Kit Stolz

Newt and Nancy: Together — for the First Time Ever!

Yours truly wasn’t thrilled with the first major TV ad from the Alliance for Climate Protection, because I think both Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson are frauds, each in his own way, but this one — featuring Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrinch — makes me smile. They look so cute together!

On a more serious note, I think southpaws should give Newt credit for the courage of his convictions. Take a look at this comments page from his pollster friend Whit Ayres’ Terra Rossa site and you’ll see his "conversion" on this issue was not greeted with acclaim…far from it. From his perspective, seems to me that Gingrich had little to gain and a great to lose. (Heck, Rush Limbaugh may never speak to him again.) I respect those who will take a risk for the sake of our climate.

“Gas Tax Holiday” Will Flop, Experts Say

Now that the would-be Panderer-in-Chief, Hillary Clinton, has joined with Republican candidate John McCain in calling for a "gas tax holiday" this summer, the Wa-Po’s "Fact Checker" asks: Will it work?

Short answer: no.

Why? Two words: supply and demand.

Some economists say that a nationwide "gas tax holiday" would have
even less impact on gas prices than temporary state moratoriums, such
as the one passed by Illinois in 2000. "It’s basic economics," said
Leonard Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center,
a non-partisan thinktank. "Gas is always in very short supply during
the summer, which is why prices go up. In order to reduce the price,
you would have to increase supply, but that is difficult over the short
term, because the refineries cannot add capacity."

James Hamilton, professor of Economics at the University of
California-San Diego, said that most of the benefits from a temporary
tax moratorium would likely go to producers rather than consumers. He
said that states that suspend gas taxes are able to respond to rising
demand more efficiently than the country as a whole, because gasoline
supplies can be easily moved from one state to another.

"Prices would certainly rise to the market-clearing level," said
Hamilton. "I would expect the price [of gas] to go back to very close
to where it was before [the tax cut], in which case consumers would not
see any benefit."

Turns out Obama did vote for such a gas tax holiday back in 2001, when he was a member of the Illinois legislature, but both he and the consumers in Illinois were disillusioned by the result, which proved all but meaningless — a three percent savings for some consumers.

A poll by the Chicago Tribune showed that only 28 percent of motorists
believed that they were actually paying less for gas as a result of the
temporary suspension of the tax. Obama has changed his mind
dramatically on the tax cut since voting for it back in 2000 in
Illinois. On the campaign trail Monday in North Carolina, he described
the proposal as a "short-term quick fix that we can say we did
something even though we’re not really doing anything."

A politician who learns from experience, and doesn’t leap to pander! No wonder he’s become a target.

The Storm (we can’t see)

A new poem from Charles Simic, current poet laureate of the US, on an oncoming storm we cannot seem to see…is this about AGW? You can decide for yourself…

THE STORM

I’m going over to see what those weeds
By the stone wall are worried about.
Perhaps, they don’t care for the way
The shadows creep across the lawn
In the silence of the afternoon.

The sky keeps being blue,
Though we hear no birds,
See no butterflies among the flowers
Or ants running over our feet.

Trees, you bend your branches ever so slightly
In deference to something
About to make its entrance
Of which we know nothing,
Spellbound as we are by the deepening quiet,
The light just beginning to dim.

(photo "Before the Storm" from Andrew Lee, of the UK, a pro on Flickr)

On the Hood (until the end)

…new issue from the Department of Rock and Roll Will Never Die. It’s a band called Matt Mays and El Torpedo. hailing from Halifax, Nova Scotia…

It all began without warning
On a strange winter’s morning
The sky turned red
The vibrations went dead
With these terrible songs on a rainy day
The pressure just started to fall
Your scene doesn’t do anything for me
It doesn’t do anything at all

I don’t care anymore
People tell me I should
They’re out lookin’ for hits
I’d rather lay on the hood of an old car 
with my girlfriend
And my real friends
Until the end




Download on_the_hood.mp3

Earth Day Jokes

No one does political stand-up today better than Bill Maher, who has the temerity to joke about everything, even Earth Day…(his latest show hasn’t posted yet, but will soon).

Anyone still celebrate Earth Day? That was on Tuesday, the 22nd….I think they should move the date of Earth Day, because anyone who cares about the earth is still high from 4/20.

[edit]

I saw a poll that explained a lot. Like why global warming and the environment isn’t a big issue in the campaign. 47% of Democrats said that global warming should be a top priority. Which is pathetic. 12% of Republicans said that global warming should be a top priority. So we have two parties, the lame, and the super-lame…

McCain, Hillary Ignore Law (of Economics)

A lot of environmentalists have criticized GOP presidential candidate-to-be John McCain for calling for an elimination of the Federal gas tax for this summer, arguing that such a cut would encourage fossil fuel consumption and lead to emission of more greenhouse gases.

Maybe, maybe not. A much simpler argument against that pandering exists, simpler even than the fact it will never pass (nobody in D.C. stands in the way of the highway and roads lobby for long).

Paul Mulshine of The Star-Ledger (in New Jersey) explains. Bluntly. Watch out for this guy in a dark alley.

McCain came out with a proposal the other day that was every
bit as clueless as his many gaffes on Iraq. He wants to
suspend the federal gas tax for the summer driving season.

"The effect will be an immediate economic stimulus,
taking a few dollars off the price of a tank of gas every
time a family, a farmer or trucker stops to fill up,"
McCain said.

No, it wouldn’t. McCain is failing to take two
things into account:

Supply.

And demand.

The supply of gasoline during the summer months is
limited by refinery capacity. If demand rises, as it
traditionally does in the summer driving season, the price
will remain roughly the same even if the federal gas tax of
18.4 cents a gallon is lifted, says Len Berman, director of
the Tax Policy Institute in Washington.

"The elasticity in supply is very low, so a cut in
the gas tax is mostly just going to translate into higher
prices," said Berman.

Florida officials tried the same stunt several years ago,
says Fred Rozell of the Oil Price Information Service, the
national authority on oil prices, based in Lakewood. They
cut the state gas tax, but prices failed to drop
accordingly. Why? It’s hard to tell, said Rozell. Maybe
people were driving more or maybe the service station owners
were just pocketing the difference.

"The state spent all this money to see if gas
stations actually chopped the price off," said Rozell.
But the results were inconclusive.

And when it comes to cutting the federal gas tax, Rozell
agreed with Berman that the supply for the coming summer is
already set, so cutting the tax would not necessarily lead
to a drop in prices.

Update: Now Hillary has joined McCain in calling for the elimination of the gas tax this summer. How low will she go? Once again, sound bite politics trumps the environment…and common sense.

Barack on the Verge of Triumph in Pennsylvania

Though still trailing in the polls, the possibility of eking out a victory in Pennsylvania and deep-sixing Hillary Clinton has Obama backers, including me, hoping and praying. Some examples:

A reporter from the UK Telegraph reports on the excitement:

In an effort to rebut Mrs Clinton’s charge that he
does nothing more than give "woop-de-doo speeches", Mr Obama reeled off
economic statistics about Scranton being an economic "shambles".

But the sense of almost divine mission around
his candidacy remains. When a woman shouted "We need you", Mr Obama
responded: "I know. I’m coming."

Toby Harnden offers a how-it-could-happen scenario, with numerous examples. Here are two:

5. Many Democrats want this to be over. There’s a fear out there
that John McCain could be gaining traction because the Democratic race
has dragged on. Voters in New Hampshire handed Clinton an unlikely win
because they wanted the race to continue and didn’t see why one victory
in Iowa should seal it. Pennsylvanians may do the opposite and hand
Obama an unlikely win because they don’t see why Puerto Rico – or
super-delegates – should decide.

6. The growing sense that Obama
cannot lose the nomination – this is linked to 5. In the six weeks
since Texas and Ohio there has been a steady bleed of super-delegates
to Obama and the match-up polls with John McCain do not give weight to
Clinton’s argument that she is more “electable”. The decisive victories
she needs do not seem to be on the horizon – she’s way behind in North
Carolina while in Indiana (which she has to win) she’s level.

Politico finds some amazing voter registration stats:

According to the Secretary of State’s office, since January about
217,000 new voters have registered for the April 22 primary, the vast
majority of whom signed up as Democrats.

In Philadelphia, by far the state’s largest city, more than 12,000 new
Democrats were added to the rolls in the final week before the March
registration deadline, compared to just 509 Republicans.

That statewide Democratic surge has been accompanied by a flood of
party-switching. More than 178,000 voters have changed their party
status since January — and the Democrats have captured 92 percent of
those voters.

In Delaware County, a Philadelphia suburb once home to a storied
Republican machine, nearly 14,000 voters have switched their party
affiliation to Democratic since January compared to just 768 who became
Republicans.

And this evening on NPR, Hillary was given a chance to speak but didn’t respond, while Barack got in a quick phone interview, and in his quiet-but-firm way, left no doubt about who was the better candidate. He sounds completely at ease, relaxed, which makes his understated criticisms all the more telling.

Barack on All Things Considered before Pennsylvania primary:

London to Zanskar, Tibet: 99 Pounds

I’m not a fan of most web video, which all too often looks crappy, sounds frantic, and desperately wants to be noticed, but for every rule there is an exception, and here’s a great one.

A story you’ve never heard, with great video from a journey from London to Tibet…in l958. The three housewives who impulsively went on the trip — with funding from Ovaltine! — narrate in the present over footage and photos of them from the past on their trip over the Himalayas.

You will be amazed and astounded, I dare suggest, by the story and video from the UK Telegraph.

Here’s the print version, which is fascinating, but cannot compare to the live footage.

Especially wonderful for film fans is the opening, which employs the classic dissolve of a map into a journey…

http://services.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/1348426473

Global Warming Moving Jet Streams Northward, Researchers Suspect

Numerous different researchers at different institutions have found that global warming is altering the nature and strength of the the jetstreams that move weather around the planet. At the Carnegie Institute, based at Stanford, Cristina Archer and Ken Caldeira looked at jetstream trends from the years l979-2001. (Some people have all the luck.) In a study published in the GRU last week, they write:

We found that, in general, the jet streams have risen in altitude and moved poleward in both hemispheres. In the northern hemisphere, the jet stream weakened. In the southern hemisphere, the sub-tropical jet weakend, whereas the polar jet strengthened…. Further observations and analysis are needed to confidently attribute the causes of these changes to anthropogenic climate change, natural variability, or some combination of the two.

Not too exciting, one might say. But Seth Borenstein, AP’s first-rate climate reporter, talks to the researchers and comes back with some good quotes.

The northern jet stream "is the dominant thing that creates weather
systems for the United States," said study co-author Ken Caldeira, a
climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington in
Stanford, Calif. "Basically look south of where you are and that’s
probably a good guess of what your weather may be like in a few
decades."

I like this story because it’s factual without being hysterical. Maybe we should be thinking about moving north, if we don’t want to live in a climate like Mexico’s. Let’s be practical about it: Why not?

I also like the sharp graphic from Nicholas Short’s Water Planet explanation of the jetstream.

(h/t: Knight-Ridder Science Tracker)

Abolish the Lawn: Plant a Garden

Back in the l990’s, which seem more than ever like the good ol’ days, the great environmental writer Michael Pollan said we should Abolish the White House Lawn.

Now he faces the most vexing aspect of greenhouse gas emissions — what’s in it for me? — head on.

In The New York Times green issue, he writes:

Cheap energy, which gives us climate change, fosters precisely the
mentality that makes dealing with climate change in our own lives seem
impossibly difficult. Specialists ourselves, we can no longer imagine
anyone but an expert, or anything but a new technology or law, solving
our problems. Al Gore asks us to change the light bulbs because he
probably can’t imagine us doing anything much more challenging, like,
say, growing some portion of our own food. We can’t imagine it, either,
which is probably why we prefer to cross our fingers and talk about the
promise of ethanol and nuclear power — new liquids and electrons to
power the same old cars and houses and lives.

The “cheap-energy mind,” as Wendell Berry called it, is the mind that
asks, “Why bother?” because it is helpless to imagine — much less
attempt — a different sort of life, one less divided, less reliant.
Since the cheap-energy mind translates everything into money, its
proxy, it prefers to put its faith in market-based solutions — carbon
taxes and pollution-trading schemes. If we could just get the
incentives right, it believes, the economy will properly value
everything that matters and nudge our self-interest down the proper
channels. The best we can hope for is a greener version of the old
invisible hand. Visible hands it has no use for.

But a solution is — literally — at hand. Plant a garden. Grow your own tomatoes. Live in this wonderful world we’ve been given.

You begin to see that growing even a little of your own food is, as
Wendell Berry pointed out 30 years ago, one of those solutions that,
instead of begetting a new set of problems — the way “solutions” like
ethanol or nuclear power inevitably do — actually beget other
solutions, and not only of the kind that save carbon. Still more
valuable are the habits of mind that growing a little of your own food
can yield. You quickly learn that you need not be dependent on
specialists to provide for yourself — that your body is still good for
something and may actually be enlisted in its own support. If the
experts are right, if both oil and time are running out, these are
skills and habits of mind we’re all very soon going to need. We may
also need the food. Could gardens provide it? Well, during World War
II, victory gardens supplied as much as 40 percent of the produce
Americans ate.