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New York Times columnist calls for a Green Revolution
Thomas Friedman, ABC News (U.S.)
Read an Excerpt From Thomas Friedman’s Latest Book, ‘Hot, Flat and Crowded’
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In a follow-up to “The World Is Flat,” his book about globalization, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman brings a new perspective to climate change and the energy crisis.
In “Hot, Flat and Crowded,” Friedman argues that the new presidential administration must take strong and decisive steps to create a green revolution in order to save the planet, “reknit America at home [and] reconnect America abroad.”
Read a chapter from the book below.
Chapter 1: Where Birds Don’t Fly
(8 September 2008)
From YouTube:
Friedman Destroys McCain on Energy
Tom Friedman talks up the need for an ‘energy revolution’ on ‘Meet the Press’ MSNBC via Gristmill
The Fate of BC’s Carbon Tax
Eric de Place, Sightline Daily
What Canada’s tax shift means for the U.S.
British Columbia’s recent carbon tax made waves in the US. (Sightline’s written about it here, here, and here.) But it’s not terribly popular in BC …
… Quick aside for American readers who may not follow Canadian politics: the Liberals are the right-of-center party that is currently in power in BC; they’re the ones responsible for the provincial carbon tax. The NDP — the New Democratic Party — is the left-of-center opposition party, which has criticized the carbon tax. And yes, you heard that correctly: the right is proposing a carbon tax and the left is attacking it.
… But whatever the policy merits, the political will appears fragile. As Marc notes:
If both the federal and BC Liberals lose elections on the basis of the carbon tax, it would take carbon taxes off the table for all of North America, potentially forever.
(5 September 2008)
Re-posted at WorldChanging.
Tea Leaves (Presidential elections and the price of oil)
Albert Bates, The Great Change
At the last US presidential election in 2004 I researched the subject of gasoline prices and discovered that every election year a Bush was in the White House the price of gasoline peaked in early July and then declined sharply to Election Day, rebounding gradually after that. Every year a Bush was outside but wanting to get into the White House, the opposite happened. There is one exception to this, which came in 2004, when Bush-II was trying to defeat John Kerry and prices should have come down but did not.
Until now I have attributed the pattern to the relationship between the House of Bush and the House of Saud. It is a little more nuanced than that, because who really sets prices is the refineries, and although it helps to have more crude in the pipeline when you are taking prices down, that has not always been the case in election years.
… So how is it that gasoline peaked in early July and is now declining sharply in the march towards Election Day, and crude on the world markets just closed the week at $107? The U.S. average retail price for regular gasoline fell for the eighth week in a row. The West Coast price fell for the tenth week in a row. I don’t think either the Beijing Olympics or demand destruction in the US can explain that sudden, unpredicted fall.
On my transoceanic flight today they were screening Recount, the HBO movie about the 2000 election. The answer was right there in front of me: Bush Senior’s go-to-guy, Jim Baker.
I think the only reasonable explanation is that the House of Bush decided to anoint John McCain as Bush-III and now has put the nation’s wholesale gas prices on a Labor Day special, against the financial interests of refinery owners (who, after all, are making record profits and can afford to light their cigars with million-dollar bills). But see Tom Whipple’s caution about refinery stocks. If you push prices down, you push demand back up in the USA. If you are teetering on your front-end inventories to begin with, what you get from that is shortages. That won’t be good for McCain if it comes in the next 65 days. But perhaps the refineries have their fourth quarter calendar already scoped out, and 65 days is _exactly_ their inventory limit.
That is, unless Ike, or another major hurricane, decides to pay a call at the Gulf oil patch. Eisenhower had a staff meteorologist. Maybe John McCain should too.
(6 September 2008)
Albert Bates is author of “The Post Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook” and is an Energy Bulletin contributor.
E&E Daily’s Berman, Geman preview congressional action on energy (video and transcript)
Monica Trauzzi, OnPoint, E&E TV
With just two months to go before the elections, will Congress successfully pass an energy package aimed at reducing high energy prices?
During today’s OnPoint, E&E Daily editor Dan Berman and senior reporter Ben Geman preview upcoming congressional action on offshore drilling, renewable energy tax incentives and high energy prices. They discuss potential obstacles to proposals circulating in both the House and Senate.
Berman and Geman also give their take on the vice presidential picks and discuss how Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) may influence the energy discussion.
(8 September 2008)
