History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. Back in the mid-nineties, Michael and I met on the campaign to save Northern California's Headwaters Forest. Headwaters was the last significant privately owned stand of ancient redwoods on the West...
History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. Back in the mid-nineties, Michael and I met on the campaign to save Northern California's Headwaters Forest. Headwaters was the last significant privately owned stand of ancient redwoods on the West Coast and was threatened with liquidation by the corporate raider Charles Hurwitz.
Toyota Prius owners are in no small part motivated by status concerns in buying their hybrids -- and that's a good thing. The question is: how could a new politics -- and new world -- could be made out of affirming and channeling the universal desire for recognition?
It is now well-established that Toyota Prius owners are in no small part motivated by status concerns in buying their hybrids. Toyota recognizes this. In conversations with Toyota executives we've been told that customers want to buy the Prius instead of the Honda Accord or Civic Hybrids because it is so obviously a hybrid -- one can only tell the Civic and Accord Hybrids are Hybrids if one reads the small decal on the back of the car. The Prius, by contrast, shouts out: "I'm an efficient Prius, you gas guzzling hog!"
Like most post-boomers, I'm more a little tired of hearing how better everything was in the sixties: the music, the ideas, the sex. But when Patti Smith sings, the best of the sixties bursts forth.
Last night a friend and I saw the indomitable Patti Smith play at the Fillmore in San Francisco. A few minutes before she began I ordered a beer at the downstairs bar. Waiting, I turned around to see a large, astonishing nude photograph of Janis Joplin, staring at me like a mischievous Eve.
The civil rights old guard, represented by the board, seems stuck in a 1960s mind-set that expects a particular form of response from black America -- pushing for government action to remedy the effects of discrimination. This type of response was popular, successful and necessary during the civil rights movement and, in some cases, remains a powerful form of redress.
The successes and failures of the civil rights movement, however, fundamentally changed the country's racial landscape. Of course racial discrimination remains. But we have entered what has been called a post-civil-rights age that requires an array of strategies to address the complex problems many African Americans face. . .
Indeed, many current civil rights leaders fetishize the form of dissent most associated with the civil rights movement. They confuse principle with tactics. They behave as though marching and petitioning the government for redress of grievances is the only principled response to the maldistribution of burdens and benefits in our democracy. And they bristle at other forms of dissent, tactics designed to reach the shared goal of equality under law for all Americans. For many, it is either the old way or no way at all. . .
The Times' Andrew Revkin offered an excellent overview of the problem with solar last month on his blog. It can basically be summed up in four words: too expensive for China.
"We're not going to get people in China to do it, we're not going to get people in India to do it, if it costs 10 percent more than the energy they now pay for," Dr. [Nathan] Lewis [of Caltech] said. "Right now it costs 50 times more."
...
Just to avert a small wedge, not even one-tenth, of the anticipated growth in coal burning through 2050 would require perhaps 200 of the "Million Solar Roof" initiatives (that's the moniker for California's highly-publicized effort).
Experts still largely agree that scale remains the hurdle to surmount for solar power, for expanded nuclear power, for use of coal without emissions -- basically for any energy technology option other than "business as usual," in a world heading toward 9 billion people who aspire to a reasonable quality of life.
The truth is that America's love for solar could be the basis for a bold new energy politics -- but only if we make major national investment commitment to it.
