Comments Stentor has made

I hadn't known that ...

I'm always hearing free marketers singing the praises of ITQ schemes as a way to get the magic of the market to halt overfishing. But I'd never heard any of them mention the problem of government subsidies. You'd think they'd want to start there, since it's much simpler to shrink the government and get it to stop interfering in the market, than to expand the government into an overseer and enforcer of an ITQ system.On WTO talks could end fishing subsidies posted 2 years, 6 months ago 8 Responses

Secular Enviros Using Religious Language

Religions also offer a spirited alternative to the way secular environmentalists sound when they rail at out-of-control consumerism. Instead of coming off like shrill spoilsports religious people can appeal to the simple (and comparatively non-polluting) pleasures of religious community as alternatives.

This depends on the audience. For one significant sector of the population, it's religion that always sounds like "shrill spoilsports" and secular environmentalism that offers a vision of the "simple pleasures of community."

Also, it's important that people promoting a religious environmentalist message are sincere believers, not non-believers who have adopted religion as a PR strategy. If secular people start trying to talk in religious language and lecture religious people about what Jesus or Buddha really wants them to do, their fakeness and theological/cultural ignorance will be obvious.On A guest essay posted 2 years, 6 months ago 7 Responses

hopefully this is constructive

Sorry, the "URGE2" acronym sounds so square-trying-desperately-to-be-hip that it makes me cringe (and I'm pretty square). And I think the "mine megawatts" bullet point needs a new title -- before I read the explanation, I didn't know what it meant (as compared to "kill coal," whose meaning is obvious).

Also, we need to be careful about what URGE2 is. It's a key agenda item, not a summation of what environmentalism is about. So to draw an analogy to the religious right, it's parallel to "stop gay sex," not "run society based on the Bible." Otherwise we risk falling into an energy-reductionist conceptualization of environmentalism.On The meme all the kids are talking about! posted 2 years, 10 months ago 22 Responses

pretty good

I'm with you on everything except #8 (it may be a fad among a subset) and #20. Although I think my desire for #16 to be true is clouding my judgment.On Every one destined to be 100% correct posted 2 years, 11 months ago 25 Responses

double-posting to add ...

I think the problem (here and in some of Scorse's other posts) is that he tends to reduce the three major environmentalist orientations to two. Environmentalism can either be:

1. Anthropocentric -- concerned with the welfare and interests of humans,
   
2. Sentience-centric -- cocnerned with the welfare and interests of individual sentient beings, including both humans and animals, or
   
3. Ecocentric -- concerned with the preservation of ecosystems and natural processes as intrinsically valuable.

no quick fix

I think the "design" element of it is critical. It works if you explicitly design your streets to be signless, or if you remove the signs in old European or New England towns that were laid out before the car age. But just taking down the street signs here in central Arizona would be a disaster.

Also, I'm a bit baffled by the idea that we're deluged with signs and feel hemmed in and infantilized by being constantly told what to do. I certainly don't feel that way when I drive. I'd also like to see a citation for that 70% figure -- I ignore plenty of signs, but they're things like "restaurants at this exit," and "name of this side street that I wasn't going to take anyway" and "in case you didn't see the giant median strip, this highway is going to be divided." But I see all the important ones like "stop" and "speed limit" and "this lane exit only."On Rules make people mean posted 3 years ago 4 Responses

It's funny ...

... how two people can want the same thing for different reasons. How is it supposed to be some major rebuttal to Greens that members of both major parties think it matters which major party wins? On Couldn't get enough signatures posted 3 years, 2 months ago 4 Responses

Awesome

Now I have a comeback for when all the smug Mac afficionados give me a hard time for buying a Dell.On First Greenpeace e-waste scorecard released posted 3 years, 3 months ago 2 Responses

nitpick

Nitpick -- the Ice Age was pretty recent, so all our major mountains were around well before it. The Appalachians go back to the Ordovician Period (about 495-440 million years ago), while the Rockies were formed in the Cretaceous period (140 million-65 million years ago).On Bob Edwards special on mountaintop removal mining posted 3 years, 4 months ago 3 Responses

pros and cons

What's your point? Sure, something that improves human welfare counts on the "pro" side of the equation. But those gains may come at the expense of greater costs to other parts of the environment (as well as to other humans in other places or times). Just saying "it benefits humans" isn't enough, because the whole point of environmentalism is to look at the whole environment, both humans and non-humans.On Repeat after me: Humans are part of the environment posted 3 years, 4 months ago 18 Responses

fun with membranes

My mind boggles at the idea that some membranes can pass water but not salt, while others can pass salt but not water. This is why I'm not a chemist/engineer.On Desalination posted 3 years, 4 months ago 2 Responses

Bizarre

Shell's argument is bizarre. The only way it makes sense is if the amount of each crop that will be grown is given in advance and carved in stone. How does it make sense to say that if I plant my field with corn and sell it to an ethanol refinery I'm taking food away from starving people, whereas if I plant my field in switchgrass for the same purpose I'm not? If I choose to produce biofuels feedstocks, it doesn't matter what crop I use as the means.On Food vs. fuel posted 3 years, 4 months ago 13 Responses

Wrong

I think Lakoff has bought into the GOP's own rhetoric at the expense of seeing its actual agenda. The fact is the Republicans are not committed to reducing the size of the government as an end in itself. (Heck, just ask Grover Norquist himself, who is happy to use the GOP but increasingly frustrated with its recalcitrance.)

The GOP's agenda is twofold: to enrich the upper class, and to set up a moral hierarchy that punishes people who don't conform to certain notions of propriety and obedience. If big government is necessary for those goals, they will happily enlarge government (see corporate welfare and the flag-burning and marriage amendments). If smaller government serves those goals (undercutting environmental protection and welfare), they'll shrink government.

"Small government" is an innocent-sounding procedural cloak that the GOP pulls over its real agenda. If progressives are serious about framing, the first thing we need to do is to stop letting the GOP get away with calling itself the party of small government.On Our ongoing environmental and economic setbacks are the successes of the current administration's co posted 3 years, 5 months ago 6 Responses

The role of oil

If we want to cut back on the use of oil, we're going to have to accept reduced National Park visitorship -- after all, most National Parks are located pretty far away from where most people are. (And note that the 98% figure you quote includes rising fuel prices as a variable.) We need to find ways to reconnect with nature that are closer to home and more woven into our day-to-day lives (e.g. urban community gardens), not just taking a week off to go look at some majestic scenery.

Also, I want to see the report before I put too much weight on the correlations -- 98% explained is far higher than I've ever seen claimed in any social science on any topic that I've read.On Nature needs people posted 3 years, 5 months ago 8 Responses

hypocrisy

I think the point is not "Al Gore hurts the environment," it's "Al Gore is a hypocrite," or "Al Gore's actions show that even he doesn't really believe what he's saying."

Compare it to the way we'd slam Rick Santorum if we found out he'd had a gay affair. The slam wouldn't be based on thinking gay sex is bad (since it's not), it would be based on the fact that Santorum was doing something while telling everyone else not to do it.On CEI at it again posted 3 years, 5 months ago 2 Responses

Time Frame

So the problem with unconventional fossil fuels is that they can't be ramped up fast enough ... yet their solutions include multi-decadal changes like "designing compact, walkable urban communities" and local food production?On Can we replace oil and maintain energy supply? posted 3 years, 6 months ago 40 Responses

demonizing

conservatives love to personalize and demonize
This is hardly a failing unique to conservatives. Just mention "Karl Rove" to any liberal.On What's next in the global warming discussion posted 3 years, 7 months ago 13 Responses

a grain of truth

it smacks of blaming the victim to say otherwise.
But isn't saying that sportsmen were duped by industry into working against their own interests also blaming the victim (and insulting to boot)? I don't agree with the way she singles out the animal rights movement as the sole cause, but I do agree that one important cause of the backlash was that mainstream environmentalism took on an elitist, authoritarian, nature-fetishizing aspect. This both alienated its natural grassroots among sportsmen and people of color, and was substantively wrong. Yes, the Wise Use ideology unfairly demonized environmentalists -- but there was also a grain of truth to it. Just as we're trying to do with the environmental justice community, environmentalists need to take to heart sportsmen's concerns as well as asking them to take up our agenda.On An emerging environmental majority? posted 3 years, 7 months ago 11 Responses

vision isn't enough

Vision alone won't motivate people to change. The only thing that will motivate change is when continuing the current path becomes impossible. People will keep driving their gas guzzlers until there's no more gas to guzzle -- and then they'll start trying to find a new way to live. Once the crisis point hits and our current path becomes actually-right-now-impossible, having a clear vision will be critical in shaping how we react to the change. But I don't think any combination of fear-mongering or inspiration will start the process.On The vision thing posted 3 years, 7 months ago 7 Responses

He's a Bush nominee

I'd have a really bad feeling about anyone that Bush would be willing to nominate to anything, unless I see some good proof to the contrary.On Kempthorne nominated for Interior Secretary posted 3 years, 8 months ago 2 Responses

different starting points, same conclusion

I wrote something similar a while back. I think anthropocentrists and ecocentrists take diverging views of how the ecological system works, which ends up leaving them with fairly similar conclusions about what policies we should pursue:

We start with the premise that nature needs to be protected. Many people would argue that enlightened self- or human-interest would lead us to protect nature, since degradation of nature utimately hurts humans. Deep ecologists respond that such an anthropocentric rationale will not be sufficient to justify full protection of nature. They maintain that we could get away with a significant degree of degradation of nature before it created a net harm to humanity, and thus the only way to morally rule out that degradation is to give nature itself rights. Yet this justification for deep ecology presumes a more loosely coupled system. The more tightly coupled the system, the less able we would be to escape the consequences of our degradation, and thus the more environmental protection would be mandated by an anthropocentric view.

My own position is preference-centrism -- the only things that count as ends are beings which are capable of forming preferences (which so far as I can tell is humans and some animals).On Environmental ethics II: The humanist strikes back posted 3 years, 9 months ago 37 Responses

no big deal

I don't see what the big deal is. In the SOTU Bush promised to reduce our oil imports by X barrels of Middle Eastern oil. Now he's promising to reduce oil imports by X barrels of any oil. He still means the 75% and the 2025, it's just the "Middle East" he changed.On Bush didn't mean he'd literally reduce Middle East imports posted 3 years, 10 months ago 3 Responses

Intent

In response to amazingdrx: Obviously certain pieces of nature -- some organisms -- have intent. But I don't see how we get from there to being able to talk about a unified life force or "natural intent of mother earth." After all, conflicts of intent are everywhere.On Philosophical musings. posted 3 years, 10 months ago 10 Responses

Ugh

Great, we're using anti-fat prejudice to save the environment now.On Dweeb between the lines posted 4 years ago 6 Responses

Bentham vs. Aristotle

I don't dispute your overall conclusion that this is a poorly thought-out law, but I have to nitpick your comment that "Gone is the thrill of self-sacrifice for the good of the planet." The point is to save the planet, not to make us feel virtuous about saving the planet. On Brazil/Seattle posted 4 years, 1 month ago 2 Responses

no paradox

I don't think it's a paradox or good news. It's just a matter of reversing your assumptions about causality. Most people tend to think of the economy as saying "we want X units of goods and services. What's the most efficient way of generating them?"  But in actuality, it's more like "we have Y units of inputs (e.g. energy). How many goods and services can we squeeze out of that?" The problem is that we've assigned Y an unsustainably high value -- but you're right that it will take public policy, not just private choices, to change Y.On Personal energy conservation in Houston posted 4 years, 1 month ago 4 Responses

Good Result, Bad Tactics

I'm no fan of 37, but I must say the rationale for striking it down seems bizarre. If a law intends to rectify a (supposed) injustice, then it makes perfect sense that it would define two classes of people -- those who suffered the injustice, and those who did not. If you bought your land after the land use restrictions were in place, you bought lower-value land (and presumably paid a price commensurate with that). The government hasn't taken any value away from you, so there's no injustice to rectify.On Oregon anti-land-use-planning measure ruled unconstitutional posted 4 years, 1 month ago 2 Responses

condescension

I agree with jdhlax that it's condescending to assume people vote for Bush merely because they're misinformed. But isn't it even more condescending to say that the other side's problem is that they lack maturity and need a parent to teach them to be responsible?On Cultural biases precede empirical facts; greens should fashion strategy accordingly. posted 4 years, 4 months ago 5 Responses

Good Reasons To Keep The Car

I don't think it's quite as bad as you make it out to be. Many people don't spend much time online in the first place, so giving it up wouldn't be a big deal. Perhaps more importantly, many people need their cars to survive -- between sprawl and our lousy public transportation system, giving up your car often means giving up your job.(I'm in the opposite situation -- I could get by without a car, but I need email for my job.)On 88 percent of Americans would rather give up email than car posted 4 years, 4 months ago 5 Responses

Accents

I don't know about the other cities, but Pittsburgh still has its own accent. Any book shop will have a whole section of tongue-in-cheek Pittsburghese dictionaries.On Urban musings. posted 4 years, 5 months ago 2 Responses

Don't get your hopes up

I've only read the couple paragraphs you posted, but already I'm very skeptical. Particularly given China's involvement, I expect this to be a very top-down and symptom-focused project. Such things almost always end in tears.On International group attempts to tame China's dustbowl. posted 4 years, 5 months ago 2 Responses

depends on your goals

How much you focus on charismatic species depends on the rationale for conservation. If you're conserving because of the intrinsic value of nature or in order to maintain ecosystem services, the "motivation, "keystone species," and "ease of monitoring" arguments are your central terrain. But if you're conserving nature because of its aesthetic value to humans (a not uncommon motivation, even if it doesn't get much philosophical respect), then the very likeability of charismatic species is reason enough to focus on preserving them. Similarly, if you're conserving nature because of its economic tourism value, charismatic species will by definition be bigger visitor draws.On Charismatic animals get all the love. posted 4 years, 6 months ago 3 Responses

Framing vs spin

I think conflating "framing" with "spin" is exactly what makes pop-Lakoffism so appealing. It's nice to hear what sounds like an academic stamp of approval for the feeling that Republicans engage in rhetorical dirty tricks while liberals are hampered by our tendency to stick to the high road of telling the plain truth and facts.On Framing posted 4 years, 8 months ago 1 Response

incompetence and malice

So not only are the Republicans dedicated to giving handouts to industry, but they're failing at it.On More Wolfowitz, more oil, more looney-tunes posted 4 years, 8 months ago 4 Responses

too reactive?

I've always thought "enviro" was silly-sounding, so I'd vote to change it on that basis. But I'm wary of being too reactive to the other side's framing -- "if they want to call us 'enviros', then we have to do the opposite!"On Do you hate the word "enviros"? posted 5 years ago 13 Responses