Comments wedjr has made

What to make of Bob Corker?

The Chattanoogan has Republican Senator Bob Corker saying this:

I could support a simple, transparent cap-and-trade system that focuses on auctioning emission allowances, returns all the revenue generated from those auctions to the American people, and doesn't allow loopholes such as offsets to weaken the market system.

"I also support exploring the concept of a carbon tax that returns all generated revenue to the American people as a more efficient and transparent way to address carbon emissions."

better term for the conference

laggards. From the rogers model for the adoption and  diffusion of innovation. On Manhattan Declaration disses IPCC, Gore, any attempts to reduce CO2 posted 1 year, 8 months ago 4 Responses

kicking our butts

On display, in the rejection this week of G8/EU climate policy positions, in the utterly bizarre sophistry from NASA Administrator Griffin, and in Bush's speech today, is well thought-out strategic communications plan to simultaneously reinforce the distrust of international agreements as unfair, reinforce doubt about human responsibility for climate change, and yet reinforce American leadership to address it. Nowhere in sight is a coordinated response from dysfunctional environmental and social justice communities. No one is connecting the dots, calling them out, exposing their strategy. No one is raising any kind of ruckus. The only conclusion to draw is that thee is no climate movement in this country, just an inchoate choir content to delude ourselves about progress through our daily fix of self-selected, self-reinforcing RSS feeds.  Where is the coordinated action? Where is the "movement's" rapid response team? Where is the full-page ad in tomorrows WSJ screaming "HOW DARE YOU, PRESIDENT BUSH!" signed by real leaders? We are being totally outflanked.On Shockingly, it's the same as the old climate strategy posted 2 years, 6 months ago 10 Responses

Stephanie's Magic Words

Dead Zone. Petro-based dead zone at that. A little bit of systems thinking would go a long way.On Unintended or not, the consequences were predictable posted 2 years, 8 months ago 23 Responses

on the record

I'm troubled by two things:

1. That Congressman Issa was able to put forth the notion that mitigating greenhouse gas emissions would cost the nation 350 billion dollars and that it was repeated as gospel by others. This is the company line: that the cost of solving the problem is worse than the problem itself. It flies in the face of even the White House's own emphasis on investing in technological solutions and finding markets for them, what Connaughton called a "windfall" for California.
   
2. That nuclear energy is emissions free.

Urgency

I'm really appreciative of the tone of the conversation and the reinforcements of the general sense I get (admittedly spending too much time with the choir) that we are moving steadily into an era of sober awareness of the task at hand.

We want to be doing things that enable Americans to look back at us 50 year from now to say "Thank God they got their act together" rather than looking back to say "what in God's Name were they thinking."

Thanks for your excellent work, Dave and Andy.
Will
 On The supposed 'middle way' is debunked posted 2 years, 11 months ago 39 Responses

business call

Thanks for the heads up on this. I've looked through it pretty carefully (but 150 pages is really daunting). The most impressive aspect for me is the clarion call for governments to provide clear signals and policies so companies do not have to strike our on their own, which they will only do with great timidity. (Another really good article on the need for government intervention <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6067960.stm>. What is not readily apparent is a clear picture of scale of reductions and if they approach anywhere near the kinds of reductions (80%) industrialized countries need to be working towards. The report makes it clear that the coming years -- when Congress will have to get involved -- are critical to shaping policy with teeth. This sense of urgency is behind both the Decade of Education <http://www.uspartnership.org> and Focus the Nation <http://www.focusthenation.org>)On A report shows how big businesses are preparing posted 3 years, 1 month ago 1 Response

What Crisis?

I am also amazed that bigtime journalists still can't connect the dots between oil consumption and the climate challenge. The New York Times (reg.req) didn't, nor did Forbes, which was pretty much downright giddy about it.On Vast untapped oil reserve discovered in the Gulf of Mexico posted 3 years, 2 months ago 15 Responses

totally

TX, not love, is a battleground.On National efforts to cut GHG emissions will suffer posted 3 years, 2 months ago 5 Responses

Hold On

Interesting comments. Sure wish I could get all excited about them. And I'd sure love to see and attributable quote regarding Climate change is in fact happening, and that carbon emissions from energy consumption is a significant contributor but somehow I don't think one will show up on the Shell US site anytime soon. I'm hesitant especially in lieu of last week's announcement by US Interior Department to help Shell revisit the production of oil shale from the Green River Formation of Utah and Colorado. I'd also like to see a systemic consideration of the energy and water and environmental risk, including CO2 emissions, associated with harvesting, refining and burning the 800 BILLION barrels they are drooling over. Somehow, the statements don't jibe. Nor do these, from another speech by Hofmeister given last week:

Ladies and gentlemen, we need more oil and gas.

And right here in the U.S., there are 112 billion barrels of identified, recoverable oil...enough to produce gasoline for more than 60 million cars and heat for more than 25 million homes for 60 years.

And natural gas...there are 656 trillion cubic feet...enough to heat 60 million homes affordably for 160 years.

It's right here in the United States. But we can't get to it.

Presently, these oil and natural gas resources are off limits because they are beneath federal lands and, most particularly, in restricted areas of the Outer Continental Shelf. In fact, about 85% of the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf is currently off limits to production. And many of those offshore areas where we are currently drilling are nearing their life expectancy.(source)

in search of the forest

I personally think that as lists of priorities appear, we (those who care) fragment the message yet again with so many trees. For me, I've boiled it down to self-interest:prosperity, meaning, and security in my life and in the lives of those I care about are linked to the total well-being of the rest of the world. Policies, I suppose, might reflect this dependency.(Thanks to David Korten and Rob Walker for most of the words in my little tenet.) On Non-"environmental" environmental policies posted 3 years, 3 months ago 12 Responses

them is us

Only people assign and derive value from the activities of a business.

The human concept of value is expanding beyond merely economic benefit to social and environmental criteria.

We have to help people who shop at, invest in and lead the world's largest retailer increase their awareness of this evolved notion of value.

Approbation and reward, engagement and condemnation will have to continue -- hand in hand -- for a good long time.  On Wal-Mart is not a person posted 3 years, 3 months ago 17 Responses

flash

Kinda has a pacing porblem, for me. Love the good intentions though. As for viral flash, check out eclectech, especially the Gitmo song and ensure your place on an FBI watch list today!On Plug-in hybrids go viral posted 3 years, 8 months ago 6 Responses

Framing

Thanks, Dave, for keeping your eye on the ball. I just don't see a pol on either horizon who has bold transformative ideas or compelling frames...yet. The Dems are habitually reactive. Keep the faith. A great articulation of the leadership we need is from the 30 year update to Limits to Growth:
"The necessity of taking the industrial world to its next stage of evolution is not a disaster--it is an amazing opportunity. How to seize the opportunity, how to bring into being a world that is not only sustainable, functional, and equitable but also deeply desirable is a question of leadership and ethics and vision and courage..."
 http://www.sustainer.org/pubs/limitstogrowth.pdf

The vision is just hangin there for someone to grab.
On "Foreign oil" redux posted 4 years, 1 month ago 5 Responses

strict father, nurturant family

You're touching on the main themes of George Lakoff's work on values and framing the debate. Importantly he admits that all of us (men and women) are working from two competing sets of moral values, the strict father set or the nurturant parent set. They come into play in different situations in our lives. His contention is that the conservatives are very good at triggering the strict father value system in almost all of their communications especially come election time to support their strategic goals and their worldview. It's kind of must read stuff. You can buy his books, go to his think tank' s website or read essays all over the web, such as here.On Men posted 4 years, 3 months ago 10 Responses

time for commonground

Not your best work here. It's a mistake to assume that religeous belief is somehow automatically simplistic or unappreciative. It's a mistake as well to write about the" belief" of science. Belief is what you have chosen to put on trial here, so at least be consistent and say "the hope of science". Then the whole bit about complex and awe inspiring is just pretzel logic.  Don't give into stereotypes. You don't want to make an enemy of anyone who for any reason or belief system feels that life is sacred and precious. How many indigenous peoples have a firm grasp of evolution, yet we respect their creation traditions. Why not those of a simple Texan?  So sure, Bush is pushing a Biblical agenda, Call it and rise above it.
I've always had a problem with two words in Genesis: dominion and subdue.  Some may interpret these words as domination, subjegation, conquest, here for the taking. That's just narrowminded. More thoughtful and enligthened believers (yes, there are plenty of such creatures) feel differently. So the great opportunity is to disarm both sides of a futile culture war and move to a science/religion commoground around the concept of dominion as stewardship and responsibility.On Does respect for the former help the latter? posted 4 years, 3 months ago 21 Responses