Weather, Water, Energy 5-21-07

Really nice post at Grist on how the ag community getting nailed by the higher cost of corn has rebelled against ethanol production with the grain and how the opportunistic politicians have been caught off guard by that rebellion. A course on systems theory should be required of everyone considering holding public office. Connected, interacting things respond unpredictably when you focus on messing with just one part of the network. Meanwhile, as always the perfect example of the clueless, pontificating politician, Joe Biden (of course) still hasn’t gotten the new message. He, like all our “leaders,” would be much better off demonstrating some intelligence and guidance on energy efficiency, which still remains our most immediately effective way of having an impact on global warming, despite all the Bidens and Inhofes. . . . We’ve been perversely enjoying the climate disaster hitting Australia under its idiot PM’s watch, but it looks like they may be able to whack on our West under our idiot “President’s” watch, too. . . . When you hear of cap-and-trade systems, you’re usually hearing about a “grandfather” system in which existing polluters are given advantages, such as keeping their base pollution. Supposedly it’s the only way to get the polluting corporations to buy into the system. As it sounds, it’s also immoral and in the long run defeating. It’s not the only way to do it, though, as this Grist piece points out, and the other ways are fairer and don’t reward the people who, by fighting pollution controls for decades, have put us in this place. . . . Proof that not all economists are short-sighted dogmatists out of touch with the real world. A Harvard type with a good blueprint for action, including a carbon tax in the US and Europe that would go to pay underdeveloped nations not to develop in global warming-enhancing ways. . . . Want to have an impact on global warming? Garden. Just do it smartly and keep those invasive species out of the good stuff. . . . Finally, we wondered a while back how FOX would respond to Rupert Murdoch’s apparent decision to go “green.” Would it be just like its Soviet counterparts who could turn on a dime from advocacy to criticism and back again at the drop of a furry Premier hat? Well, the network just showed “The Day After Tomorrow.” What whores. It does look, though, like there are still plenty of “no problem” “researchers” out there for Exxon, despite its recent claims to be cleaning up its act, can fund. Leonid Brezhnev never did it better.