Send your question to Umbra!

Q. Dear Umbra,

Lately I have been traveling a lot for work. This has made me seriously consider buying offsets for these trips. I know that it is better to not travel at all, but outside of quitting my job I can't get around it. I have considered spending money on projects around the house to lessen my footprint, but using a carbon offset seems to give you more bang for the buck. My question is, are these offsets really helping or should I save my money for a bigger ticket item like a solar water heater?

Kevin E.
Raymond, Wash.

A. Dearest Kevin,

Or you could find another way to go.What an elegant weaving together of our two most recent discussions, on carbon offsets and solar water heaters. Bonus points for you!

As we discussed last week (don't I sound like your mom or dad? was there a discussion, or just a monologue?), it may be most helpful to think of personal offsets as a contribution to a renewable energy project. In the best-case scenario -- with all the usual caveats about sussing out the quality of the offset here -- offsets help support renewable energy. This is good, because we do need more renewables capacity on our electric grid, people in deforested areas need solar ovens, landfill methane should be captured, wind turbines should be built, etc. However! Remember that voluntary offsets do not erase, vacuum up, cancel out, or otherwise negate the actual emissions you produce.

As we also discussed last week, solar water heaters are a proven, easily adopted technology that can make a real difference in your home emissions, replacing up to 70 percent of your water heater's footprint with galaxy-derived, renewable, carbon-neutral energy.

If we consider your travel emissions as but a subset of your total life emissions, it may help you see a bit more clearly how to choose a compensatory action. Installing a solar water heater, or any equivalent proven environmental home investment, will reduce your actual total emissions. The actual amount of greenhouse gases for which you are personally responsible -- Kevinpogenic greenhouse gases -- will shrink. Achieving this real shrinkage is what I would recommend.

I'm not alone, either. Voluntary climate offset advisories recommend the same, including the Stockholm Environment Institute, Suzuki Foundation, Environmental Defense Fund ... Do what you can to improve your personal footprint. This, by the way, should include discussing with your employer whether there are ways to reduce the amount you travel, or reduce the impact of your travel. You haven't said much about where you go, or why, or how you get there, but there may be creative solutions that could help -- carpool, or conference call, or even train instead of plane.

If you still must travel for work and if you have money left after you take more concrete emissions-reduction steps at home, by all means support renewable energy projects via offsetting or other methods. Vocally supporting a solid national cap and trade program, and your regional climate plan, are also vital actions that shouldn't cost you much money at all.

Umbrapogenically,
Umbra

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Q. Dear Umbra,

Like any married couple, my husband and I occasionally fantasize about what we'll do with our life in our retirement years. We've had the typical RV fantasy as we do love to travel, but we worry about the gas consumption and resulting emissions that would come of that route. We could tour around in our Prius and stay at budget hotels (and probably break even monetarily), but we're concerned with their poor laundering, heating/cooling and other consumption choices. Of course we love foreign travel, but the emissions from airplanes are hard to justify, even with purchasing carbon offsets. Any ideas for environmental friendly travel in our golden years?

Kristina F.
Richland, Wash.

A. Dearest Kristina,

Dare to dream.I fantasize about sitting still in a comfy chair and occasionally jumping in to nearby water. Then napping. Totally low carbon. Also perhaps boring after a few days, and thus not suitable for the long years of retirement. I hope you get to retire soon, in full health, at a young age, and since we can't know what the future will bring in terms of U.S. high-speed electric trains and transoceanic solar hydrofoils, today's answer will assume said near-term retirement.

Lo and behold, my adored Union of Concerned Scientists has addressed this issue in a lovely way with their "Getting There Greener: The Guide to Your Lower-Carbon Vacation." Included in this fabulously simple and easy to understand guide is a ranking of better to worse travel choices, based on number of people travelling and distanced travelled. My UCS (mwah!) suggests that two people travelling economy class on an airplane can be climate-preferable to two people driving. It does depend on the distance, so don't just read that sentence and go book a flight. Download the guide. Pass it around at work.

The marvelous guide also underlines the environmental superiority of the long-haul bus, followed closely by the train. The bus is germane to your retirement plans, as you live in the United States, and it's not probable that you would move to Europe for retirement and take lots of trains. As you plan your travel, remember the possibility of the bus.

Forget worrying about the hotels and their facilities. They have an economy of scale similar to a small apartment building and may be more environmentally efficient, on a per-person basis, than your house. And some hotels are making greener choices -- research that ahead of time, if you can, and feel free to discuss it with Ye Olde Innkeeper if you land in a place that's not aware of the beauty of reusing towels.

Many people enjoy group tours, which should be fuel-efficient by definition, or bicycle tours that take you from spot to spot. You may have fun, as I did, searching "low carbon travel" on the internets. Much of what I turned up was European, but that's charming enough, and there were many tips on getting around without an airplane, where one might best do so, and how much fun one might have. Here is an entire site about linking mass transit options in several U.S. cities.

Whatever you end up doing, I stand by my time-tested vacation advice: It's not necessary to constantly move about when you go to "see" a place. If you decide that your dream trip involves flying, then fly -- you can see by the comments on my last column that flying for fun is not something people are going to give up easily. But after you get to the location, find creative, culturally appropriate ways to get around that are low-carbon. And stay in place a little once you get there, in a comfy chair. It'll probably be fun.

Relaxedly,
Umbra

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What's missing from this Wall Street Journal article about expensive taxpayer-funded congressional travel to exotic locations?  The fact that seven of the 10 representatives who spent about half a million bucks to go see climate-change-addled penguins actually voted against the House bill that seeks address the concern.

Despite jetting to New Zealand and the South Pole to observe the impacts of climate change (in some cases, with spouses in tow), the following representatives voted against the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill:

Bob Inglis (R-S.C.)
Frank Lucas (R-Okla.)
Charlie Melancon (D-La.)
Randy Neugebauer (R-Texas)
Mike Ross (D-Ark.)
Adrian Smith (R-Neb.)
John Tanner (D-Tenn.)

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Q. Dear Umbra,

We have to move a small apartment from New York to LA. We can rent a diesel truck that gets 8-12 mpg (yikes -- but the best we could find) OR sell the furniture, ship some stuff, and fly. Both options are about the same price, but which is more environmentally friendly (considering airplane pollution, waste of dumping and buying new stuff)? Is there any other cheap and green solution? Much obliged!

Sarah
New York

A. Dearest Sarah,

Are you chasing your dream of making it in show business, or just trying to get out of the rain?

Don't forget the kitty.mava via flickrThere are a lot of solutions, some greener, who knows if they'll be cheaper, and only you will know if they're palatable. "Green" moving companies have come into existence since we last touched upon this hassle-filled topic, and there are also interesting shipping and personal travel options you did not mention.

For example, have you considered the train for your stuff and yourselves? Amtrak travel between New York City and Los Angeles will in theory take three days. When I accessed the fare finder, two people in coach cost $386. Your stuff can also travel by train, separately from you if you wish; you need only pack it in boxes 3'x3'x3' or smaller, weighing 50 pounds or less, and get it to an approved receiving Amtrak station. Greyhound also ships boxes and travels across country at a much lower greenhouse gas cost than air or private car. Both Amtrak and Greyhound are generally held to be cheaper than shipping via UPS or FedEx or USPS. Naturally you should doublecheck. We do know that train and inter-city bus are both environmentally better than flying or diesel trucks.

Another option you should certainly look into is a pod -- these freight containers are rented out by several companies now. They can fit quite a bit of furniture, and get loaded onto a truck with other people's pods. It's like carpooling for your stuff! The companies often offer storage at one end of your move or both, for a small additional fee. Once your pod is safely on its way, you could make your way across the country by train, bus, or bicycle -- whatever method you see fit.

I would characterize the selling/buying furniture question as a financial rather than environmental issue. If you so easily are able to sell your old stuff and buy new, and are interested in an affordable move, I assume we are dealing in used furniture. Selling old used furniture and buying new used furniture is just a rotation of furniture. Except the mattress. Here's your opportunity to buy a PBDE-free mattress.

To answer your basic question about which form of transport out of your original two choices is preferable, we'll have to go with the diesel truck. But remember, the train will be faster than driving, as well as more pleasant and environmentally preferable. I hope it will work for you.

Raily,
Umbra

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Here’s how to fix the climate: Take trips that are quite fancy.
In the mood for Chinese? Bag Beijing with John and Nancy.
Hit London, why don’t Chu, or give a crepe with Todd.
Just don’t think of your carbon trail, and make your peace with ... dog.

A wing and a player.beigeinside via flickr

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Cop a ride to COP-15...Photo illustration by Tom Twigg / Grist
So you’re going to Copenhagen to help save the planet. Splendid! This December the city will host the United Nations Climate Change Conference, where international delegates will negotiate a post-Kyoto Protocol global climate plan. That’s the hope, anyway. Earlier we posted some tips and ideas for finding lodging the in Danish capital, but what about getting there?

Jet travel emits a tremendous amount of carbon dioxide, of course. And for non-European attendees, it’s pretty much the only option. So what’s a delegate/activist/NGO rep/journalist/gadfly to do?

Erik Nelson of environmental travel site Better World Club offered this insider tip: You pretty much have to fly. But! If you have the time, ships might be a low-impact alternative. See The Cruise People LTD for leads on both cruise and commercial ships. Even Nelson, whose site is sort of a green AAA, hadn’t heard of many folks doing this. But it’s possible.

For everyone else, the trip likely involves an arrival at Copenhagen Airport, Kastrup (CPH), the city’s main airport and Scandinavia’s busiest. The city is also well-connected to the rest of continental Europe by rail, if you find it more convenient to fly elsewhere.

More than 70 airlines fly to Copenhagen, according to Skyscanner.net. Most of the ones that fly from the U.S. are searchable on the usual flight search aggregators—Expedia, Orbitz, Kayak, Priceline.

Better World Club has its own flight-finder, powered by Orbitz, that makes it easy to buy carbon offsets when you book. It’s also got a carbon calculator to estimate the impact of flights, though finding the actual impact isn’t simple. For those (understandably) wary about the legitimacy of carbon offsets, check out this Grist guide to offsets.

And if you’re hell-bent against flying, a few other possibilities:

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Q. Dear Umbra,

Nice column on elevators. Since most elevators are counterbalanced, there is much less energy use involved than most people would expect. It's nice to see the addition of hybrid technology to recapture the braking energy, though. On the other hand, those ESCALATORS ..... ! I have seen a "smart" escalator in Europe that only operates when there is someone around to use it, rather than going and going all day even when there's no one around. I wish they would make it to the States.

BTW, since you are a writer and obviously not "in the dark," shouldn't you be called "Penumbra"?

Peter
Boston, Mass.

A. Dearest Peter,

While I appreciate your wordplay, a penumbra obscures things. Hopefully that is not my role. Though I'm not sure I have a ton of light to shed on the world of escalators. Other than, of course, advising all readers against installing escalators inside their homes.

Better escalate than never?Eric and Deanna Pesik via flickrLet's start with some good news: The "smart" escalators you have seen, which are also known as intermittent escalators and are in wide use in both Europe and Asia, are indeed beginning to make it to the States. New York City got a special permit to start using them last summer, and installed 35 test units in various subway stations. When no one is riding, these escalators move at 15 feet per minute; a few seconds after a rider steps on the bottom stair, the speed increases to 100 feet per minute.

You might like some germane energy-use stats. A 2004 report from Congress tells us that the 30,000 escalators in the U.S. use enough energy to power 375,000 homes (i.e., 2.6 billion KwH). The cost to continuously run these escalators is an estimated $260 million a year. The use of intermittent escalators can save 40 to 50 percent of this energy, as well as reducing wear and tear on escalator parts. As a result of its findings, Congress required that any new escalator "acquired for installation in a Federal building shall be an intermittent escalator." There you are -- your wish will potentially be coming true in federal buildings as well as in the bowels of the Big Apple.

As for the rest of us: It makes sense to use the stairs instead of the escalator, whenever the choice is presented. Firstly, it is good for us to make physical efforts up staircases (unless prohibited by preexisting health conditions). Secondly, logic says it must take slightly more energy for the internal gears of an escalator to move each additional riding person. Thirdly, an unused escalator is a strange, ghostly phenomenon, and leaving it behind us as we pass through a building can only make us feel happy.

Strangely,
Umbra

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We first profiled Summer Rayne Oakes in 2006, introducing readers to a belly-baring, sludge-loving 22-year-old with “superhuman ambition” and a moniker that was just too fitting to be made up. Since then, Oakes has been a loyal friend to Grist; she’s done occasional fashion blogging for us, and she participated in one of our fundraising appeals. Now, a month shy of her 25th birthday, she’s almost too busy to breathe. This spring saw the launch of a shoe line and a book, and she has spoken at venues ranging from the Fashion Institute of Technology to the Fair Trade Expo in Hong Kong. Press coverage is exploding—her website gives just a taste—and an article in The New York Times mentioned her in the same breath as Al Gore. Well, almost.

Summer Rayne OakesDespite this astonishing comet ride, Oakes seems to remain approachable, accessible, and down-to-earth—about as far from the stereotype of a fashion model as you can get. Try as we might to find a reason not to engage in unabashed fawning, it’s tough; she works her photogenic butt off, and about the only dirt the web reveals is that she’s occasionally Photoshopped. Shocker!

In short, the ambitious Oakes is putting a good face on green. To find out what the future holds, we fired a few questions her way.

Q. In April, you launched a shoe line with Payless. Can you tell us a little bit about your work on the line, and why it’s important to you to make sustainability affordable?

A. Payless are incredible partners to work with because they are really into this. They’ve figured out how to democratize fashion in the footwear industry, with design partnerships like Lela Rose, Patricia Field and most recently with Project Runway’s Christian Siriano. But this is really the first step for them on the sustainability front.

This is also the first time they’ve had a person come in both as the strategist and face for a brand, which is one of the things that I really love about my work. You get to wear different hats and truly feel a part of something.

She’s got sole and she’s super glad.PaylessI’ve been involved on a number of levels, including idea building and strategy, messaging, sourcing and design ... This is definitely not a flash-in-the-pan-brand. We’re building it into a lifestyle brand equipped with awareness campaigns, and it heartens us to see that it’s selling really well just out of the gates. That sends a message back to the company about what is important to consumers. Believe me, we’re listening!

I was just telling some environmental journalists the other day ... that I love the fact that this brand touches so many different demographics. I was chatting with some women from the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico who will be getting the brand in their hometowns in June and September, respectively. They were so excited about what this brand was about. This is the first time they were really hearing the term “green” and seeing something “more sustainable, fashionable, and affordable.” I can equate it to the energy that Americans had in the green space back in 2006, 2007. It’s new, it’s fresh, it’s exciting, and most of all, it’s within reach.

Q. Tell us about your book, which also debuted this spring, and what kind of reaction you’re getting.

A. Style, Naturally is a global guide to sustainable fashion and beauty. I wrote it for women who love style, but may not have “green” or “environment” in their lexicon. It’s all a part of my vision to keep the movement in a forward-moving direction. I thought, why write another green book for green people? Why not make a style book that is invisibly green? For instance, my book is sold as a “Lifestyle” book, not a “Green” book, at Barnes&Noble. I just went there the other day and saw it sitting next to Harper’s Bazaar‘s new book and The Lucky Style Guide. That’s exactly where it should be.

I’m getting good feedback about the book from all over, but I’m making a really big effort. We’ve launched it in ten countries—from Canada to the U.K.; Singapore to Indonesia; U.S. to Australia and New Zealand and many places in between—and I’m making an effort to go to all those countries, not only to promote the book, but to really get a feel for what’s happening on the ground there, see where the media and culture is on the environmental front, forge new alliances, and see what information I can bring back.

Q. Over the last couple of years, you’ve gotten more prominent, even being mentioned as a back-up speaker for those who can’t swing Al Gore’s fee. What’s that like, and what type of audience is your favorite?

A. Yah, that was a real honor—you know, to be mentioned side-by-side to Al Gore’s message. And it’s true, you know: In this economy, it’s hard to swing some of those speaker’s fees now that attendance is down. I’ve spoken at a lot of venues—from the World Trade Organization to boards of advisors of fashion houses to green conferences—but I most like speaking to college students. There is something about coming in to a group of students, who are about the same age, and just being real with them.

It’s awesome that people have begun recognizing my work, but it’s been a steady climb for me over all the years. Almost like an ascent up a mountain where you can stop and catch your breath along the way; enjoy being outdoors; squint your eyes and see the summit; and most important, look to the foothills and clearly see where you’ve started. I guess what I’m trying to say is I’ve never forgotten about where I’ve come from and where I am going—and I think that is an important message to convey, especially to my peers.

Q. You’ve said “swapping is the new shopping”—has that gotten you any flack from the fashion world?

A. I think the fashion world has got bigger problems to worry about.

Q. What are some upcoming projects for you in the next year?

A. Finishing up the book tour and travels, experiencing life a little, building a B2B and B2C sustainable design site, doing a soft launch for the a.d. schwarz label in the next few weeks, and heading out to Africa [with them] in the fall, trying to get a Pennsylvania Clean Energy Council off the ground, which is proving to be difficult due to lack of time, and gearing up later this year for some on-camera work with Planet Green. I think that’s enough. My blood pressure just rose a few points after reading all this stuff over.

Q. What’s one non-green habit you just can’t shake?

A. Do you consider travel non-green? I project my carbon footprint for the year (I know, a tad nerdy) and calculate how many trees we’ll plant in Mozambique at the Mezimbite Forest Centre, where the line a.d. schwarz is from.

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Pay a lot, get a little?Hawaiian AirlinesYesterday I was on New Hampshire Public Radio’s Word of Mouth, and another segment near mine caught my eye. (Ear?) It was about the psychology of green decision-making, pivoting off a Richard Conniff piece on behavioral economics. (Which dropped at the same time as the related New York Times Magazine piece on decision science, but doesn’t seem to be directly connected.) Without getting all wonk-tastic, the idea is that we don’t do green stuff because it’s good for the planet. We do green stuff when we get rewarded, or when we think our peers are doing it.

It’s not all that surprising a concept, I guess, but I still find it fascinating. And I thought of it again today, when I saw these stories:

Hm, a big discount for a green choice or paying instead of getting something for free ... which of these most appeals to the brain?

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Ted Turner has always been -- for better and for worse -- a head turner. He revolutionized media with the first cable news station, CNN. He gave a cool billion to the United Nations. He won the America's Cup. He married Jane Fonda. He bought the Atlanta Braves. He earned the moniker "Mouth of the South" for calling Ash Wednesday observers "Jesus freaks," pro-lifers "bozos," and Christianity "a religion for losers."

Turner has been equally brazen when it comes to the environment. He bought up some 2 million acres of land in Western and Plains states, making him the nation's biggest individual landowner, and put much of it under a conservation easement. He launched a personal crusade to restore America's bison and prairie-dog populations. He funded a controversial project to wipe out non-native fish in a stream on his Montana ranch and re-introduce endangered native westslope cutthroat trout.

Turner, now 70, no longer owns CNN and has lost a fair bit of his fortune in recent years, but that hasn't curbed his ambitions. In October, he announced a U.N.-backed project to establish a global gold standard for environmentally sustainable and culturally sensitive tourism. In November, he published his memoir, Call Me Ted: The Life and Times of Ted Turner, chronicling his superlative feats as a businessman and philanthropist. Just after the election, in the pages of The Washington Post, he called on President-elect Barack Obama to make climate-change solutions his top priority and "remake the vast systems that power the nation and the world."

I phoned up Turner recently at his Atlanta office to ask about his push for sustainable tourism, his advice for Obama, and his soft spot for prairie dogs.

Hi, Mr. Turner.

Call Me Ted, by Ted Turner and Bill Burke.

You can call me Ted.

Is that a book plug, or are you just being friendly?

Yes, it's a book plug. That's the way I do things.

Tell me about the Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria that you announced in Barcelona recently. Why is this an important benchmark?

The United Nations is very concerned about the global environment, and protecting World Heritage Sites is particularly important. There's a lot of pressure on places like the Galapagos Islands, and it was really necessary to have some tourism standards so that these sensitive areas don't get trashed.

How will the standards affect tourists and tourism?

From what I've heard and what I've read, they're not difficult to be in compliance with. These are good, common-sense standards that the people in the tourist industry have pretty much endorsed close to 100 percent. They want to protect these sites too because it's their livelihood and they care about it. It's a win-win situation for everybody.

You've said that "sustainability is just like the old business adage, 'You don't encroach on the principal, you live off the interest.'" Can you explain that adage a bit further, and how it relates to sustainability?

Those words you just said are pretty self-explanatory.

A top EPA official once told me she believes that Adam Smith's invisible hand has a green thumb -- that environmental protection and free-market forces are inherently compatible. As an avid capitalist and devout environmentalist, do you agree?

I'd like to think so, but it really depends. I don't think that's universally true, but it's more true now than it was even a year ago because more and more corporations are turning green. Even News Corp. -- Rupert Murdoch came out a few months ago saying that he was going to take News Corp. green. Of course Wal-Mart has gone very green and so has General Electric. It's certainly an encouraging trend. If we destroy the environment, we're going to destroy ourselves.

You're a big fan of clean energy. What do you think are the most promising low-carbon technologies on the horizon?

I think it's going to take a number of different technologies. The two that I think have the greatest potential at this point with the technology where it is today are solar and wind. But I also want to see more research done into geothermal because there's a virtually unlimited supply of heat beneath the surface of the Earth that can be tapped. We just need to figure out how to get down to it economically enough to make it feasible. There are others like tidal energy that are very promising too.

Are there clean-energy companies you're placing bets on?

I have a multi-million-dollar investment in First Solar.

In a Washington Post piece, you proposed that President-elect Obama establish a National Energy Council in the White House. What would it do?

We're heavily subsidizing the fossil-fuel industry, which needs to be phased out. The people who use fossil fuel should pay the full cost of it. What tax breaks and incentives there are should go for the new renewable, locally produced energy that creates jobs here in the United States. That keeps the money in our own economy, because we're just bankrupting ourselves, as Boone Pickens says, by spending three-quarters of a trillion dollars a year importing foreign oil.

We've got to have a new digital [electrical] grid that goes from coast to coast and border to border to move this new energy around. The best place to build solar panels is in the Southwest -- Arizona, New Mexico, Southern California, and southern Nevada -- but we've got to move it all the way across the country to New York and Boston. And then the best place for wind power, and where it's the least disruptive, is out on the Great Plains, and we've got to be able to move that electricity generated from wind power to the major population centers as well. And we need a new grid anyway; the grid we have now is over 100 years old, and it's decrepit.

Do you want to see mandatory greenhouse-gas restrictions in this country?

I would like to see them. I think the situation with global climate change is a life-or-death issue for us that we have to get on right away. Even if global warming [science] is wrong for some reason, at least we get clean air out of it. And [a clean-energy economy] will employ millions. All the people employed who are going to be let go when the auto industry goes bankrupt will be able to find good, high-paying jobs building windmills. We'll be moving from subsidizing a dying smokestack industry to going to clean, renewable electrical power, locally produced. It will be terrific for our economy.

But I think it's going to be very difficult to do. I am concerned that we won't do the right thing here, especially being distracted by this unfortunate downturn in the economy. I just don't want us to take our eye off this ball, because it's really a matter of human survival.

What do you think is the single biggest environmental problem after climate change?

Cutting down the rainforest. We're drawing on our environmental capital, and we do so at our peril because if the environment goes, we go.

You're the largest individual landowner in America. Tell me why you love the land and how you manage it.

I bought most of that land to increase the size of my bison herd. One of the things I want to do is bring back the bison. Prairie dogs too. I've got 45,000 bison, and I needed a lot of land for them to live on. The same with the prairie dogs -- I've got 250,000 prairie dogs now, approximately. Just a few years back, I only had a remnant population of them because genocide is being brought against the prairie dogs by the ranchers. They should be on the endangered species list, but they're still being classified as vermin and being slaughtered by poisoning, and shooting, and being mowed down.

Why did you decide to focus on bison and prairie dogs?

Because they're quintessential icons of America on the Great Plains. Along with them also are antelope, meadowlarks, rattlesnakes, and burrowing owls. There's a whole prairie ecosystem out here that has been largely destroyed by our cattle-ranching. By getting the bison back and giving all these little critters a place to live, we're bringing it back and maintaining it.

Your first word as a baby was "pretty," and it popped out when you saw a butterfly. What drew you to nature as a kid?

I was just born with a fascination for nature. As soon as I was able to look at and read books about nature, I did. I was fascinated by snakes and lizards and bugs and spiders and butterflies, and also the flowers and the plants and the trees.

What about now? What are your favorite natural places?

My favorite place: I have just one.

What's that?

Planet Earth. The whole place. I've been from the Arctic to the rainforest to the equator to the desert. I've been in over 70 countries. I love this world. I love the United Nations. I want to see humanity succeed, and learn to live in peace and harmony with the environment and each other.

Do you think we will?

Either we will or we're going to end up extinct. We've got to get rid of nuclear weapons. We've got to stop global warming. We've got to preserve the environment. We've got to eliminate poverty. We've got to stabilize the population with voluntary family planning. Half of the women in the world don't have equal rights to men and those are the most screwed-up parts of the world. Millions of women every year are still being mutilated by clitorectomies -- talk about brutality! There are a lot of things to be discouraged about. On the other hand, there's a lot to be encouraged about, too.

So what we've got to do is stop doing dumb things and start doing smart things. If we do that, we'll be fine. And if we go extinct, we deserved it.

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President Bush on Thursday signed a measure into law that provides some $13 billion to Amtrak and other passenger rail. The funding, which Bush originally opposed, is a companion piece to a railroad-safety bill; the legislation was pushed quickly through Congress after a Sept. 12 train collision in Los Angeles that killed 25 people and injured at least 130 more. Amtrak, which has been experiencing record ridership, will receive the $13 billion over five years, though Congress will have to approve the subsidy each year. By the by, for those paying attention to the presidential shenanigans: When the bill came up in the Senate, Barack Obama voted aye, John McCain voted nay, and regular Amtrak rider Joe Biden did not vote.

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Obama going to Copenhagen

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As commuters continue to look for alternatives to high gas prices, increasing numbers are choo-choo-choosing Amtrak. A record 28 million passengers are expected to ride the train this fiscal year compared to 25.8 million last year. The House and Senate have passed bills that could boost Amtrak's funding by 33 percent, which has Amtrak prez Alex Kummant saying he's "optimistic" about the rail service's future. But he warns that aging trains, dilapidated tracks, and overcrowding are concerns. Nearly $5 billion would be needed just to get infrastructure up to snuff along the heavily traveled Northeast Corridor.

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Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science

Taking another step toward complete indispensability, Google Maps on Tuesday became the first service of its kind to add walking directions. In addition to searches for car and transit travel, pedestrians -- and, hell, Segway-ers too -- can now find the most direct and flat route from Point A to Point B. The function works for trips up to 6.2 miles long, and recognizes that one-way streets only apply to the car-encased (suckas!). Searchers are advised to "use caution when walking in unfamiliar areas" as the directions, still in beta form, potentially lack information about pedestrian bridges, roads without sidewalks, or impassable intersections -- but they'll only improve from here. Now if Google would just add biking directions, we'd be set.

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Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

Fair, Ambitious & Binding: Essentials for a Successful Climate Deal

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