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Deal Reached On Fuel Economy
House Could Vote On Bill Next Week
Steven Mufson, Washington Post
Congressional leaders yesterday wrapped up a deal on fuel-efficiency standards that meets the approval of the auto industry’s key congressional ally, Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), and clears the way for Democrats to bring an energy bill to a vote next week.
The final version of the bill will stick with the Senate version’s goal of making the new automotive fleet achieve average fuel efficiency of 35 miles a gallon by 2020, about 40 percent higher than current averages. But at Dingell’s urging it has tougher standards for cars than for light trucks. It would also help protect jobs at some U.S. auto plants, a priority for the United Auto Workers union.
(1 December 2007)
Related: Lawmakers reach deal on auto fuel efficiency (CNN)
Fuel efficiency and the American driver
Can Solving Global Warming Save Our Economy?
U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee and Bracken Hendricks from the Center for American Progress
[U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee and Bracken Hendricks from the Center for American Progress have a new book on energy, politics and America’s role in the future, Apollo’s Fire: Igniting America’s Clean Energy Economy. They offered us this exclusive excerpt. We think it’s interesting enough to provoke some useful discussion. – WorldChanging Ed.]
Today we are at a crossroad, but one thing is certain, that the status quo will not long stand. Inaction in the face of mounting global warming promises an ever-growing litany of harms, from sea level rise to mounting storms, drought, wild fires, famine, and disease. But the less often told story is that meeting this challenge head on with a crash program to rebuild the foundation of our economy and deploy new clean energy solutions can be a tremendous source of opportunity for economic growth, stronger communities, and greater social equity. If we are smart, we will demand nothing less than bold action from our leaders and the development of a broad based popular movement for change, starting now.
John Kennedy’s Apollo Project proved the importance of backing vision with policy and investment. Meeting the challenge meant making a commitment to expanding the capabilities of the nation in both industrial might and intellectual prowess. Just as the expansion of the railways would never have accelerated without Lincoln’s policies, Apollo would never have gotten to the moon without vigorous government action.
So Kennedy gave his people the most important service a leader can provide. He gave them a goal. He provided trusted leadership in rallying to that goal. He recognized the innate but dormant qualities of his countrymen. He offered them a compelling vision for putting those qualities to work. He then mobilized the resources to see the job through.
Today America is ready for that same kind of leadership. We face challenges every bit as daunting as we did in the days of Apollo, including security concerns. This time the threat is from Middle Eastern oil instead of Russian ICBMs. This time we are in an economic race for the jobs of the next century. What’s more, we now face the greatest challenge ever faced by all of humankind at the same time – global warming.
Success will not involve instant gratification. Our forthcoming clean-energy revolution, like the original Apollo Project will not be easy. It will not be instantaneous or without risk. Kennedy knew how to face such major challenges – with action. “All this,” he said, “will not be finished in the first hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first thousand days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.”
No one ever climbed a mountain they believed could not be climbed. No one ever started a business they believed would fail. And no nation ever undertook a major initiative it believed was destined for dust. When Kennedy said America was going to the moon, he did not believe we would fall short. So too, America will not commit itself to tackle the challenge of global warming or break free from the clutches of Middle Eastern oil until we have confidence that we can build a clean-energy future that will be brighter than the world we are living in today.
Why has America not yet risen to the challenges of climate change and oil dependence to date?
The problem is not inadequate information or insufficient scientific talent. It is not even the relentless obstructionism of vested interests, though we can’t underestimate the tenacity and cleverness of the oil and automotive industries and the politicians indebted to them. Rather, the problem is an overabundance of fear. Fear that we cannot solve the problem. Fear that we cannot change the course we are on.
(30 November 2007)
Much more at original.
Mr. Harper’s Cold Comfort for Canadians
Editorial, Embassy Mag
Having Stephen Harper as prime minister of Canada-an environmental and climate change saboteur, and international pariah in the words of opposition and environmentalists-may actually have a bright side.
The silver lining is that Mr. Harper’s actions with respect to Kyoto, and environmental and energy issues in general, are awakening public opinion to a host of other environmental issues that might have been swept under the rug during previous Liberal regimes.
…But that Animal House attitude to science and society no longer holds sway. A deep-seated unease over profound issues of energy and economy is starting to settle in.
Is Canada readying itself for climate change and the equally pressing and closely related energy problem of peak oil?
The very words “peak oil” and “climate change” have had such an unemotional-even benign-sounding-scientific calmness about them that the public has been slow to catch on.
But slowly or not, Canadians are starting to learn that peak oil and gas mean that we have used up the first half of our supplies, the part that was the easiest and cheapest to extract, and we must now attempt to wring the last few drops out of the earth. But, inexplicably, we are at the same time continuing to develop economic and trade systems that use more gas and oil today than we did yesterday. Something’s gotta give.
The United Sates reached peak oil between 1970 and 1971. That event alone should have told us that the wolf was at the door.
Canadian natural gas is rapidly declining and the Alberta tar sands, the largest source of Canadian oil, is found in deposits that require increasing amounts of energy to extract it. The Energy Bulletin’s “Peak Oil Primer” points out that once it takes the energy of a barrel of oil to extract a barrel of tar sands oil, “then further extraction is pointless, no matter what the price of oil.”
This is a looming, serious problem that will have a major impact on food supplies, transportation, heating and virtually every economic activity.
(28 November 2007)
Embassy is “Canada’s Foreign Policy Newsweekly.”
Oil Scrooge boosts costs for shipping
Tom Incantalupo, Newsday
The same oil price increases that have sent gasoline over $3 a gallon again and heating oil to record highs will make it more expensive this year to mail those dried fruitcakes, loud ties and other holiday gifts.
The 40 percent increase in crude oil prices since August has led to higher fuel surcharges by the major package delivery companies, who said the costs of jet fuel for their planes and diesel fuel for trucks have soared.
The U.S. Postal Service is an exception. While higher energy prices have pushed expenses higher, the rules governing its rate structure don’t provide for a fuel surcharge, even though its 216,000 vehicles constitute the world’s largest civilian fleet.
Among the increased charges this holiday season:
• FedEx Corp. will increase its surcharge for air-shipped packages from 16.5 percent to 17.5 percent starting Monday. For ground-shipped packages, the surcharge will rise from 5 percent to 5.25 percent. The new figures compare to 11.5 percent and 3.5 percent, respectively, a year earlier.
(1 December 2007)
Mindful Eating Crusader To Take Top US Nutrition Post
Erica Barnett, WorldChanging
“Every now and then, something incredible happens and here it is” ubernutritionist and What to Eat author Marion Nestle wrote recently. Nestle was referring to the altogether surprising news that the George W. Bush Administration had appointed Brian Wansink, a professor of marketing at Cornell University, to head the US Department of Agriculture’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, the branch of the USDA that’s responsible for dispensing dietary advice to the American public.
Wansink is the author of the book Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think — a groundbreaking work on the psychology of eating. Both in his book and on his excellent web site, Wansink takes a tough look at the psychological reasons people, particularly Americans, overeat. His work has linked social factors that influence how we eat, and how much, to the epidemic of obesity in the US and around the world. His work has been credited with prompting the advent of 100-calorie snack packs, which food manufacturers initially opposed because they believed consumers wouldn’t buy them.
Among Wansink’s fascinating conclusions about the macro-food environment:
* The larger the serving dish and the greater the variety of foods on the table, the more food people serve themselves. With snacks, for example, people took 50 percent more food if it was served from a large bowl instead of a small one. In one of the most fascinating examples of this principle, researchers served a free soup lunch to 54 adults. Half were given soup in normal 18-ounce bowls; the other half received bowls that, unbeknownst to them, were attached by tubing to a vat of soup that constantly replenished the soup in the bowl. Those who had the refilling bowls at 73 percent more soup and reported feeling no more full than those whose soup came in regular bowls.
(20 November 2007)
