way of knowing whether the sacks they are using come from sustainably harvested or recycled sources. Ultimately the best bag is the one you don't have to use at all, or which you can use over and over again.

Very few people living in modern society – or in the developing world, for that matter, where these bags are also ubiquitous – are going to never use a plastic bag again. But imagine if everyone cut back by half. Or even a quarter. That's a lot of plastic that won't wind up stuck in your neighbor's hedge, or in the belly of a sea turtle.

Minneapolis

2007-08-02T23:30:53Z

Minneapolis is where I grew up. Depending on which way mom, dad or the bus was going, I went over, under or around the I-35W bridge on my way to school everyday for about 10 years. I also (mis)spent a good deal of time roaming those river bottoms on the Mississippi.

No doubt millions of digital photos have recorded the disaster that happened there yesterday. The two best - indeed remarkable - sets that I have seen are here and here.

The first gives a better impression than anything so far in the media of the damage on the roadway. The second is from a guy who lives in a warehouse 50 feet from the bridge, who was pulling people off the pile.

I am struck in looking at all of these images by the concentrated urban history that converges on this spot.

The train under the bridge was on a siding for the old Pillsbury A Mill, whose founding was at the falls just above the collapse (the largest natural waterfall in US west of Niagra) was a milestone in the growth of the city that sprang up here to process grain from across the northern plains.

Next to the bridge is a lock and dam built by the Army Corps of Engineers in the early 1960s, in a long-forgotten boondoggle that bypassed the falls for barge traffic that was and is minimal. You can go through them in your canoe, too, however, which is very cool.

Drought in the region means that the river is running at only about 15 percent of normal levels. And thanks to the dam, the Army Corps will be able to drop the water level down stream by about two feet so that crews can get into the wreckage.

And of course there is the interstate highway system itself, which as you can see in the first photo carved a massive swath to make way through the city. Two main interstates cut through the Twin Cities - I-94 from east to west, and I-35 north to south. Provisions were made so that they intersect in both Minneapolis and St. Paul on rights of way bigger than any I have seen elsewhere.

In fact I would venture that on a percentage basis the Twin Cities have more close-in urban land given over to highways than almost anywhere else including Los Angeles. Quite a lot of old city neighborhoods disappeared in order to make this so. But it is incredibly quick to get around town.

And so it goes.

Watch for a lot of very interesting, very partisan infighting to errupt over who is to blame for this. There have been bitter fights in Minnesota over highway budgets; there is a hot Senate race shaping up; and the Chair of the Transportation Committee in the House of Representatives is from the northern part of the state.

Read the latest in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, which has been scrambling hard to cover the story.

Shenzen: Scale + Speed = Epic Environmental Challenge

2007-08-01T21:22:53Z

James Fallows has been doing great journalism on the intersection of business, economics, culture and trade for more than 20 years. Way back when, it was Japan. Now he's living in China.

This month's Atlantic carries his long piece on manufacturing in Shenzen, an enormous city in the Pearl River Delta that has essentially sprung from nowhere over the past two decades to supply huge amounts of stuff consumed around the world. It's a place where NRDC is increasingly active.

The article is subscription-only, but there is an excellent slide show that captures in pictures both the vast scale of industrial activity in this city and the huge dichotomy between capital-intensive work that goes on alongside highly atomized mom-and-pop shops making all manner of seemingly high tech goods in what is essentially a modern version of cottage labor piecework.

In a similar vein, Andrew Shane Huang has fascinating video and keen observations from inside Chinese manufacturing plants. Again, it is the magnitude and velocity that pops to the fore. He notes the facility where all the world's iPods and iPhones are made has 250,000 employees.

This, friends, is what makes the environmental challenge in China so vast and compelling - the consumption and rearranging of resources (and generation of waste) on an utterly unprecedented scale taking place in an 18th Century economic structure.

Our work is cut out for us.

Boingboing has a couple of other interesting links on this subject today too.

GM Flag Waving: Read the Fine Print First

2007-07-31T21:16:58Z

General Motors posted new earnings numbers this morning to mostly rosy headlines. Drudge Report is running the story under the banner "USA! USA! GM posts $891-million profit…"

But all is not well for the big automaker, which lost its status as the world's top carmaker earlier this year. Open the hood on the financial report, and you will quickly find the company continues to suffer badly from the same guzzler-based business model that has wreaked havoc on Detroit's Big Three over the past several years.

This is the same strategy that automakers are touting on Capitol Hill in their efforts to weaken and delay stronger fuel economy performance standards passed by the Senate and now under consideration in the House.

In fact, GM's June sales in North America are off 21 percent from last year (a year that was no picnic for the company either). At the end of the month the company was carrying 30 percent more unsold pickups and SUVs than in May, and 40 percent more than the industry as a whole. The vaunted Chevy Silverado pickup, which went through an extensive redesign that GM execs promised would build sales, sits on company lots an average of 142 days; a Suburban 124. That's about three times as long as a Toyota Tundra.

What profits the company is making are coming from outside the United States, particularly China and Latin America (where GM cars are mainly produced locally, which means they don't add much to the US manufacturing base).

Meanwhile, Reuters is reporting today that fuel economy -- and hence global warming emissions -- of all cars and trucks on the American road is the lowest in the industrial world.

The bottom line if you are watching this critical US industry crumble in the hands of poor management strategy is that American carmakers are hemorrhaging precisely because they bet the farm on cheap gas and ancient technology (GM's principal V6 is derived from an engine first build in the 1950s).

By slacking off on sensible fuel economy performance requirements, Washington helped put the industry and its shrinking force of blue- and white-collar employees alike in the fix they are in today.

That, Mr. Drudge, is nothing to wave a flag about.