Thursday, 02 Feb 2006

Feds Say the Darnedest Things

Bush's quasi-bold pronouncements on oil prompt criticism, backpedaling

In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Bush declared that "America is addicted to oil" and that he would "make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past." Within 24 hours, fiasco ensued. Saudi Arabia's ambassador said he would ask Bush, ahem, "what he exactly meant by that." Oil industry lobbyists squealed; libertarians nigh fainted. Energy experts (read: the literate) pointed out that most of the R&D programs mentioned in the speech -- "clean coal," nuclear, wind, solar, etc. -- are designed to generate electricity and wouldn't have any effect on oil consumption. And to cap off the furor with appropriate absurdity, administration officials said Bush's declaration that the U.S. would cut its Middle East oil imports 75 percent by 2025 was not meant to be taken literally. It was meant to dramatize the issue in a way "every American sitting out there listening to the speech understands." So ... lies lead to understanding. We're starting to get the whole WMD thing!


Think you know all there is to know about the man once mocked as "Al Bore"? Think again. At the recent Sundance Film Festival, audiences got an eyeful of a new man with a powerful message: "Dudes, we've gotta do something about climate change, yo." And, believe it or not, the documentary about Gore's climate quest was a smash hit. Meanwhile, another green documentary made its world premiere, a whodunit entitled Who Killed the Electric Car? Addiction to oil, us? Nah.

Who Moved My Panther?

Endangered Florida panthers must be relocated to be saved, say feds

South Florida has run out of room for its 80-odd endangered panthers, says the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the best way to save the species is to move some of them to other spots in the region. In its official panther recovery report, released this week, the agency recommends creating two additional panther populations in states such as Arkansas and Georgia. (Arkansas has already said no thanks.) The FWS removed a section of the report that critiqued the weakness of current rules to protect panther habitat, and it doesn't plan to alter current land-management practices. Federal panther expert Andy Eller says the FWS itself is a major reason Florida panthers are on the brink. Eller blew the whistle on the agency two years ago for intentionally using flawed scientific data to allow overdevelopment in crucial panther habitat, saying officials didn't want to irk powerful political contributors by blocking their building permits.


Agri-biz giant Archer Daniels Midland had a barn-burner of a quarter, sending its stock price to an all-time high. Why is the "Exxon of corn" doing so well? Why, your tax dollars, of course! The federal government shovels billions of dollars of subsidies at field corn; ADM grows it. The government's sugar quota artificially raises the price of sugar; ADM makes high-fructose corn syrup. And now the government is jacking up subsidies to ethanol, and guess where most of that comes from? Corn. ADM thanks you, Americans, for your support. Tom Philpott investigates in Gristmill.

This Global Thing Is Everywhere!

Weird weather is messing with marine ecosystems along the West Coast

Tens of thousands of starved seabirds washed up on West Coast beaches last spring, and researchers are blaming -- surprise! -- above-normal ocean temperatures and weird weather and wind patterns. Half of the auklets in California's Farallon Islands didn't even try to breed last spring, and those that tried started late. One colony of birds in Washington state fledged 88 chicks instead of the usual 8,000. And it's not just birds that have been suffering as ocean temperatures along the Pacific coast have risen the last three years. Populations of salmon, rockfish, and whales also seemed out of whack, and squid and plankton local to California showed up on Northwest beaches. "There are all these unconnected reports of biological failures," said John McGowan of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif. Researchers are now working on scientific papers that will document their findings -- and looking warily ahead to see what will happen this coming spring.

Bullied Pulpit

Evangelical association decides not to fight global warming after all

You know all the fuss this past year over the evangelical Christian community becoming a powerful partner in the fight against climate change? Well, never mind. The 30-million-member National Association of Evangelicals had been expected to issue a public statement on the dangers of global warming, marking a potentially fatal rift in the right-leaning coalition of climate-change humbugs, but yesterday the organization said it's been unable to reach consensus on the issue and thus won't take a stand. The change of course came after NAE President Ted Haggard received a sternly worded letter last month from 22 Bush-friendly evangelical leaders, including James Dobson, pointing out that "Bible-believing evangelicals ... disagree about the cause, severity, and solutions to the global-warming issue." The subtext: Let's not forget on which side our bread is buttered. Amen.