An odd thing happened during Sunday night’s Superbowl game: Joe Romm at Climate Progress and I came to the same conclusion regarding an environmentally controversial Superbowl commercial. We both thought the advertisement portraying Audi’s ability to thrive in an environmental police state with its ‘clean diesel’ technology missed its mark here in the U.S., at least among left-of-center environmentalists.
Sure, Romm wanted the Saints and I the Colts in the big game … and Joe would probably like the environmentalist police portrayed in the commercial, while I’d hate it. But still, there were areas of agreement between us, including on the practice of so-called greenwashing.
As Romm puts it, casting a scurrilous aspersion on the appropriateness of Germanic humor:
… Continue ReadingI’m not sure the German car company understands that the idea of “Green Police” they are spoofing is, in fact, precisely what many conservatives in this country actually think is the primary reason people who care about the environment—the apparent target audience of this ad—are trying to get the nation to take action on global warming.
Editor note: Julian Simon is a primary inspiration for this free-market energy blog, the name of which comes from his characterization of energy as the master resource.
Twelve years ago today came the shocking news: Julian Simon, age 65, had died of heart failure after his regular morning workout in Chevy Chase, Maryland. He had undiagnosed heart disease.
Just two months before, I had visited extensively with Simon when he came Houston to give what would be his last major address, titled: “More People, Greater Wealth, Expanded Resources, Cleaner Environment.” A full house of 200 heard Simon that day, and one in attendance, free-market entrepreneur Gordon Cain, was so impressed that he mailed Simon an unsolicited $25,000 check for research.
Simon invited me to coauthor an energy paper with him for a conference he was planning.…
Continue ReadingSuppose you began this morning by learning that some investors and developers had stepped forward with a reportedly new type of commercial grade electrical power called “Zephyr Integrated Power” (ZIP). Being clever, they are spending a LOT of time and money marketing ZIP, knowing that this is their chance to break into the grid in a BIG way.
Their message– ZIP is “FREE, CLEAN, AND GREEN”–sounds great! Oh yes, and for good measure, ZIP will create oodles of jobs.
So the basic question is this: exactly what do we do before we allow these people and their new product on the electric grid?
We wouldn’t be so gullible to just take their word for it, would we? Yet this is exactly what we are doing today!
And there is more: our politicians are so enamored with ZIP that they tell these promoters that we will not only allow them on the grid, we will FORCE utilities to use ZIP.…
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