Greenwashing gives canned-food cabal black eye
A canned-food industry cabal met secretly last week in an attempt to greenwash questions about a chemical used to line food and drink packages. But reporters at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel got a hold of a memo on the meeting and instead gave the industry a black eye.
I’m not sure which is more embarrassing: the stupidity of getting caught, or being exposed for holding such a cynical, devious meeting. Richard Wiles of Environmental Working Group told reporters Susanne Rust and Meg Kissinger :
“I mean, it seems over the top, even by industry. I’m amazed in this day and age they’d write this stuff down.”
Fox News turns a red herring into red meat
My first “Media Mayhem” column for the Mother Nature Network:
OK. Take a few deep breaths. Don’t get as worked up about these things as I do: This is how cable news coverage of the climate change bill that’s working its way through Congress will go for the next two months — at least in some media quarters.
Story continued on Mother Nature Network
Eco-satire on the ‘The Goode Family’
Are politically correct environmentalists ripe for mocking?
Maybe tonight’s premiere of “The Good Family” will provide an answer. The animated comedy on ABC pokes fun at a lefty, granola-ish clan.
“You look at them and you say, ‘Oh yeah, I know those people,’” creator Mike Judge, of “King of the Hill” and “Beavis and Butthead” fame, says on a promotional video (see below). “They’re hanging out at every Whole Foods, having a hybrid — just kind of feel forever guilty about being a human being on the planet. … It’s something that I think is pretty relate-able and that the time is ripe for.”
I’m not so sure about that. The dialogue in a couple of clips seems dated — more like: You hear that joke and you say, “Oh yeah, I’ve know those punchlines.’”
Maybe, I’m being an overly sensitive treehugger. Or maybe I’m being influenced by a not-so-favorable New York Times review:
[T]he show feels aggressively off-kilter with the current mood, as if it had been incubated in the early to mid-’90s, when it was possible to find global-warming skeptics among even the reasonable and informed. Who really thinks of wind power — an allusion to which is a running visual gag in the show — as mindless, left-wing nonsense anymore?
I’ll reserve judgment until I see the whole thing. It airs at 9 p.m. Eastern time”King of the Hill,” with its stick-figure-ish style and deadpan humor, kind of grew on viewers, and it stuck around for 13 years. Still my sense is that satirizing political correctness is about 20 years past its prime.
Editorials say climate’s ripe for climate bill
The landmark climate-change bill approved by a key House committee may be a whipping boy for Fox News and Rush Limbaugh But the legislation won strongly favorable reviews last week on U.S. newspaper editorial pages.
If anything, the most searing (certainly the most cogent) criticism of the Waxman-Markey carbon “cap-and-trade” bill came from editorial writers who believe it doesn’t go far enough. Among those was Boston Globe:
[I]n an attempt to build broad support for the measure, sponsors Edward Markey of Massachusetts and Henry Waxman of California have given away too many allowances, reducing pressure on firms to curb their emissions. …
The bill’s supporters say auctioning off all allowances would put too many industries, such as steel, at a competitive disadvantage with foreign rivals. But a strong US climate-change bill would give US negotiators the clout they need in upcoming global climate talks to insist on similar reductions in other nations, leveling the economic playing field.
Favorable editorial treatment during just one step toward passage is just a snapshot. The legislation still hasn’t passed the full House, and in July, the Senate’s expected to become the real battleground over passage. Surely by then the Wall Street Journal will weigh in, as will other papers. Read more
Europeans stew and Chu over U.S. climate bill
WHERE'S THE LOVE? Energy Secretary Steven Chu
Hey, guys give us a break.
Five days days after a key U.S. House committee approved landmark climate change legislation, European environmental groups are expected to greet Energy Secretary Steven Chu with protests. And Ban
OK, I know the Waxman-Markey bill, which includes a carbon cap-and-trade system and hard targets for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, ain’t perfect. And, yes, I was disappointed when Chu indicated last month that he wouldn’t fight some new coal power plants.
But a serious U.S. push — finally — to address carbon should be welcome. It gives both Europeans and enviros a chance to show that they’re not just scolds. A dose of positive reinforcement might actually help give the legislation some of the momentum it’ll need to make it’s way through the Senate.
Then, again the two biggest European governments are showing us the love in a way I’m not sure they should. They’re willing to let us off the hook for big (25 percent) carbon reductions just because we’ve been such laggards on the issue.
Don’t grade us on a curve when it looks as if everyone’s gonna need even bigger carbon reductions. At the same time, give us a bit of positive reinforcement. Headlines from Europe that show some appreciation for us finally doing might help build instill a bit of political will to do more.
This guy has it about right.
