Check out this story:

http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=563&fArt ...

This is one South African export that I'm really NOT proud of!

Whiskerfish

Also, notice the coal lobbyist's comment at the end of the article, that the bill is going to receive "bipartisan support."  Legislators are always cheered up by any prospect of appearing to be doing something in a bipartisan fashion.

Presumably the environmentalists' lobbyists actually get to sit down at some point with such Senators as Dorgan, Bingaman, Obama, Byrd and Rockefeller.  What do they say to them?  What kinds of answers do they get?  How do those conversations go?  That is something that DR might ask around about.

On DR's reasonability: It is no more than intermittent.  But that is why we love him so, no?  

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

I may be a partisan, but at least my side has a spine and principles.

Ten Key Values of the Green Party

Obama is caught between a rock and a hard place --coal and corn.  

My bet is that he will continue to support IL's two big industries while dancing around the issue of global warming.  How does he please his very conservative downstate constituencies while placating progressive pleas for addressing global warming?  My guess is that he will continue to spew his high sounding platitudes and bend over, asking for the KY.  

Like cellulosic ethanol, coal to liquid is big on hype and small on results.  How much actual GHG saved and fuel produced compared to the tax dollars wasted?

How about all the investment capital raised that could go towards plugin vehicles and conservation and renewable distributed generation and storage?

I think the powers that be really love to see scams disguised as green businesses to discredit real GHG saving efforts.

Obama and Hillary better get wise to these subsidy scams Lou.  i would like to see energy secretary Gore directing scarce dollars (after the Iraq boondoggle) to the right GHG saving technology.  Government fleets converted to plugin hybrids.  

Government buildings heated/cooled assisted by  ground heat.  Solar and wind powering enough of the grid to power all government facilities.

That would give a WW2-like production burst to all these technologies.  bringing the cost down for consumers.  The jeep comes to mind.

An affordable vehicle is needed that plugs in overnight to charge batteries for the first 50 miles of travel and has a backup generator for longer trips.  Instead of the jeep, it's the Volt?  Well maybe, some version of the gM Volt anyway.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

Sure, and then a Republican wins.  Like it or not, the simple fact of the matter is that our political system is built around two parties.  It's been a century and a half since a third party has managed to supplant an existing one.  Given the strikingly amateurish way that the Green Party operates in my state (Washington), I don't see any indication that the Greens can become a dominate party any time soon.

So, alas, it really does come down to trying to reform the Democrats.  Given the powerful political interests out there, no one should be surprised if the likes of Obama make unsavory compromises along the way.  Major social change is hard.  

Yes, we need to push Democratic candidates as much as we can.  Nevertheless, you can all but bet that they will in some way disappoint us.  I hope that doesn't lead to a replay of 2000.  At least from my perspective, a reasonably moderate Democrat would be leagues better than a continuation of a Republican-controlled White House.

The second constituency is the environmentalist community.  To say the least, environmentalists seem to be confused.  I have pointed out that global warming will defeat many environmentalists' goals.  Environmentalists have traditionally opposed Nuclear power.  In light of the CO2/Global warming crisis, continuing this opposition seems highly irrational.  Environmentalists seem to think that nothing has changed since Three Mile Island.  We are now a generation later.  There have been a lot of changes in thinking about nuclear safety.  New reactor designs are both safer and cheaper to build.   Practical solutions for the disposal of nuclear waste are available as well.  In light of these developments, environmentalists ought to rethink their opposition to nuclear power.  Some have.  But many have not.  

We see coming from the environmentalist community proposals that we turn to unproven technologies as replacements for carbon-based technologies.  Thus we see claims being made for geothermal power that are quite unrealizable with current technology.  We see questionable claims being made about the potential for biomass energy sources.  We see claims about the cost of wind power, that reflect the costs of wind power as a part time supplement to coal based power generation.  The basic problem with wind that in most places the wind only blows part of the time.  To have electrical power available when the wind is not blowing is going to be very expensive.  

The problem with the part of the environmentalist community that opposes nuclear is that their thinking about other power options is weak.  What seems clear is that the anti nuk environmentalist community has no practical alternative to coal.  Thus the anti-nuk message of environmentalist like you David, serves the interest of the coal industry.    People who are concerned about global warming need to get their message straight.  They need to focus on practical solutions.  They need to speak with a single rational voice.

Charles Barton

Sure, and then a Republican wins.  Like it or not, the simple fact of the matter is that our political system is built around two parties.  It's been a century and a half since a third party has managed to supplant an existing one.

With all due respect, but that's the kinda of self-defeatist talk that global warming skeptics employ: "We can't do anything about global warming, so why bother"

But we can! Think globally, act locally. We can be active and informed citizens by trying to reform the electoral system by implementing Instant Runoff Voting or some form of proportional representation starting at the local level. And Greens have been proven to be capable of running governments as shown by the German Greens and soon the Irish Greens. Plus we have hundreds Greens at the local office level here in the good ole U.S.

I also am troubled with the statement that voting Green will in virtue elect a Republican. First of all, people can vote for who ever they want, Democrats aren't entitled to any person vote just as the Green Party isn't entitled to environmentalists votes. The party has to earn it through the best policies and campaigning (assuming there's a level playing field for all regarding the media and campaign finance.) People shouldn't be pressured to voting their fears, they should vote for their hopes and dreams, as cheesy as that may sound.

Now, I am also in the belief that in order for the Greens to grow, they have to start from the bottom up. That means getting elected at the local level, whether it be for county board or water commissioner.

Now I'm not saying all the Democrats are corrupt and bought off by Big Business, but the progressive wing of the Dems are still chained to the Machine that is the Democratic National Committee and play by their rules.

Even in the most optimistic biofuel growth scenarios we'd still be increasing our dependance on imported oil over the growth period.

It's especially crass when most of what we're doing is IMPORTING natural gas, and then turning that into ethanol.

Which when you compare it to what we had before, we were importing natural gas, and turning it into MBTE.

Ironically, Iowa State sees that Ethanol profit margins are really going to suck once we pass the threshold of where Ethanol is mandated by states laws.  Some where around the end of 2008 they figure.

-David Ahlport

Investoras are worried that plugin hybrids of the GM Volt design will reduce gasoline consumption drastically.  So gasoline prices soar because they won't build more refineries.

Why build ethanol plants if liquid fuel consumption drops?  The investors will be skinned.

When markets are afraid of a trend like serial plugin hybrids, you know they are in the rumor mill to pose a signifigant threat to oily profiteering.  Going from 20 mpg average mileage to over 200 mpg average mileage.  

Invest in wind farms to feed the plugins not ethanol.  

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

No question.  I vote Green when it makes sense.  That is generally at the local level, where the candidates are the most viable.  And yes, it is important to support reforms such as proportional representation.

But even TALKING about a Green presidential candidate for 2008 seems to me to be a dangerous exercise in futility.  There simply is not the political infrastructure in place for the candidate to garner more than roughly 3 percent of the vote.  And that margin could swing a close election to the Republicans.  That ain't acceptable in my book -- too much is at stake.

I don't see why so many of my Green colleagues have such trouble with the idea of strategic voting.  That is, you support the partisan vehicle that most makes sense for a given office.  Perhaps the problem is that this undermines their obsession with creating a traditional Green party, replete with merit badges, honor codes and secret handshakes.

My guess:  You can't beat the major parties at their own game, yet that is exactly what the Greens seem to be trying to do.  Such a gambit didn't work for progressives in the 20th Century, and it sure as heck isn't likely to work in the 21st given a variety of emerging societal dynamics (e.g., "bowling alone" syndrome).  If the greens are to be successful they need to refocus on being an agile "multiparty" movement.

In fact, here in New York, I voted last November for the Green Party's candidates for Governor, Malachy McCourt, and Senator, Howie Hawkins, knowing that the Democratic candidates for those offices were shoo-ins.  If the outcome were not foreseen so reliably, I would have voted for Eliot Spitzer and Hillary Clinton.

The Green Party is evolving.  It has a lot of good things to say, and a lot of good things to do.  We need to take it seriously, and vote for its people when that is prudent, especially first at the local and state levels.

But a total binding commitment to them at this point is quixotic.

It is interesting how the recent presidential election in France went.  Not that anything like this will happen in the US anytime soon!  But it is worth reflecting on, when we consider the presence of the Green Party here.

There were two occasions to vote.  In the first election, the two candidates, out of a large number of candidates from many parties, who should receive the most votes, would be selected to stand, just those two, in the second election.  So, there were all sorts of people on the left who in the first election did not vote for Segolene Royal, but voted for other, more obscure candidates, with very particular agendas and platforms, to express their opinions; but in the second election, when it was just Royal against Nicolas Sarkozy, they went with Royal.

There ought to be a mechanism like that in this country, a way to say on the one hand that I favor the agenda of the Green Party candidate, not that of the Democratic Party candidate; but on the other hand, when it comes down to a contest between the Democrat and a Republican (gevalt!; Rudi?!; Mitt Romney?!), I shall go with the Democrat (gevalt!; Hillary?!).

P.S. The only situation in which I might be tempted to vote Republican in 2008, so far as I can see at present, is if Hillary is the Democratic candidate, and Chuck Hagel (Senator from Nebraska, and very fine person) is the Republican candidate.

Of course, I live in New York, so my vote does not count anyway. : )

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

French Presidents are vested with more power than any executive office in Europe, save for the Russian Presidency. The approach of having two run-offs worked in the most-recent (2007) presidential election, but in the previous (2004) election protest votes landed France with a far-right candidate, Jean-Marie le Pen, after the first round (instead of the Socialist Party candidate, Lionel Jospin). Le Pen then ran against the incumbent president, Jacques Chirac, in the second round, and was trounced, receiving a mere 18% of the votes. Whether Chirac would have won against Jospin is an open question.

The surprise result of the first round of the 2004 election deeply disturbed the four-fifths of the electorate who did not vote for Le Pen (especially those on the left), and no doubt reduced the percentage of people who were willing to vote for a fringe candidate in the 2007 election, lest an extreme candidate with a small but dedicated following push aside their actual favorite.

These are only my personal opinions.

There are indeed forces of great political vigor, similar to M. Le Pen's, which can disrupt elections, even in this country.

E.g., the pro-gun-rights type, represented by the National Rifle(-Wielding) Association, the kind of people who think they can freely shoot dead anybody whom they do not recognize as a gift-bearing friend of the U.S.of A., to say nothing of any fleshy animal, and who believe that the rest of us who do not vote as they do are "Haters" of America, and deserve to be punished therefore.

Currently, the forces shouting "No Amnesty to Law-Breakers Who Happen Not To Speak English!" are pretty much the latest manifestation.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

His spirit whispers in the dark
of mammoth power so very near:
'On Earth to make the human mark
is why God put me here.

Just release me from my prison
and light my Hellish fire.
Prosperity be quickly risen;
We'll stoke the world's desire.'

This black and frozen river
holds a wealth of power;
to consumers we deliver-
no sacrifice can be too sour!

We'll pulverize the wooded crest
and blast the ancient stone,
and where the rubble comes to rest
it chokes the river's dying moan.

We'll burn you in a fire of Hell
your energy to harness;
the atmosphere will do quite well-
emissions, they are harmless.

For we control the demon coal.
His virtues often we extoll:
Deny the fear of greenhouse gases!
Supply the dream to consumer masses!

Your puny wind and solar power
is no match for mighty coal.
For just pennies on the kilowatt hour
your leaders we control.

His blackened soul now fills the air,
His poison taints the fishes,
We've released him everywhere
and answer to His wishes.


a liberal in redsville

I just don't think that it is in the short-term best interests of the enviro community to support a Green presidential candidate in 2008 as a matter of national strategy.

Beyond that, your point about state election laws illustrates how the traditional party structure can severely limit a movement's options.  The Green party must focus on running candidates for positions where it may not make sense to do so.  

I personally would rather see the greens organize as a trans-party coalition that ran or supported candidates wherever it made sense.

I shall write more to you privately.

But really this is very good.  The stanza beginning "We'll pulverize" is excellent.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

What we need is a plan - something that will work.  To me, the most promising technology is plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.  But this means we will need some coal - at least until we find a viable alternative.  So let's stop bashing and blocking, and start promoting and sponsoring.  The path to getting there may not be a straight line.


Dave