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Friedman calls for carbon tax to spark change
Richard Read, Portland Oregonian
Thomas L. Friedman, who packed a Portland gymnasium Monday, called for a carbon tax -- perhaps offset by a payroll-tax cut -- to spur a green revolution.

Absent urgent action, especially by the United States, human beings will heat up, burn up and choke up the planet, said Friedman, drawing from his latest book, "Hot, Flat and Crowded."

The three-time Pulitzer Prize winner drew opinion leaders to his talk, including Gov. Ted Kulongoski who discussed climate-change response strategies with Friedman before his speech. The two agreed on the difficulty of getting Americans to face changes in lifestyle and prices as the economic model of endless consumer credit collapses, Kulongoski said.
(10 March 2009)

Kunstler: Forget About "Recovery"
James Howard Kunstler, blog
... I maintain that there are countless constructive tasks waiting to occupy us on a long national "to do" list for rebuilding a national economy, but they are way different than the ones currently preoccupying government and the mainstream media. The Obama White House, Congress, and The New York Times are hung up on exercises in futility -- "rescuing" banks and insurance companies that cannot be rescued (because they are hopelessly trapped in "black hole" credit default swaps contracts), and re-starting a "consumer" binge that was completely crazy in the first place, based, as it was, on a something-for-nothing standard-of-living.

Meanwhile, if the buzz on the blogosphere is a measure of anything -- and I think it is -- then a new consensus is forming out there about where to start doing things differently. Unfortunately after less than two months in office, President Obama finds himself awkwardly behind-the-curve on this. It begins with the understanding that a general bank rescue is hopeless and, going a step further, that the people who caused the train wreck of "innovative" securities have to be prosecuted.
(9 March 2009)

George Will: Americans are overfed but undernourished
George F. Will, Daily Times
Tom Vilsack, Iowa's former governor, calls his "the most important department in government," noting that the Agriculture Department serves education through school nutrition programs and serves diplomacy by trying to wean Afghanistan from a poppy-based (meaning heroin-based) economy. But Vilsack's department matters most because of the health costs of the American diet. If Michael Pollan is right, the problem is rooted in politics and, in a sense, Iowa.

Pollan, author of "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and "In Defense of Food," says that after World War II the government had a huge surplus of ammonium nitrate, an ingredient of explosives -- and fertilizer. Furthermore, pesticides could be made from ingredients of poison gases. Since 1945, the food supply has increased faster than America's population -- faster even than Americans can increase their feasting.

Agricultural commodity prices generally fall. But when a rare surge in food prices gave the Nixon administration a political scare, government policy, expressed in commodity subsidies, has been, Pollan writes, to sell "large quantities of calories as cheaply as possible," especially calories coming from corn.

"All flesh is grass" says Scripture. Much of the too-ample flesh of Americans (three of five are overweight; one in five is obese) comes from corn, which is a grass. A quarter of the 45,000 items in the average supermarket contain processed corn. Fossil fuels are involved in the planting, fertilizing, harvesting, transporting and processing of the corn. America's food industry uses about as much petroleum as America's automobiles do.
(6 March 2009)
Kate Shepherd gives a grudging thumbs up to George Will:

... oddly enough, our third climate thumb goes to conservative columnist George F. Will. Yeah, we're sorta holding our noses here, but we gotta tip the hat to him for his latest column looking at the crisis in the food system in the United States and noting the key role the Department of Agriculture plays in repairing it. Sounds like he recently discovered Michael Pollan, and boy are we glad! Remarkable that one can expend so much ink denying the reality of climate change, but then turn around and fret about the fossil fuel use in our agricultural system. We're not taking back that climate finger you got last week, George, but we're glad you've been doing some homework.

Steven Chu, United States Secretary of Energy, on Charlie Rose (video)
Charlie Rose Show
(9 March 2009)