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California’s low-carbon fuel standard has oil companies anxious
Dale Kasler, Sacramento Bee
In car-crazy California, a new fuel standard ordered by state officials to curb greenhouse gases could dramatically change how vehicles run.
It also could have a huge effect on cost.
The petroleum industry and some economists say the new standard adopted by the state Air Resources Board on Thursday will cost motorists billions, because blending gasoline will become considerably more complicated.
But state officials and environmentalists say the “low-carbon fuel standard” will actually save Californians money by reducing oil consumption and ushering in a competitive new era of biofuels and electric vehicles.
The stakes are enormous.
(25 April 2009)
Obama’s secret weapon: the web
Danny Schechter, ZNet
New Film Tells Unreported Story Of Obama’s Election
IF YOU WANT TO PROD OBAMA TO DO THE RIGHT THING, MASTER THE ORGANIZING TECHNIQUES HE USED TO WIN ELECTION
The election of Barack Obama may be long over but the campaign for change is still underway. For the first time in American history, a president is using the techniques he deployed in running for office in pushing for deeper change. Those who want him to go even further might want to master the approach he used.
It is no surprise that this significant political development is barely being covered in a media that loves to punditize, poll public opinion, and debate policy options in a top-down way. (Some like Fox are even trying to become community organizers) Yet by “covering” politics in this way, our mass media is missing the most innovative bottom-up grassrooots effort in recent memory.
I know about this because as a journalist and filmmaker, I set out to document just how Obama won the election. That story, told in the film Barack Obama, People’s President (slated for DVD release this month by ChoiceMedia.net) documents the online and on the ground techniques that were used to win the highest office in the land.
… Few in the major media gave [Obama] a chance but he was not discouraged because he had created his own grass roots media operation using sophisticated organizing and social networking techniques to build a bottom up movement, not the usual top-down apparatus. While his campaign ran the show, he encouraged independent initiatives including citizen-generated media, music videos, personalized websites, twittering and texting etc.
This is the new direction our politics has taken. It is a story that may be somewhat threatening to old media -and older activists-who prefer a one to many approach to communication as opposed to forging a more interactive empowering platform. There is no question that young people—especially those mobilized by Obama prefer online media and that choice is making it harder and harder for traditional outlets to sustain their influence and, in some cases, even their organizations. Old media may be on the way out.
(20 April 2009)
Congress Seeks “Kill Switch” For Internet
Chris Dannen, Fast Company
Congress is considering legislation that could give the President power to shut down large swaths of domestic Internet traffic, should he perceive a threat to national security.
The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 would give the government increased oversight in areas of “critical” Web infrastructure like banking, energy and telecommunications. The latter industry encompasses most private Internet service providers, meaning that officials could use the legislation as a kill switch over privately-owned networks. The bill is being introduced concomitantly with a second bill that would create a cabinet-level cybersecurity post in the White House.
(22 April 2009)
Noted by Big Gav who points to a video of Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), asking “Would It Be Better If We Hadn’t Created the Internet?”.
Congress, EPA, EDF Ignoring Energy Curtailment and Clean-Coal Oxymoron
Jan Lundberg, Culture Change
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency hopes that new energy/climate legislation “allows coal-fired power generation to play an important role in a carbon-constrained world.” Maintaining carbon-based power has not dropped off the priority list of our “greener” government that can’t abandon fossil-fueled “security.” This seems like part of an energy-gluttony protection policy rather than a climate-protection strategy.
A bill in Congress called the American Clean Energy and Security Act has two monstrous flaws: it omits the simple idea of cutting back on present energy use to slash greenhouse emissions, and it supports the burning of “clean coal.” The fantasy is for a “clean-energy economy” that maintains consumerism and assumes no socioeconomic restructuring due to peak oil or financial meltdown (now becoming a Depression).
Today I spoke with staffers with the two sponsors of the bill: the personal secretary for Chairman Henry A. Waxman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and staffers of Chairman Ed Markey of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.
I also spoke with the Environmental Defense Fund energy analyst Nat Keohane, responsible for a news release trumpeting the American Clean Energy and Security Act (below).
After informing each of them that I was on the second day of the Climate Emergency Fast, I told them that a bill that fails to cut energy consumption — in the belief that we can just make all the energy desired for a consumer economy into the future — is a tragic error. Apart from the unrealistic nature of that notion, greenhouse gases must be slashed now.
I asked them all if they had ever seen a mountain-top removal coal mining site. They had not. I said that I had, and that if they saw one they would understand why coal can never be a clean energy source.
They said they were willing to receive email on my concerns, and to pass them along to those most involved in the legislation. I urge others to contact them with the same message. However, implementing a climate-protecting lifestyle — that denies the mega-corporations our financial support — is more promising than legislation.
(21 April 2009)
