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How to do politics in an uncivil time

By October 27, 2010
Poster: if you vote Republican I'll shoot this dog

As the US mid-term elections approach, examples of politicians and activists behaving badly abound. Most recently, the lefty activist group MoveOn.org sent around a video showing supporters of Republican senate candidate Rand Paul manhandling Lauren Valle, a 23-year-old activist. Valle tried to approach Paul as he was entering the venue for the Kentucky senatorial debate on Monday night. Part of MoveOn.org's RepubliCorp campaign of crowd-sourced publicity stunts to draw attention to corporate … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: , , ,

McKibben and Hansen want you — for 10 minutes

By October 14, 2010
Girl writing a letter

Climate crusaders call for personal letters to Congress for green dividend plan. Since cap-and-trade died in Congress this summer, does that mean the US won't see legislation to fight climate disruption anytime soon? That's what Ryan Lizza wrote in the New Yorker last week in a depressing piece about why the energy and climate bill failed in the Senate. While an unlikely Three Amigos coalition of Democrat John Kerry, Independent Joe Lieberman and Republican Lindsay Graham used all their … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , , ,

Best peak oil bug-out plan

By October 12, 2010
2012 movie poster

The ASPO-USA conference held in Washington, DC earlier this month was not the place to go for apocalyptic scenarios of societal collapse or training on how to fight off MZBs (mutant zombie bikers, that is). There were lots of sober presentations on oil depletion curves, coal depletion curves, and of course, natural gas depletion curves. There were also lively panels on what energy depletion could mean to society, and how it should best deal with the predicament through solar power, local … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Transition Tagged With: , , ,

Sufficient unto the day

By October 8, 2010
Former Carter Adminstration Secretary of Energy James Schlesinger

LIVE REPORT Will the US government face up to peak oil anytime soon? "There is no reason for optimism," said America's first Secretary of Energy and former CIA director James Schlesinger at the ASPO-USA conference in Washington, DC today. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Based on his experience working for the only president who was honest with the American people about energy, Jimmy Carter, it's understandable that Schlesinger thinks politicians would fear talking openly … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Energy Tagged With: , ,

How to talk about peak oil

By October 7, 2010
World War II propaganda poster

LIVE REPORT The best way to talk about peak oil may be not to talk about it at all, according to panelists at the ASPO-USA conference panel today on Message, Media and Outreach. Instead of rehashing statistics on world oilfield depletion on the one hand or giving lectures about how peak oil means we're all doomed on the other, the panelists agreed that what we need is to develop a compelling narrative. And that narrative might need to "tell it slant" as Emily Dickson says about the way … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Energy Tagged With: , , ,

We should’ve started yesterday

By October 4, 2010
The Impending World Energy Mess

BOOK REVIEW The Impending World Energy Mess By Robert L. Hirsch, Roger H. Bezdek and Robert M. Wendling Apogee Prime $29.95 I was never able to figure out why my greenie friends don't like to talk about peak oil. I first learned about it through eco-friendly writers like Bill McKibben, Richard Heinberg and Transition founder Rob Hopkins, who all share the same solution both to prepare for peak oil and to fight global warming: use fewer fossil fuels. Where was the conflict? Then, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: ,

Would Patton hate nukes?

By October 1, 2010
George C. Scott as Patton

It appears that General George S. Patton, hero of the Battle of the Bulge, is back.  As always, he's not taking any balogna in Bastogne.  But this time, he's come to open up a can of whoop-ass on energy ideas that would make America open to foreign baddies. "Patton is the biggest enemy of nuclear power,"  according to his amanuensis, former CIA Director James Woolsey,  who channeled the ghost of Old Blood and Guts for a group of clean-energy executives at a meeting in Virginia in early … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Energy Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Green hawks fight clean (and mean)

By October 1, 2010
Hellfire helicopter firing

Their natural habitat is the Pentagon, NATO Allied Joint Force Command, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. And their prey is oil sheiks and petro-caudillos, saboteurs of nuclear plants, and others who would use energy to intimidate America. They worry that importing oil from foreign countries ruled by hostile regimes puts America's national security and world dominance at risk. They are generals, admirals, spymasters, and national security advisors. They are the green … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: , , ,

Nader: college unsafe at any speed

By September 30, 2010
Ralph Nader signing his latest book

Thomas Jefferson envisioned the "academical village" he wanted to build near his home at Monticello to be a "bulwark of the mind in this hemisphere" and a place to develop "the illimitable freedom of the human mind." But by the time that the university in Charlottesville opened its doors in 1825, an older, less idealistic Jefferson saw the school as way to keep genteel plantation owners' sons from having to go up north to Harvard, Yale or Princeton and become contaminated by contact with … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Education Tagged With: , , , ,

How to talk to a climate skeptic

By September 30, 2010
Underwear proves global warming

We've all had the experience: Arguing with somebody who doesn't believe that climate change is real. They may say that the science is rigged and that global warming is just a hoax, an excuse for the eco-meanies to take away your Hummer or get big bucks grants for research and activism. Or maybe they say that global warming is actually real, but that it just isn't that bad.  So we definitely shouldn't try to stop it. Maybe we should even encourage it? Baffin Island -- the new Florida -- … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Transition Tagged With: , , ,