From George Monbiot’s well-researched and rather articulate new book, “HEAT: How to Stop the Planet Burning”. (you can grab a copy HERE - directly from the publisher, thus reducing the accumulated ‘carbon value’ of the book as it won’t have to travel to other warehouses):

“The environmentalists who support the wider use of biofuels picture the crops they like best. They see the nodding heads of sunflowers, or the blue blossoms of the linseed plant. They talk of algae which can be grown in desert ponds, or the use of straw and other wastes to produce ethanol. . . But what they will not see - in fact what they flatly and repeatedly refuse to understand - is that a global commodity market selects not the most satisfying vision, but the cheapest commodity. And at present and for the forseeable future the cheapest commodity is palm oil. What this means is that biofuel production is a forumula not only for humanitarian disaster but also for environmental catastrophe.”

Understand, George wants us to find ‘the answers’ just as much, if not worse, than you or I. However, he very much fears putting efforts into schemes that will only set us back, not just a little but a lot.

“In 2005, Friends of the Earth published a report about the impacts of palm oil production:

Between 1985 and 2000, the development of oil-palm plantations was responsible for an estimated 87 per cent of deforestation in Malaysia.

In Sumatra and Borneo, some 4 million hectares of forest has been converted to palm farms. Now a further 6 million hectares is scheduled for clearance in Malaysia, and 16.5 million in Indonesia. Almost all the remaining forest is at risk . . . The orang-utan is liekly to become extinct in the wild. Sumatran rhinos, tigers, gibbons, tapirs, proboscis monkeys and many other species could go the same way. Thousands of indigenous people have been evicted from their lands, and some 500 Indonesians have been tortured when they tried to resist. The entire region is being turned into a vegetable field.

Before oil palms are planted, vast forest trees, containing a much greater store of carbon than the palm trees will ever accumulate, must be felled and burnt. . . A paper published in NATURE estimates that the fires ignited in Indonesia in 1997, the result of felling rainforest trees, released between 13 and 40 per cent as much carbon dioxide as the world’s consumption of fossil fuels. The biodiesel industry has accidentally invented the world’s most carbon-intensive fuel.

Song ‘o the Day: I’m not telling you what it is. Just hit play.

biofuels, climate-change, fossil-fuels, george-monbiot, global warming, malaysia, sumatra, sumatran-rhino

The latest from my visionary hero, LESTER BROWN. This one on urban design and automobiles. Go ahead, loyal readers, check it out. We must do more than simply rethink the TYPE of cars (oh, and motorcycles of course) we drive.

DESIGNING CITIES FOR PEOPLE

by Lester R. Brown

As I was being driven through Tel Aviv from my hotel to a conference center a few years ago, I could not help but note the overwhelming presence of cars and parking lots. Tel Aviv, expanding from a small settlement a half-century ago to a city of some 3 million today, evolved during the automobile era. It occurred to me that the ratio of parks to parking lots may be the best single indicator of the livability of a city—whether a city is designed for people or for cars.

The world’s cities are in trouble. In Mexico City, Tehran, Bangkok, Shanghai, and hundreds of other cities, the quality of daily life is deteriorating. Breathing the air in some cities is equivalent to smoking two packs of cigarettes per day. In the United States, the number of hours commuters spend sitting in traffic going nowhere climbs higher each year.

In response to these conditions, we are seeing the emergence of a new urbanism. One of the most remarkable modern urban transformations has occurred in Bogotá, Colombia, where Enrique Peñalosa served as Mayor for three years, beginning in 1998. When he took office he did not ask how life could be improved for the 30 percent who owned cars; he wanted to know what could be done for the 70 percent—the majority—who did not own cars. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve posted a few times on George Monbiot’s fantastic book, “Heat,” and I will be doing so with more regularity. Indeed, I’m illegally excerpting from his book, in fact. Always makes me a bit nervous, but I hope publishers understand that in so doing I help, maybe a tiny, tiny bit, to boost sales. Happy I was, to get a quick note from South End Press, the U.S. publisher of “Heat” asking for a link which I’ve dutifully added.

Checking out South End Press’ website I discovered that they’ve published an INCREDIBLE range of books on not only ecology and green issues, but race relations, labor issues, gender issues, media studies, political science, feminism, globalization, and much more. The company’s slogan is classic: READ. WRITE. REVOLT.

SOUTH END PRESS. Check the site. Load up your cart. Get to reading. Only lurnin’ is going to save us, folks. Scratch that - only applied learning will save us.

Song ‘O the Day is from Dinah Washington. Track = “I Could Write a Book” (such a nice tie in, isn’t it? i’m telling you, dear reader, you should collect these tracks i pull out into a compilation. . .sure to impress your friends with your hip eclectic sounds)

Well, Miranda July hasn’t called yet (but she will), so I still have some time to spare writing this blog instead of miraculous screenplays. Fortunate for you, dear and loyal reader! The recent Mayor Bloomberg announcement got me thinking again about George Monbiot’s seminal book on global heating, “HEAT” (Click the HEAT link and you’ll be taken to the site you SHOULD be using instead of Amazon–Alonovo. Check it out and you’ll see why.). I’ll admit that part of me was happy to hear Bloomberg’s plan as it at least represents some progress. Yet, it simply isn’t enough. We must not be satisfied with token gains as we are very, very much running out of time to make the necessary changes.

Monbiot makes a number of interesting points in his book. I’m going to throw a few of them down for y’all. Starting with this excerpt from Page 41 which gets to the heart of why people like Bloomberg are making such tepid efforts:

In September 2005, I attended a conference in London at which Sir David was speaking. He told it that a ‘reasonable’ target for stabilizing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 550 parts per million. This happens to be the target set by the British government. It would be ‘politically unrealistic’, he said, to demand anything lower. Simon Retallack from the Institute for Public Policy Research stood up and reminded Sir David that as chief scientist his duty is not to represent political reality, but to represent scientific reality. Retallack’s own work shows that at 550 parts per million the chances of preventing more than 2 degrees of global warming are just 10-20 percent. Sir David replied that if he recommended a lower limit, he would lose credibility with the government.

I think many people feel like him: that if they adopted the position determined by science rather than the position determined by politics, no one would take them seriously.

Monbiot nails it on the head here. Even many touted eco-organizations, like the Sierra Club, endorse weak proposals, for fear of losing credibility. Myopic as these people are, they don’t realize that the HAVE lost credibility - but it’s their future credibility, when we need it most, that they’ve lost.

Song o’ the Day = Big Audio Dynamite doing “Situation No Win”. Been a while since you’ve rocked the B.A.D., no? This track has the eco-perfect lyrics, “rush for the change of atmosphere” in there somewhere if I recall correctly.

What? You’re denying that you were a B.A.D. fan? Pffft. You never got into “No. 10 Upping St.”? Seriously? Oh, I get it. You consider yourself a ‘real’ Clash fan and therefore look down your mile-long nose at this effort. Fair enough. I do the same thing with post-Joy Division disco-queens, New Order. Understood. We can agree to disagree.

Technorati Tags: george-monbiot, miranda-july, big-audio-dynamite, sierra-club, sir-david, alonovo

Okay. Once in a while I leave all this doom-and-gloom climate catastrophe crap behind and just post about something amazing. Like the time I posted about hip-hop masters, Grand Buffet. Or about my new stories+photos PolaFiction website (I really could dedicate a whole ten gazillion website to Polaroids). Or that one post about my fantasy meeting at a Turkish bath with Dick Cheney and Al Jolson (seriously, paw through the site, you’ll find it.)

This day, I submit to you that I may well have found the first and only PERFECT WEBSITE. Miranda July made it. She also made that one really great, really funny movie with the goldfish scene that was so perfectly beautiful that I still stare off into space when I think about it. What was it called? I can’t remember. No, I can. It IS called “Me and You and Everyone We Know.”

Seriously, the website - it’s flippin’ genius.

CLICK HERE AND FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF.

Oh, yeah . . . you should buy the book. I’m going to.And whatever you do, don’t tell my wife that I now officially have a totally top-secret crush on Miranda July. My secret is safe with you guys, right? No, no. . .Andi never reads this site. She only reads the other one. So shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

(Confession: I really only posted this because I’m hoping that Miranda is the type of person who obsessively checks the links to her website (help me out, click her site already!), notices this, reads it, clicks to the Polafiction site, reads the lame stories there, is drunk enough to think they’re decent, then contacts me to work with her on dozens of world-shattering screenplays. This scenario, unlikely as it seems, will quite likely play out very much as described. You wait and see. What, you’re calling me delusional? Fuck you. Wait and see.)

Technorati Tags: miranda-july, polafiction, polaroid, dick-cheney, turkish-bath

My eco-heroes, Lester Brown and his Earth Policy Insitute, have issued the following media advisory:

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MASSIVE DIVERSION OF U.S. GRAIN TO FUEL FOR CARS IS RAISING WORLD FOOD PRICES

Corn prices have doubled over the last year. Wheat futures are trading at their highest level in 10 years. Rice prices are rising. Higher grain prices mean higher food prices. In Mexico, the price of tortillas has risen by 60 percent, driving thousands of angry Mexicans into the streets.

Food prices are rising worldwide. In the United States, the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects the wholesale price of chicken in 2007 will be 10 percent higher than in 2006, the price of a dozen eggs will be up a whopping 21 percent, and milk will be 14 percent higher. In China, pork prices are up 20 percent above a year earlier and eggs are up 16 percent. In India, a country of low-income consumers, the price of wheat has jumped 11 percent. And this is only the beginning.

In the past, food price rises have usually been weather-related and always temporary. This situation is different. As more and more fuel ethanol distilleries are built, world grain prices are starting to move up toward their oil-equivalent value in what appears to be the beginning of a long-term rise.

By 2008, close to one third of the U.S. grain harvest will be going to ethanol, reducing the amount available both for internal use and for export. The world’s breadbasket is fast becoming the U.S. fuel tank. Unless Washington restricts the grain used for fuel, it faces not only a consumer revolt at supermarket checkout counters at home, but also spreading political instability in low- and middle-income countries on a scale that could disrupt global economic progress.

Creating chaos in world grain markets is totally unnecessary. Raising auto fuel efficiency standards 20 percent would reduce oil use as much as converting the entire U.S. grain harvest into ethanol.

On Wednesday, Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute and author of Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble, will hold a telephone briefing for journalists on this emerging issue.

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Once again, it’s worth mentioning that I will personally refund the purchase price of anyone who buys Brown’s Plan B 2.0 (link above) and does not find it the most instructive, realistic path toward a sustainable future in print. Go forth and buy the book - you have nothing to lose!

(dig how I nerded out and made my own eco-warning label. feel free to use it as I know you think it’s hella-cool, yo.)

Song of the day = Kool Keith’s ‘Lost in Space’. It’s a tenuous tie in, but how often do you get to hear Kool Keith on the web?

I guess this isn’t much of a surprise.

Congratulations to the amazing Laurie David for making this film happen.

I can’t wait for THE SEQUEL - where Gore talks about what we can DO about climate change. My confidential sources tell me that the new film, tentatively titled, “Plan B 2.0″ will feature Gore relating the contents of Lester Brown’s recent publication. I’m very excited, as Brown’s agenda/plan (I’ve read the book version) is formidable and represents our very best hope to make significant strides toward a sustainable future.

And, because they’re oh so hot right now, this posts musical accent is The Police’s “Truth Hits Everybody”:

Technorati Tags: inconvenient-truth, laurie-david, al-gore, lester-brown, the-police

Finished two great books on my recent trip to Los Angeles, both of which I HIGHLY recommend to anyone interested in the economics of a sustainable future. Yeah, I know - economics is not a sexy topic and considering the fact that I am a very sexy man, it’s a bit of a conundrum for me to even mention un-sexiness, for fear of contamination. Nevertheless, I present to you:

1. The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Times - Jeffrey Sachs One hot little read. Even has a forward by Bono that essentially elevates Sachs to and far beyond that of rock star. That is, Bono implores us to consider Sachs one of the real heroes, to not waste our time idolizing icons who are devoid of real worth. In the book, Sachs details how the World Bank and various governments and organizations can immediately reduce global poverty. Doing so would, of course, mightily lessen our incredible depletion of the Earth’s natural resources. If you don’t follow this logic, don’t worry - it’s all in the book.

2. Banker to the Poor - Muhummad Yunus

Recent Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Muhummad Yunus’ story about the founding of his incredible Grameen Bank details the perseverance of a man who quickly learned that traditional poverty fighting tactics are thoroughly flawed. His account is rather inspiring in that it demonstrates the rapidity with which massive change can take place, once plotted and executed. Rather than try to give a review when others have done a much better job of this (click the book’s link), I’ll simply urge you to pick up a copy and read it.

This just in from Lester Brown and his Earth Policy Institute
SUBSIDIZING CLIMATE CHANGE

Lester R. Brown

Each year the world’s taxpayers provide an estimated $700 billion of subsidies for environmentally destructive activities, such as fossil fuel burning, overpumping aquifers, clearcutting forests, and overfishing. An Earth Council study, Subsidizing Unsustainable Development, observes that “there is something unbelievable about the world spending hundreds of billions of dollars annually to subsidize its own destruction.”

Iran provides a classic example of extreme subsidies when it prices oil for internal use at one tenth the world price, strongly encouraging car ownership and gas consumption. The World Bank reports that if this $3.6-billion annual subsidy were phased out, it would reduce Iran’s carbon emissions by a staggering 49 percent. It would also strengthen the economy by freeing up public revenues for investment in the country’s economic development. Iran is not alone. The Bank reports that removing energy subsidies would reduce carbon emissions in Venezuela by 26 percent, in Russia by 17 percent, in India by 14 percent, and in Indonesia by 11 percent.

Some countries are eliminating or reducing these climate-disrupting subsidies. Belgium, France, and Japan have phased out all subsidies for coal. Germany reduced its coal subsidy from $5.4 billion in 1989 to $2.8 billion in 2002, meanwhile lowering its coal use by 46 percent. It plans to phase out this support entirely by 2010. China cut its coal subsidy from $750 million in 1993 to $240 million in 1995. More recently, it has imposed a tax on high-sulfur coals. . . .

The rest of this great article can be found here.

Further, if you haven’t already, pick up a copy of Brown’s “Plan B 2.0: Resuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble. What is critical about this book is that is represents an actual plan which, if implemented, would allow humanity to move with great rapidity away from the brink of ecological disaster. And guess what, mates? It’s going to take a bit more than buying organic veggies and swapping a few lightbulbs! (Not that you shouldn’t do these things. In fact, I participated in International ‘Turn off your Power Day’ today at 10:55 AM PST. Talk about making a difference!)

Yesterday, my friend Marc Bojanowski (amazing fiction writer - check his book out HERE) pointed out a book review in the San Francisco Chronicle of a new book by Linda Nash entitled, “Inescapable Ecologies: A History of Environment, Disease and Knowledge”. The review in full is HERE. I’ve already picked up a copy via Alonovo.com (I always use this instead of Amazon). I think many of you will be interested as well as Nash appears to be breaking new ground in environmental writing.