TheGreenMiles.com

Republican Science Denial Hits New Low

noreply@blogger.com (Miles Grant) — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 17:59:00 +0000

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is a molecular biology denier.

GOP Rebranding: Gabriel Gomez Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Miles Grant) — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 22:11:00 +0000

Massachusetts Republican U.S. Senate candidate Gabriel Gomez says he's green!

That's it. That's the whole rebranding. Opposes climate action, just like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Supports building the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, just like House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH). Opposes Cape Wind, just like big polluting Republican bankrollers like the Koch brothers. Backs the same old oil-and-coal-above all energy policies that Tea Partiers do.

But did you hear the part about he SAID GREEN? Totally new and improved, you guys!

Fairhaven Joins Falmouth, Goes Full Crazy on Wind Turbines

noreply@blogger.com (Miles Grant) — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 20:47:00 +0000

Fairhaven has now joined Falmouth in having its government being taken over by wind hypochondriacs:

The Fairhaven Board of Health voted unanimously to shut down the town's two wind turbines between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. beginning tonight. The vote was made at a joint meeting of the boards of health and selectmen in a packed banquet room. After the three board members approved the motion to shut down the turbines at night, which was made by Chairman Peter DeTerra, the a roughly 30-person audience erupted in applause.

“It's time to let this town heal,” DeTerra said.

The turbines were recently found to be exceeding noise limits ... by less than 3 decibels. Three decibels is so small I don't even know how to describe it in words - it's like trying to describe the difference between 3/4 of an inch and one inch. The loudest turbine noise measured in Fairhaven was 12.9 decibels. A whisper in a quiet library from six feet away is 30 decibels.

The state's noise sampling is not even complete and there are simple fixes, like changing their angle to the wind, that can reduce the nighttime noise of wind turbines while still allowing them to collect lots of free clean energy. But this is not about logic! This is about rabid ideology, so we get the public policy equivalent of Walter Peck shouting SHUT IT OFF NOW in Ghostbusters.

A comprehensive state study found there is no scientific evidence wind turbines have any health effects. To be clear, I have no doubt people feel sick. But as one researcher put it, "only a tiny proportion of people living near turbines do actually complain and, when they do, the complaints coincide with campaigning from anti-wind groups." And in Fairhaven's case, many of the people complaining about the turbines are the same people who didn't want them built in the first place. Imagine that.

Much easier to measure is just how much this is going to cost Fairhaven taxpayers. Fairhaven makes $200,000 to $500,000 per year on the turbines - $100,000 per year in direct lease payments, along with $100,000 to $400,000 per year in energy savings. That's a ton of money anywhere, but in a town of 15,873 with per capita incomes and property values that lag well behind the state averages, that is an absolute boatload of money. And that doesn't even begin to count the savings of switching from dirty energy to clean energy, like fewer asthma attacks and lower climate-disrupting carbon pollution.

Anti-wind activists spent heavily to fund candidates in recent town elections backed by the wind hypochondria group Windwise (motto: "None of us are out there with cleavers hacking off bird heads to make a point."). In general, setting local election dates in springtime is done with low turnout in mind to let hardcore activists have a louder voice in local decision-making, and it worked in Fairhaven's case, with a turnout of just 20%.

Note today's vote was held while most town residents were at work or school in front of only a few dozen people. But calling all this a success for anti-wind activists implies there was even a fight - just as in Falmouth, the traditional pro-wind coalition of conservationists and the wind industry has refused to fight entirely. Unless clean energy supporters are willing to take some heat from the fringe by pointing out publicly that "wind turbine syndrome" is usually code for "I don't like looking at them and I REALLY don't like any change at all in my community," what's good for our economy, energy security & public health will keep taking a back seat to NIMBYs.

UPDATE 6/11: Just saw this op-ed from Gordon L. Deane, president of Palmer Capital Corporation in Cohasset, on how wind hypochondriacs have bullied Fairhaven's reasonable majority into silence.

Greenpeace Rips Canada For Funding More Tar Sands Promos (Video)

noreply@blogger.com (Miles Grant) — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 20:54:00 +0000

Can you believe Canada is spending $16 million this year on television advertisements trying to convince people that tar sands aren't as environment-destroying and climate-disrupting as you think? Learn more at Greenpeace Canada:

Proof Republicans Aren't Pro-Business: Tesla Motors

noreply@blogger.com (Miles Grant) — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 19:52:00 +0000

The Green Miles doesn't hate Republicans. I don't! I respect principled conservatives, like former Senators Bob Dole or John Warner.

What I hate are Republican politicians who claim to be pro-business or anti-regulation, when really they're willing to do whatever it takes to protect powerful special interests.

Case in point: Republicans doing auto dealers' bidding by blocking Tesla's efforts to sell cars directly to consumers in North Carolina and Texas. It's not about growing the economy or creating jobs or any other GOP tropes. It's using the law to shield existing businesses from an upstart business that would save consumers money. In effect, the Republican lawmakers' actions constitute a tax on consumers that subsidizes auto dealers.

Drought, Gas-Fired Power Plant Nearly Snuff Out Providence Waterfire

noreply@blogger.com (Miles Grant) — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 13:52:00 +0000

With southern New England in a mild drought and Providence River water needed to cool Dominion's natural gas-fired Manchester Street Power Station, last week Providence's famed WaterFire had to ditch the gondolas:

Organizers of the popular public art display, featuring small bonfires on rivers in downtown Providence, say Friday night's partial WaterFire lighting in the Waterplace Park Basin will be done by volunteers in waders. Typically, boaters keep the flames lit, and Friday's plans called for the city's hurricane barrier to be closed to ensure sufficiently high water levels.

But with high temperatures forecast this weekend, a power plant on the river bank may need to run at full capacity. So the hurricane barrier must be opened to ensure a constant flow of coolant water.

New England remains overly dependent on nuclear and natural gas-fired power, with a lingering but shrinking slice of coal-fired power, all of which are extremely water-intensive. As global warming continues fueling more droughts, water-intensive energy sources are at risk of becoming increasingly unreliable.

Which makes some other news this week especially important: New Interior Secretary Sally Jewell is moving forward with offshore wind leases off Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Offshore wind and solar power will not only strengthen our energy security - hopefully they mean we won't have to get used to the hip waders at WaterFire.

Solar-Powered Robot Boat To Attempt Atlantic Crossing, Because Guys

noreply@blogger.com (Miles Grant) — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 20:26:00 +0000

At a certain point in your life, you realize how much of scientific progress relies on dudes without girlfriends. Today's example: The Rhode Island students who want to shatter a world record with their solar-powered robot boat:

For the past three years the two along with three other friends have been working on an autonomous vessel named Scout to make the trip across the Atlantic. If Scout makes it, it will be the first ever autonomous vessel to make the crossing. Brendan Prior, one of the vessels builders and partners, says, "our first goal is to have it break that 60 mile world record which we can hopefully do in two days."

Once Scout is launched, it will be GPS guided and will send back information every twenty minutes of the 3000+ mile trip. Dylan says, "Scout sends back it's position, course, and the heading. Conditions of the sea, whether it's calm or rough, pH, salinity, barometric pressure, and three temperature readings.

I am only assuming they do not have girlfriends, because if they did, good luck making it through an inning of watching a Red Sox game, never mind three years building a robot boat, amirite guys?

Follow SCOUT's trip at GoTransAt.com or on Facebook.

Jobs and a Safe Climate or Bill Koch's Estate View: Whose Side Are You On?

noreply@blogger.com (Miles Grant) — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 17:06:00 +0000

When Cape Wind begins construction, it will be the leading edge of an offshore wind industry that's already created 35,000 jobs in Europe. As Cape Wind's Hannah Wood writes in the Cape Cod Times, those jobs are critical to a region in transition:

I know for some, concerns about Cape Wind stem from a desire to keep the Cape as it is. But, like it or not, climate change is already affecting the Cape.

The question for all of us is whether we try to control the change or let it control us. If we don't start using cleaner sources of energy, we are on a course to see much more severe erosion from our beaches and dunes and continued harm to fish and other wildlife, as well as to the plants and trees that we all enjoy.

Constructing this offshore wind farm is the type of change we need to ensure that future generations can appreciate the Cape as much as we do now.

Young people on Cape Cod also need more sustainable industries here that pay decent salaries year-round so more of them stay here to raise families of their own. Offshore wind is a move in the right direction, and Cape Wind is a crucial first step.

But what about the view from Bill Koch's vacation estate? And what about all the other wealthy Cape Cod landowners hiding behind front groups to attack Cape Wind? What should come first - our economic development, public health, and long-term climate security, or their pristine estate views?

Sign the Conservation Law Foundation & MoveOn.org Civic Action petition to stand up to Bill Koch and build Cape Wind now.

In Local Traffic Reports, Roads Always Come First

noreply@blogger.com (Miles Grant) — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 13:18:00 +0000

In the middle of this morning's commute, Boston's MBTA B Line was briefly shut down due to an electrical issue, forcing hundreds if not thousands of commuters to get off at Packard's Corner and take shuttle buses to Kenmore Square, then get back on trains.

This news was presented last in the local traffic report, after a long list of highway stop-and-go's at all the usual gridlock spots that have been stop-and-go every single weekday morning of my life.

It's been the same anywhere I've lived in this great country: Even if aliens came down from space and started space-lasering multiple trains and buses full of commuters and GOOD GOD WHATEVER YOU DO DON'T TAKE THE 16B, that news would have to come after a car in the breakdown lane of I-95 right before exit 24, so watch out for that one.

Maybe Exxon Mobil's Profits Can Buy Us a New Planet

noreply@blogger.com (Miles Grant) — Thu, 30 May 2013 16:57:00 +0000

Exxon Mobil made more than $3 billion in profit per month in the first quarter of 2013 and its CEO says now is no time to go using less oil just because it's destroying our planet's climate:

The CEO of Exxon Mobil Corp. says there’s no quick replacement for oil, and sharply cutting oil’s use to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would make it harder to lift 2 billion people out of poverty.

“What good is it to save the planet if humanity suffers?” CEO Rex Tillerson said at the oil giant’s annual meeting Wednesday.

Think about how much oil the world's poor consume. Are they buying cars and driving to work, or are they walking or biking? Would they be helped more by lower gas prices for cars they can't afford anyway, or by making small-scale clean energy more affordable - solar-powered local water filtration systems, home solar stoves, and better battery storage?

Now think about who suffers most from global warming-fueled extreme weather disasters. Is it wealthy jet-setters like Rex Tillerson? Or is it that subsistence farmer in Africa who Tillerson's holding up as a human shield to protect his company's mind-bogglingly huge profits?

Video: Two Minute Drill on What's Wrong with Coal

noreply@blogger.com (Miles Grant) — Wed, 29 May 2013 14:52:00 +0000

New video from the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign:

Sen. Jim Inhofe on Disaster Aid: Totally Not at All Racist

noreply@blogger.com (Miles Grant) — Tue, 28 May 2013 19:43:00 +0000

Disaster aid went to victims of superstorm Sandy far away from the New Jersey landfall in places like Rhode Island. But Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) had some very specific places in mind for his claim that Sandy aid was wasted or stolen:

They were getting things — for instance, that was supposed to be in New Jersey, they had things in the Virgin Islands, they were fixing roads there. They were putting roofs on houses in Washington, D.C. Everyone was getting in and exporting the tragedy that took place. That won't happen in Oklahoma.

Gee, I wonder what the Virgin Islands (76% black) and DC (the original Chocolate City) have in common?

I don't know what's more amazing: That Inhofe didn't even bother to toss one non-minority-heavy area onto his list, or that unless a Republican says BLACK BLACK BLACKITY BLACK no reporters will call him on being a racist.

All victims of natural disasters deserve our support. You can donate directly through the Red Cross.

If You Deliberately Ask Dumb Questions, People Will Think You're Dumb

noreply@blogger.com (Miles Grant) — Tue, 28 May 2013 17:27:00 +0000

On a recent flight with my girlfriend, we shared earbuds and watched a TED Talk interview with Elon Musk, founder of PayPal, Tesla Motors, Solar City, and SpaceX.

In contrast to TED's usual style of assuming a high level of audience sophistication, host Chris Anderson launched into a series of curiously ignorant questions. Aren't electric car batteries heavy? (So are tanks full of gasoline.) Isn't gasoline just thousands of years of solar power compressed into a small space? (Put a dinosaur in your tank!)

My girlfriend reached over to pause the video. "Why is he asking dumb questions? Is he stupid?" Instead of helping a broad spectrum of audience learn more about clean energy, Anderson seemed to be asking questions mostly on behalf of a narrow slice of clean energy skeptics.

What hosts and journalists like Anderson may not realize is that if you ask deliberately ignorant questions, you risk having people wonder if you yourself are ignorant.

The Green Milestone: 200,000 Visitors

noreply@blogger.com (Miles Grant) — Wed, 15 May 2013 11:21:00 +0000

The Green Miles just passed 200,000 visits. Thanks for reading!

Keep up with me by following me on Twitter, adding me on Google Plus at +Miles Grant, and subscribing to my blog's RSS feed.

Don't Back Down to Cape Cod Anti-Wind Bullies

noreply@blogger.com (Miles Grant) — Tue, 14 May 2013 15:49:00 +0000

Longtime Cape Wind opponent Peter Kenney has an op-ed in today's New Bedford Standard Times attacking me personally. It's part of a broader strategy by wind opponents to bully clean energy supporters into silence. Will Massachusetts leaders stand up for reasoned debate, or give into scare tactics?

What was my crime in Kenney's eyes? Daring to point out that Bill Koch, a billionaire Cape Cod estate owner and heir to a polluting energy fortune, is blocking New Bedford clean energy jobs by bankrolling Cape Wind opposition.

I'm only the latest person Kenney has targeted for personal attacks. "Mr. Kenney has a history of not being able to disagree respectfully," Yarmouth Planning Board Chairman Erik Tolley said last year.

What's bizarre is that in Kenney's op-ed, he claims I refused to take his call. I talked to him on April 23 for two minutes. Here's my annotation of the phone record:

It was a short call. He immediately launched into berating me for supporting Cape Wind and accused me of taking bribes not to say anything bad about Cape Wind. I asked why he was calling since it didn't exactly sound like there was much room to win him over. We said goodbye. That was it.

It's not just Kenney - across Cape Cod in Falmouth, wind opponents are using similar bullying tactics. "As town meeting members spoke, turbine abutters Neil Andersen and Colin Murphy sat in the back of the auditorium, quietly heckling speakers at times," Sean Teehan reported in the Cape Cod Times last month.

Falmouth has already voted against dismantling its turbines, but the anti-wind crowd has forced yet another vote on May 24. With Fox on their side, you have to wonder: Will the anti-wind folks will just keep forcing votes until they get their way?

More broadly, Massachusetts elected officials and news organizations need to decide how we'll determine our shared energy future. Will we have a reasoned, fact-based dialogue and move forward together? Or will we let the loudest, harshest and most frequently raised voices dominate debate and shout down anyone who disagrees with them?

If you stand with clean energy, sign up and register your support at Cape Wind Now.

Gabriel Gomez Puts Personal Profit Over Protecting Massachusetts

noreply@blogger.com (Miles Grant) — Mon, 13 May 2013 15:30:00 +0000

Gabriel Gomez's incoherence on climate science and energy policy makes a lot more sense once you take a deeper dive into his personal finances, as Joshua Israel did at ThinkProgress:

A ThinkProgress review of Gomez’s personal financial disclosure filings reveals that a significant amount of his own money is invested, directly or indirectly, in dirty energy stocks and bonds. These include investments of between $1,000 and $15,000 each in:

1. Emerson Electric Co., which automates oil and gas operations for energy companies.
2. Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s largest publicly traded international oil and gas company.
3. Occidental Petroleum Corp., an international oil and gas exploration and production company.
4. Schlumberger Ltd., a the world’s largest supplier of technology and project management services for the oil and gas industry worldwide.
5. Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc., a deepwater drilling contractor for the oil and gas industry.
6. DTE Energy Co., a Detroit-based electric and gas utility.
7. Dominion Resources, a Richmond-based electric utility.
8. Xcel Energy Inc., a Minneapolis-based electric and gas utility.
9. Gulf Power Co., a Florida-based electric utility.
10. Southern California Edison, a California-based electric utility.
11. Entergy Louisiana, a Louisiana-based electric utility

By doing the dirty work of his out-of-state polluting investments, Gomez is turning his back on the more than 71,000 people who work in Massachusetts' booming clean energy industry. He's also ignoring the impacts that climate change is already having on Massachusetts - stronger storms like Sandy, rising sea levels, deeper droughts, and deadlier summer heat waves.

As I'm knocking on doors for Ed Markey in the weeks ahead, this story speaks to the one thing I'll be telling undecided voters: Gomez is so beholden to big money - polluters, national Republicans, shady tax breaks - that we just can't trust the guy to do what's right for Massachusetts.

Another Inconvenient Truth: Sometimes American Politics Kill People

noreply@blogger.com (Miles Grant) — Sat, 11 May 2013 17:03:00 +0000

As the carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere rocket past 400 parts per million this week, what's more evident than ever is the inability of our political systems to respond to this crisis that's killing Americans right now and growing worse by the day.

Politicians and the reporters who cover them do NOT like hearing that. They absolutely hate being told that the American political system isn't responding fast enough to a crisis and that people might die as a result. This is how we do things! How dare you ask us to change just for your issue? The folks in industry don't tell us that we're accomplices in mass death and they throw really killer parties.

But we knew that cigarettes killed tens of millions of people and tobacco companies covered it up ... and Washington took decades to respond. We knew lack of health insurance killed millions of people and bankrupted millions of other families ... and Washington took decades to respond.

The climate crisis cannot be solved by horse trading. It cannot be solved by trying to say yes to everyone - to cutting carbon pollution AND to whatever Big Oil and Big Coal are demanding. And it cannot be solved by We'll Have to Leave It There journalism that tells viewers, "Scientists say this, polluter front groups say that, who can say what's true?"

We need what Grist's David Roberts calls wartime mobilization - an all of the above approach to cutting carbon emissions. Can Washington answer that call to action?

Something Strange is Happening at National Journal

noreply@blogger.com (Miles Grant) — Fri, 10 May 2013 12:46:00 +0000

Folks, what is going on at National Journal? How is Coral Davenport allowed to write pieces not based on "scientists say this, polluter front groups say that, who can say what's true?" false equivalency, but on a reasoned interpretation of what's actually reality? Wait till Rush Limbaugh gets wind of this.

Read Coral's piece today on how rank-and-file Republicans are breaking with their party's extreme denier ideology on climate change, and check out her archive of long-form articles on the policy & politics of climate & energy.

Imagining a Tea Partier Reacting to Huge Benefits of EPA Investment

noreply@blogger.com (Miles Grant) — Wed, 08 May 2013 16:17:00 +0000

Sure, $1 invested in the Environmental Protection Agency delivers $10 in benefits. But who gets that return? Probably lots of poor brown people, right? Then forget it! GET BIG GOVERNMENT OUT OF PROTECTING MY HEALTH.

Today's Must-Read Piece on Barack Obama and Climate Change

noreply@blogger.com (Miles Grant) — Mon, 06 May 2013 14:13:00 +0000

Heading out the door in a few minutes for the groundbreaking for New Bedford's South Terminal, which hopes to service the Cape Wind project when it finally goes in the water late this year or early next, but first a few quick thoughts on Jonathan Chait's New York magazine feature, Obama Might Actually Be the Environmental President:

If coal & oil state Democrats and purple state Republicans don't like Barack Obama regulating carbon pollution through the Clean Air Act, Chait's piece is a reminder that they should blame Claire McCaskill, Jay Rockefeller, Lisa Murkowski, Lindsey Graham, Blanche Lincoln, and all the other "moderates" who blocked climate & energy legislation in 2010. That legislation would likely have blocked the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating industrial carbon pollution. But extreme Republicans and those "moderates" were successful in blocking it, so now we get the EPA regulations many of those same senators claim to oppose.
It could've been an even stronger piece if Chait wasn't so hand-wavy about Keystone XL being important. Climate activists are making a stand on Keystone not just because of Keystone's direct climate impacts. We're taking a stand on it because, for as many positive things as Obama has done, he's been extremely reluctant to say no to new polluting energy projects, from pipelines to oil drilling to coal mining.
It's a good reminder that despite Beltway media hype about presidential rhetoric and the bully pulpit, presidential powers are in reality limited by Congress. Bush couldn't completely destroy the environment in part because he was limited by Congressional Democrats. Obama can't completely save the environment because of the same handcuffs.

Read Chait's article and let me know what you think in comments.

Don't Buy Antibacterial Soap

noreply@blogger.com (Miles Grant) — Fri, 03 May 2013 14:04:00 +0000

America has spent decades putting a chemical called triclosan in our soap to wage chemical warfare on every bit of bacteria within a five-mile radius of our skin. So what benefit are we getting? According to an extensive new Associated Press investigation, none:

The [U.S. Food and Drug Administration]'s website currently states that "the agency does not have evidence that triclosan in antibacterial soaps and body washes provides any benefit over washing with regular soap and water."

No benefit. None. But there's this:

Recent studies of triclosan in animals have led scientists to worry that it could increase the risk of infertility, early puberty and other hormone-related problems in humans.

Swell! Thanks for looking out for us, FDA!

Part of the problem is that chemicals like triclosan kill ALL bacteria - good and bad. And during the exact same time we've been massacring all bacteria, friend or foe, reports of food and skin allergies are increasing.

A little dirt is good for your kids. Maybe even a little dog slobber. Afterwards, wash 'em up with some Method, Seventh Generation, or any other old-fashioned, plain ol' soap.

Gabriel Gomez is Completely Incoherent on Climate and Energy Policy

noreply@blogger.com (Miles Grant) — Fri, 03 May 2013 11:00:00 +0000

Gabriel Gomez, the Republican opponent of Democrat Ed Markey in the U.S. Senate special election to fill John Kerry's seat in Massachusetts, is working hard to be all things to all people, and nowhere is that more evident than his ~~positions~~ truthiness on climate and energy policy:

Climate change is real. However, while science says climate change is real, addressing the problem must be done rationally. Unfortunately, many solutions offered by politicians in Washington are not rational, and would put America at a competitive disadvantage. We need a serious energy agenda that promotes private sector innovation in both the United States and in other countries around the world.

Oh, I get it. He supports confronting climate change with a national policy to spur clean energy projects like Cape Wind, right? Not exactly:

Gomez, however, said [Cape Wind] is an issue that should be decided at the local level, and that the local authorities have been pretty much excluded from the process. Gomez made it clear his is opposed to Cape Wind.

So, local control all the way! Then he must oppose Keystone XL tar sands pipeline because of strong local opposition, right? Wrong again:

The Obama administration is wrong in stopping the Keystone pipeline, a project that will create jobs, drive down our energy costs, and help us to become energy independent.

Worth noting: Gabriel Gomez thinks that for some reason TransCanada is dramatically lowballing the benefits of its own Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. TransCanada doesn't say Keystone will drive down energy costs - it knows Keystone won't lower gas prices anywhere in America and would actually raise gas prices in the Midwest. TransCanada doesn't say Keystone will make America energy independent - it knows Keystone is an export pipeline that's being built to get tar sands to the Gulf Coast and the international market so Canada doesn't have to dump tar sands oil in the Midwest anymore.

To sum up, Gabriel Gomez says he understands climate change is threatening Massachusetts with extreme weather like superstorm Sandy, rising sea levels, and deadly summer heat waves - he just doesn't want to do anything about it. And Gomez thinks we need a national energy policy, except in cases where the mansion views of Republican donors are threatened, or if those donors really want a polluting project built even if it's not in America's national interest.

What's the reason for Gomez's incoherence? With the U.S. Senate's antiquated disclosure laws, we don't know yet where Gomez is getting his money. But given his refusal to sign the people's pledge to reject big-spending special interests, I'd suspect he personally knows exactly what climate change means, but he knows the implications of that truth are far too inconvenient for today's fossil fuel money-addicted Republican Party.

World's First Comparison of Tim Kaine to Derek Jeter

noreply@blogger.com (Miles Grant) — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 15:29:00 +0000

With Tim Kaine taking a bold stand against the dirty, destructive Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, has my long history of questioning Kaine's motives come to the end of the road?

Back in the 2003 playoffs, I watched Derek Jeter take a head-first dive into the stands while making an incredible catch. On the spot, I pledged to never make fun of Jeter again. I've held to that (while rededicating myself to mocking his teammates like Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira).

I've been on Tim Kaine's case for years now, ever since he served as apologist-in-chief for Dominion Virginia Power's incredibly polluting, wildly expensive, unneeded Wise County coal-fired power plant. But doing the right thing on Keystone XL, especially when so many Democrats like fellow Virginia Sen. Mark Warner are bowing to polluter pressure, is just as clutch as Jeter's dive.

Have I been wrong about Kaine? Should I give him the benefit of the doubt going forward - or even the full Jeter treatment?

Climate Science Deniers: Really Old and Really Strange

noreply@blogger.com (Miles Grant) — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 21:04:00 +0000

The Heartland Institute has a new climate denial "book" out called The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism. I can only assume the title is a reference to the movie It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, even though the Heartland version is for some reason one "Mad" short.

How old are the folks over at The Heartland Institute? Their book title references a movie that came out a half century ago. Its star, Spencer Tracy, died when President Obama was six years old.

How strange are the folks over at The Heartland Insitute? Look at that "book" cover. Are those ... hip-hop polar bears? I think? Driving a convertible through ... a corn field that's getting hit by a thunderstorm? Also, the polar bears are terrible drivers taking up both lanes of what is apparently a one-way street through the middle of nowhere.

It's like something your old crazy conservative uncle would post to Facebook and think it was HILARIOUS, which tells you a lot about The Heartland Institute's membership and funders, and about the ability of climate deniers to connect with anyone outside their cocoon of crazy old conservatives.

Because Driving Sucks, That's Why

noreply@blogger.com (Miles Grant) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 20:04:00 +0000

My answer to the question in the headline of this Brad Plumer post, which you should go read.

Driving is expensive, time-consuming, boring*, makes you road rage-y, pollutes the air, and cooks the planet. What's not to like?

Taking the bus or train is no picnic, but at least you can let the driver stress out while you relax. Biking is also not a magic carpet ride, but at least you get some exercise and fresh air and it's extremely cheap.

I would also point out that advances in phone technology have made taking the bus or train significantly more fun. It used to be that you'd have to lug a book or a Walkman with you if you wanted to read or listen to music - and if you forgot one of those, welcome to Boringville. Now I can not only do either of those things on my lightweight, long-battery-life iPhone, I can also play games, read news or text my friends, and it's already in my pocket so there's no remembering involved.

* - I like long drives through scenic areas as much as anyone, but we all know this is 0.0001% of driving. The other 99.9999% involves wishing you were already there.