Supreme court weighs in on Exxon Valdez case

This should be an interesting case to watch. Justice Samuel Alito, who owns Exxon stock, is not taking part in the case. A 4-4 split on that or any issue would leave the appeals court ruling in place. If punitive damages are not harsh, this will send a signal to oil companies around the world that they can lower their standards for environmental safety. If Exxon is hurt in the wallet, then oil companies will exercise due diligence in their practices. Corporations are accountable to their shareholders and the only thing that influences their behavior is the bottom line. I'm sure that the neocons that have been trying to stack the courts are hoping their judges deliver along in accordance to the ideology that permeates the Bush administration.

Is NASA hiding the truth?

Dr. James Hansen

From Architecture 2030 :

A Global Emergency... and a Call to Action! Recently, it was reported in The New York Times that (it appears) procedures are being put in place at NASA to prevent "the public from fully grasping recent findings regarding climate change". This comes in response to a lecture recently delivered at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco by Dr. James Hansen, NASA's director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. In his lecture titled "Is There Time to Avoid 'Dangerous Anthropogenic Interference' With Global Climate?" Dr. Hansen presented two startling conclusions regarding recent research conducted at NASA.

Global Crop Diversity Trust

Europe is building an ark. A site to store all of the seeds on earth in the event the worse case scenario happens, what ever that happens to be. The US on the other hand is building a facility to store nuclear waste. Seems like there is something wrong with this picture.

Green Depot

Pick of the day! Green Depot.

Learn all about Environmental Living and Environmental building.

In good company, THOMAS FRIEDMAN agrees with me!

My husband sent me a copy of Friedman's June 3 Op-Ed piece. He essentially says the same thing I said in my last journal post. Green is going nowhere until our leaderless leaders stop chasing money and start providing leadership. I can see that I'm not the only one totally disgusted with our government!

Here's his Op-Ed piece.

June 3, 2007
Our Green Bubble
By THOMAS FRIEDMAN

Surely the most glaring contrast in American political life today is the amount of words, speeches and magazine covers devoted to the necessity of “going green,” “combating climate change” and gaining “energy security,” and the actual solutions being offered by our leaders to do any of these things. You could very comfortably drive a Hummer through the gap between our words and deeds.

We are playing pretend — which, when you think about it, is really troubling. Here are the facts: Our worst enemies, like Iran, have been emboldened by all their petrodollars. The vast majority of scientists tell us that global warming caused by our burning of fossil fuels is a real danger. And with three billion new consumers from India, Russia and China joining the world economy, it is inevitable that manufacturing clean, green power systems, appliances, homes and cars will be the next great global industry. It has to be, or we will not survive as a species.

And yet ... and yet our president and our Congress still won’t give us an energy bill that would create the legal and economic framework to address these issues at the speed and scale required.

If you were President Bush, wouldn’t you want to leave behind something big, bold and important on energy, just in case — you know, just in case — Iraq doesn’t turn out so well?

I sure would. But the president still has not challenged Congress or the country to undertake a radical departure on energy. So we still have only “energy politics,” not “energy policy.” Like previous energy bills, the packages working through the House and Senate today represent more “the sum of all lobbies,” as the energy expert Gal Luft, co-chairman of the Set America Free Coalition, puts it, not the sum of our best ideas.

Some lawmakers are pushing corn ethanol from Iowa, either because they hail from that area and are looking to give more welfare to farmers by wasting money on an alternative fuel that will never reach the scale of what is needed, or because they plan to run in the Iowa caucuses. Others are pushing huge subsidies to turn coal into gasoline, because they come from coal states. Those who don’t come from Michigan want higher mileage standards imposed on Detroit, while those who come from Michigan prefer to continue their assisted suicide of the U.S. auto industry by blocking tougher mileage requirements.

“The only green that they are serious about in Congress right now is the one with Ben Franklin’s picture on it,” Mr. Luft said.

Yes, it is helpful that Mr. Bush expressed a desire last week to work with other nations to limit greenhouse gases. His bully pulpit matters. But no one will — or should — take him seriously unless his government first leads by example. What would that look like? It has to start with a clear, long-term price signal. That is, a carbon tax or gasoline tax — or a cap and trade system with a binding national ceiling on carbon dioxide emissions — which would set a price for dumping carbon into the atmosphere or driving a gas-guzzling car.

Get Washington to signal that gasoline is never going to retreat from a level of $3.50 or $4 a gallon — and that wind and solar subsidies will be there for a decade, not stop and start as they always have before; get Washington to commit to buying a fixed volume of solar and wind power for government buildings and Army bases for 10 years, with only U.S.-based manufacturers able to compete for contracts; get Washington to set a new fleet average of 35 miles per gallon for Detroit within 10 years — with no loopholes; establish government loan guarantees for any company that wants to build a nuclear power plant; and, finally, build a national transmission grid — a green power superhighway — so that solar energy from Arizona or wind from Wyoming can power homes in Chicago. Do all that and our private sector will take America from green laggard to green leader.

Unfortunately, Congress is brewing instead a hodgepodge of incrementalism. This is particularly disappointing when America’s corporate icons — G.M., G.E., A.I.G., DuPont, PepsiCo — “have all come out in favor of a national mandatory limit on carbon emissions,” notes Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense. “But Democrats and Republicans in the Senate have not risen to their challenge.” (AMEN)

We have a multigenerational problem that requires a systemic, multigenerational response, and that can happen only if we get our energy prices right. Only that will guarantee green innovation and commercialization at scale. Anything less is wasted breath and wasted money — and any candidate who says otherwise is only contributing to global warming by adding hot air.

Where have the real leaders gone?

I am so discouraged. I have spent a week scouring the Internet, looking for real solutions for moving the planet away from “business as usual” to a more healthier and sustainable way of life. I’m looking for business champions that are helping people lower their carbon footprint, providing a way of reducing the chemicals we use every day and helping us find a better way to live on this planet

I see small groups of people trying to make a difference. But it is difficult to find publicly traded companies that are profitable and making their shareholders happy while producing goods and services that are not impacting the planet in a negative way. There are a few, but there are not nearly enough to make the difference that needs to be made in the amount of time we have to do it. This is why I believe it is the responsibility of governments to jump-start the process. Businesses are out there, risking everything with little assurances that the market will reward their efforts. Most people are not even aware of the real dangers that we face because they have been lied to by groups that have paid million of dollars to cloud the issues with media propaganda.

I think the neo-conservatives are wrong, wrong, wrong! Their idea is economic Darwinism, the strongest survive. They don’t care who wins or looses, its part of the natural law, they argue! I just don’t see how the momentum will change without a push from governments. And right now our government believes is laze-faire and would rather spend billions of dollars on a war for oil, than billions of dollars on finding a way to free ourselves from our dependency on foreign oil. It is the government’s responsibility and they are not leading our country in the right direction! That is for sure!