There has been talk recently of boycotting the 2008 Beijing Olympics for any number of valid reasons. Whether it is for the freedom of Tibet, the atrocities in Darfur, or China’s environmental policies.

However, what would be achieved by boycotting the Olympics? Is China going to step back and say, “Whoa… the United States is right. We are all messed up and need to change.” Probably not.

And who are we to tell another country that they aren’t perfect? If the Olympics were here, who would be boycotting our games?

As a child I was led to believe that the Olympics were a coming together of different cultures and nations for the sake of sport and international cooperation. And in fact that WAS part of the basis for reinventing the Olympics in the first place. As the father of modern Olympics, Baron Pierre de Coubertin once said,

“May joy and good fellowship reign, and in this manner, may the Olympic torch pursue its way through ages, increasing friendly understanding among nations, for the good of a humanity always more enthusiastic, more courageous and more pure.”

Of course, I grew up and found that most of my dreams and fantasies taught to me by society were pure poppycock. But do all of our childhood misconceptions about the world have to be disproved? I mean, Santa Claus is a given, but what about the concept of peace on earth and goodwill towards man?

Yes there is a ton of controversy in the Olympics and has been since Ancient Greece. But why not use it as a tool to make the illusion a reality? Let’s take the Adam Werbach approach and make the Olympics blue by working with countries for a better future. Let’s use it as a starting point of international cooperation to move forward with international blue and green initiatives.

We have everything to lose, and nothing to gain by boycotting the Olympics. It is not going to inspire change. It is not going to help the environment or Tibet.

But it is going to hurt our relationship with China. What happens next time North Korea wants to do some nuclear missile testing, and China boycotts our efforts to stop it?

Let’s make the Olympics a symbol of our commitment to working with the entire world to make it greener.

Protest photo by 3rd eye guy @ Flickr

You practically can’t read a newspaper or news magazine without someone condemning the use of corn as an alternative fuel source these days. And who wouldn’t. The ethanol boom has driven the price of corn up, which in turn makes everything that uses corn go up in price. Corn is in a lot of products.

Why are we investing so much in corn-based fuel?

I think the answer is fear. Fear of rising oil prices. Fear of global warming. Fear of our dependency on foreign oil.

Fear is driving energy companies to move ahead on any number of crude oil alternatives in hopes that we can find a sustainable balance. I don’t think anyone is looking for a quick money making solution. It wouldn’t make sense to invest so much into the infrastructure of an alternative fuel source if those behind it didn’t believe that is was a sustainable business model. In today’s eco-savvy public opinion, a new business can’t survive if it isn’t sustainable.

Part of the problem we are in today is that we put all of our transportation energy eggs into the crude oil basket. Now that that basket seems to be killing us, we are scrambling to put our eggs into other baskets. Some of those baskets (like hydrogen fuel cells) are still being woven together.

The good news is that it seems as if we are diversifying our energy portfolio through research into a number of alternative fuel technologies, and some in conjunction with each other like the bio-fuel, plug-in, hybrid.

To me anything that can move us away from crude oil is a step in the right direction. But we don’t know how trying to grow our fuel might affect agriculture and commodities prices.

Maybe it’s fear of that unknown that keeps us from embracing ethanol.

There isn’t going to be a clean, neat little answer wrapped in a pretty bow to solve our transportation energy problems. As research and development progresses, there are going to be set backs. Whether they are spurred from changes in economic models, changes in government regulations and subsidy structures, or changes in the public’s energy usage, setbacks will happen. Those all seem like problems that can be tackled — unlike our current dependency on crude oil without investing in alternative fuels.

So I will gladly pay a higher premium at the liquor store pump for my bourbon if it means a cleaner more sustainable future. I just might savor it a little more.
Corn photo courtesy of just_a_name_thingie via flickr

Car photo courtesy of usaautoparts.net

Photo Courtesy of Luke Plunkett @ Kotaku.com

There isn’t a body count for wildlife, native plants, or eco-systems that have been killed in the struggle.

War takes a priceless toll on everything natural. Yet, nature may be the last thing that nations go to war over.

How long before we decide to protect the environment through force?

Can we go to war over the environment and still save it?

This may seem far fetched, but the possibility of an environmental war is already being discussed in the U.N.

“Ecological security must no longer be considered a luxury but rather an inextricable element of a durable peace policy,” states Klaus Topfer. He calls for international guarantees for protecting the environment similar to the Geneva Conventions, which protect the rights of prisoners and civilian populations in war. For ecological damage poses a threat greater than bombs to populations distressed by hunger, thirst, and disease.

If ecological damage is classified as such a great threat, could wars be declared to save the Amazon rain forest or Mediterranean fish populations?

Dr. Klaus Topfer, head of the U.N. environment program thinks that war is very likely. Perhaps not for the Spotted Owl. But as populations grow, natural resources are going to become more and more scarce. As nation’s need, war will likely occur.

Currently one quarter of the world’s population does not have access to clean water. If trends continue, Pakistan and China, both will be struggling to hydrate their populations. And a scary thing is they possess nuclear weapons. If push comes to shove for H2O, what would their options be?

To prevent this, we have to move away from our unsustainable systems. We need to use agencies like the U.N. to moderate, educate, and propagate nations towards an environmentally sustainable future. Not just for the birds and trees, but for our own survival.

We need to make our peace with green now.

The North American Free Trade Agreement, has been under scrutiny since its inception.

Thankfully we have Republican Candidate John McCain to defend this groundbreaking trade agreement.

NAFTA isn’t perfect. It was the first time a free trade agreement existed among such economically disparate countries. It was definitely a great experiment, and a lot has been learned from the results. There is no denying that there have been significant advances in a globally sustainable market that was enabled by NAFTA.

The U.S. economy thrives under NAFTA. As do Canadian and Mexican economies. But more important than just the economic benefits of NAFTA are the environmental impacts of the accord (not the car, although there are some positive environmental effects of high gas mileage as well). Within NAFTA was written a supplement, the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation. It’s the first time that environmental provisions were written into a trilateral free trade agreement. NAFTA has set the framework for government environmental protection and support.

However, the NAAEC only provides regulations for countries to enforce their own environmental laws. To deal with the non-enforcement of environmental regulations the NAAEC created the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation to ensure the enforcement of environmental laws and monitor the adverse environmental impacts of the trade agreement. In conjunction, the NAAEC also created the North American Development Bank to financially assist in environmental projects.

With so much on the line, why would Democratic candidates, who seem to want to find solutions to the economy and the environment, threaten to pull out of such a promising trade agreement? There is room to environmentally clean up NAFTA. John McCain has a vision to lead the U.S. into a sustainable global economy. We can do all the green we want at home, but if we can’t work with our neighbors to do the same, the planet is still doomed. NAFTA’s laid the groundwork to make that happen. Let’s not let our childish threats ruin a good thing.

McCain photo by christhedunn
Obama Clinton photo by eventeo

Editor’s note: Welcome to “Tangled Up in Green,” Red, Green and Blue’s weekly debate over the hot issues in environmental politics. Each week, writers Ranjit Arab and Adam Bowman will “throw down the glove” on current events involving environmental policy, legislation and citizen action. Adam and Ranjit are both graduate students in journalism at the University of Kansas, and currently enrolled in Professor Simran Sethi’s “Media and the Environment” course.

In Holcomb, Kansas, there rages a battle over energy, jobs, and economy.

The Sunflower Electric Company has a plan to build two coal-fired power plants that would produce 1400 megawatts of power. And until the Secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE), Roderick L. Bremby, denied the application for an air quality permit, they probably would be breaking ground right now.

People in the more populated Eastern part of Kansas, (which is pretty much all powered by coal), want to abandon the coal for sustainable wind energy. For Kansas, wind makes a lot of sense. Wind maps show that we are sitting in a very productive wind energy area. Basically any state in the Great Plains has an abundance of wind at their disposal. And the good news is, there isn’t any waste emissions or land ruining strip mining to harvest this energy.

But what about Eastern and Western States that aren’t sitting on a wind gold mine?

Kenneth Defeyes writes in his book, Beyond Oil, that coal, “is the best of fuels; it is the worst of fuels.”

Coal is cheap. (Not including the environmental costs.) And more importantly, we have the largest reserve in the world. Which means that we aren’t in conflict with foreign countries for our energy. We can dictate the costs.

Coal is the dirtiest of dirty energies. From excavation to consumption, it pollutes. There have been many advances in reducing the amount of mercury and sulfur dioxide emitted by coal plants. But they still contribute to the majority of green house gas emissions in the world. In 2004, 10 billion tons of CO2 were emitted into the atmosphere through the burning of coal. Wouldn’t it be great if we could get rid of the best of fuels worst byproducts?

There has been a buzzword in fossil fuels lately, clean coal.

At the National Governor’s Association annual winter meeting, energy was at the heart of the event. Governors from coal-rich states say it is irresponsible not to have coal in the energy debate. They put a lot of stock in new technologies to curb the emissions from coal. There is a lot of skepticism however, from Governors of renewable energy rich states, and environmentalists.

One clean coal technology already in use is coal gasification. It basically boils the coal into gaseous elements. These can then easily be separated and used for other purposes. Unfortunately there aren’t a lot of uses for CO2. However, Basin Electric in North Dakota has found a buyer for their waste.

PanCanadian Petroleum is pumping the gas into porous rock about a mile underground. This forces oil out of the rock. Pumping CO2 into the ground is called carbon dioxide sequestering. Essentially, in this case, it takes a fossil fuel, uses its energy, and then puts back into the ground the useless parts for more fossil fuels. It also extends the life of the oil well.

And if we are ever fortunate enough to wean our selves off of oil, it is estimated that there is enough porous rock not containing oil underground to sequester every bit of CO2 emissions for centuries.

Another new discovery is using re-engineered simple organisms to feed on CO2 and emit methane that can then be used for fuel. Scientists expect this technology to be up and working in about 18 months. However, this may cause more problems than it solves. There is little known about the side effects of genetic engineering. The point is that people are working on the problem because coal may need to be in our future.

In the larger picture of energy, there is no one answer, or even two answers. Wind is a fantastic option, but it won’t work for everywhere. Reducing energy consumption is part of the solution, but in a consumer society, it is a hard sell. Nuclear is potentially catastrophic, plus there isn’t a useful thing to do with the waste. Solar is expensive and not as efficient as we need it to be yet. Coal is cheap, it’s here, and we control it. With new technologies, we may be able to truly clean coal consumption.

The exciting thing is that all these options come with a ton of jobs, and economic growth. So at least that part of the puzzle can be answered. It just comes down to: what do we want to invest in for the future, and what do we have to invest in for the present?