The Bureau of Land Management reversed its decision last month that had stopped new solar developments on public land for two years years.
Instead, the BLM has decided to process applications simultaneous with environmental consultations. The reversal was caused by pressure from Congress (for example, Rep. Mark Udall of Colorado), public opinion, and the solar industry, which is at a critical point in its development.
– Kari M.
Global warming threatens our White Christmases with winter heatwaves. And our Halloweens with poor pumpkin crops. And our Arbor Days with record wildfires. And our immoral myopia threatens Father’s Day. At this rate, the only holiday left will be the gas tax holiday — for oil companies!
But I digress. Last year, Independence Day fireworks fizzled out for many thanks to ever worsening droughts. And the droughts have done it again this year:
I’m sorry I didn’t post this sooner, but the Senate Energy Committee Hearing web site left the impression that this was not going to be webcast. But you can hear the hearing here (click on “Live Webcast“).
McCain has a new ad titled “purpose” (here). The AP critique it with a piece titled, “McCain energy ad short on specifics.” OK, MSM, 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 champion popular clean energy technologies that he, like President Bush and most conservatives, has consistently opposed:
SCRIPT: Announcer: American technology protected the world. We went to the moon, not because it was easy, but because it was hard. John McCain will call America to our next national purpose: energy security.
A comprehensive bipartisan plan to lower prices at the pump, reduce dependence on foreign oil through domestic drilling, and champion energy alternatives for better choices and lower costs. Putting country first.
McCain: I’m John McCain and I approved this message.
You cannot be serious. The only energy “alternative” McCain seriously champions is nuclear power, which is two years older then he is (the first experimental nuclear fission was in 1934). As for the other alternatives the ad depicts, solar and wind — McCain has been one of their leading opponents in Congress of government efforts to promote.
This ad is as phony as his photo-op earlier this year (see “Anti-wind McCain delivers climate remarks at foreign wind company“). To repeat the key point documented by the Center for American Progress, McCain has repeatedly opposed a renewable electricity standard that would have set a minimum requirement for utilities to generate part of their power from sources like wind.
This week’s issue of The Economist features a commemorative piece on Bill Gates, who stepped down from his position as Chief Executive Officer (or CEO) of Microsoft last week.
Gates had an arguably turbulent career, due to his aggressive or monopolistic business tactics as the lead in the industry, but one that has been inconceivably successful and world-changing. Among the many legendary attributes The Economist article points out is Gates’ determination and eventual responsibility for personalizing computers in the form of desktops. Gates made the technology accessible to individuals, homes, and businesses rather than keeping giant computers centralized.
The article argues the ways in which Gates’ ways of doing business are ex post facto. It’s the end of era. But it should also be considered the opening of an opportunity for distributed energy generation.
The Wall Street Journal published new material (sub. required) on the White House’s emasculation of last year’s Supreme Court global warming decision. The court told the EPA that the Clean Air Act requires it to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
The White House seeks to nullify that decision by stuffing the EPA document down a memory hole and substituting antithetical language. The WSJ has seen the EPA’s draft document and reports:
[Another post by Ken Levenson.]
Pushed from center stage by the expected record arctic ice and permafrost melt, tropical rain forest destruction has been elbowing its way back through the smoke and into view. Papua New Guinea’s rain forests disappearing faster than thought is one such look:
Previously, the forest loss was estimated at 139,000 hectares per year between 1990 and 2005. But now?
Using satellite images to reveal changes in forest cover between 1972 and 2002…Papua New Guinea (PNG) lost more than 5 million hectares of forest over the past three decades…Worse, deforestation rates may be accelerating, with the pace of forest clearing reaching 362,000 hectares (895,000 acres) per year in 2001. The study warns that at current rates 53 percent of the country’s forests could be lost or seriously degraded by 2021.
Stunning. Adding insult to injury - the good news as reported last Thursday in Malaysia didn’t last long:
The AP has the bombshell news. A judge has finally used the Supreme Court decision that carbon dioxide is a pollutant:
The ruling, from Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore, is here [big PDF]. What did the judge find?
“TV journalism” has been an oxymoron as long as I can remember, but not “print journalism.” My father was an old-school newspaper editor, which is why I still hold print journalists in moderately high regard. But media critic Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post, in a Tim Russert eulogy, explains just how far newspapers (like the Orlando Sentinel) have now fallen:
Under its new owner, Sam Zell, the Tribune Co. earlier this month decreed a 12 percent cutback in content, meaning that the Los Angeles Times, for instance, will be serving up 82 fewer news pages each week. Tribune’s Baltimore Sun announced last week it will cut 100 employees, in part through layoffs, and produce what publisher Tim Ryan called “a more concise newspaper with more local news” — a euphemism for slashing news space.
Randy Michaels, the company’s chief operating officer, said Tribune has begun measuring productivity by how much copy each journalist churns out – and that the average Times reporter generates a mere 51 pages a year, compared with more than 300 apiece at the Sun and Hartford Courant. Perhaps no one has explained to him that writing in-depth stories — say, prizewinning investigative pieces — takes a bit more time.
Note to Tribune — if “journalists” are measured by quantity over quality, then you really have nothing whatsoever over the web. Your journalists are typically less knowledgeable than many of the people who blog on their areas of expertise. And I don’t see how you can match the web for quantity. Nor price, of course. Once your quality is gone, why should anyone pay for your product?
Lee Abrams, hired from XM Satellite Radio as Tribune’s chief innovation officer, has been cranking out colorful memos: “Newspapers strike me as being a little TOO NPR. I like NPR, and their shows like Morning Edition do well. But NPR can also be a bit elitist. . . . It’s all about being INTELLIGENT . . . not intellectual.
Hence the emphasis on quality over quantity. Oops. But wait, the memo gets better….
I am scheduled to be on Fox Business News at 7 pm today on “to drill or not to drill.” I doubt many of you have access to FBN, but I will try to post the video if I get it. The only interesting thing about this is that Wayne Rogers is hosting for David Asman.
Rogers, for those who aren’t long time readers of this blog (or fans of Fox), is the Bizarro World’s Alan Alda (see here). So I’m doing this for amusement, practice, and general-masochism.
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