The Last of the Flat Earthers

This morning on Today, Katie Couric asked John Hofmeister, President of Shell Oil Company, whether there was such a thing as global warming and if burning fossil fuels was the cause. Hofmeister didn't hesitate, didn't qualify, didn't prevaricate or attempt to defend his product. His answer was yes, the overwhelming body of evidence indicates that the Earth is warming and that we're the cause. That leaves just about Bush, Cheney and the Bush EPA as the last of the flat-earther, need-more-research, it'll-damage-the-economy crowd. Everyone else in the country knows better on all counts. Yes, George, the Earth is round, yes, George, there's enough research to demand action and yes, George, developing the technologies that will combat greenhouse emissions will create jobs.

I do not believe we will be able to maintain our ultimately mobile society in a world of lower energy use but I don't believe we'll have to. Look to Europe - a lower energy society that is still developed and still industrialized already exists. We may take the trains more, we may telecommute more, we may live closer to work but it's doable. I lived there for eight years and loved the lifestyle. In short, George, we don't need your brand of stalling on this issue. It's time to take action.

And that action is not, as the House wants, to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I am pragmatic enough to realize it will someday be drilled but I think we should sell it for a high price, for mandatory greenhouse gas emission reductions, for higher CAFE standards including all passenger vehicles, pickups and SUVs and for meaningful incentives to research alternative fuels. Hydrogen is glamorous but impractical. Ethanol is politically popular but actually a step backward in terms of net energy used. We need better batteries for our hybrids, not a procedure to burn perfectly good food for fuel at a net energy loss. In short we need leadership on energy, both from Democrats who could potentially trade the environmental damage to the refuge for some good on the energy front and from Republicans who need to realize that we won't cure our energy addiction by looking for another fix.

We're down to eleven dead in one attack in Baghdad today. That's incremental progress. Yesterday it was sixteen. Of course, if it's thirty tomorrow, that'll be progress, too, because there'll be one less insurgent, victim of his own suicide attack. Is that what's meant by incremental progress in Iraq? I'm betting on some form of a troop withdrawal between now and November, a blatant, purely political move that has nothing to do with the situation on the ground in Iraq and everything to do with the situation on the ground in Washington. It's called desperation and desperate men, particularly desperate megalomaniacs, will stop at nothing to hold on to their power.

And finally, while they're turning a blind eye to repeated violations of our privacy under the Patriot Act and the various illegal domestic spying programs, both those we know about and those we don't, Congress is protesting vigorously a raid on the offices of one of its own. This is commonly referred to as hypocrisy, commonly believed to be a privilege and commonly forgotten that Mr. Jefferson's office belongs to the people. If Jefferson is engaged in criminal activity and I have every reason to believe he is, his offices should be searched, much moreso than my telephone should be tapped. And in the joke of the day, Bin Laden is now agreeing that Moussaori had no part in the Sept. 11 attacks, we have a stooge in Supermax while one of the real masterminds rots in a foreign prison, his testimony too tainted to hold up in a U. S. court and extracted by torture.