The Ella Baker Center's Reclaim the Future campaign focuses on ensuring that jobs and job training are available for the poor and for people of color in the emerging green economy.

I spoke with Van at his office in Oakland on May 21. He had just returned from Washington D.C. where he testified before Congress about green collar jobs.

Green Options: The scope of your work and activism is extremely broad: civil rights, political activism, juvenile justice system reform… How does environmental activism fit in?

Van Jones: From my point of view, we have a legacy in Progressive politics in the last century of being very fragmented: single issue, sub-sub-sub-issue sometimes. We've worked harder and harder and gotten farther away from each other and from any real solutions. So, it's not about the environment fitting in.

I look at the world through certain lenses: race, class, gender, power. The environment is a lens: a way I look at the world. So I see the environment in everything. I see ecological perils and solutions in everything. It's not surprising that a society that has throwaway children and throwaway neighborhoods also has throwaway species and throwaway resources and throwaway continents. It's a throwaway mentality that we have.

What we do with people should be restorative. If somebody gets in trouble with the law, the goal should be a just outcome, and a just outcome should be one that leaves everybody else better off than they were before. That's not what we do. We have a retribution-based justice system. If somebody damages me, the system is going to damage them. You add damage to damage, and that's how we get justice. How do you know you have justice? Look, there's more damage! My view is that we need to have restorative justice where the victim has been made whole, the offender or the trespasser has been rehabilitated, and the community has been restored to some sense of wholeness. That's a much higher standard, but it's something to aim for.

I feel the same thing about the suicide economy that we're in. You take a bunch of living things, turn them into dead things, shrink wrap it, and that's your economic growth model. I think that's totally nuts. We should be restoring and replenishing the capacity of nature to take care of us. That should be how we grow: green growth. My hope is that someday we'll have restorative justice and we'll have restorative economics.

There's only one solution to all the problems, or to at least 80 percent of the problems we have in this country, and that's a green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty.

GO: You use the terms "eco-apocalypse", "eco-apartheid", and "eco-equity" to describe possible future societal outcomes from an environmental perspective. What do those terms mean to you?

VJ: Eco-apocalypse is the natural outcome of how we're living. You've got six billion people, soon to be nine billion people, and everybody's eager to ride around in an S.U.V. while chugging on a Slurpee, or they wish they were! And that's just not gonna work. The outcome of that kind of lifestyle and value system is eco-apocalypse.

Eco-apartheid is the danger that certain elites, certain ecological haves, begin to think they've solved the problem because they've solved it for themselves. But the problem is actually getting worse and worse everywhere else around them. The ecological have-nots not only continue to suffer morally and physically, but also, that particular moment [when the elites think they've solved the problem] just becomes a speed bump on the way to eco-apocalypse anyway.

To me, eco-equity is a way of talking about an ecologically sustainable society that is more just, more fair, more equal, and more inclusive than the one we have now.

GO: And that's why you created the Oakland Green Jobs Corps? What is your goal with that project?

VJ: We've created the process by which it's being born. We want to train up a bunch of urban youth in green enterprise. People are always telling me, "Oh Van, you just want to make these guys be the workers and the slaves. A green plantation!" But, you know, I'm a good southern Christian guy. I'm for work. It should be paid fairly and it should be safe and clean and it shouldn't be hurting the earth and everybody around you.

I want to see green career paths, where people get a chance to start at the bottom and then step up to the next rung on the ladder and then the next rung, and get a chance to become co-owners and co-investors and co-inventors. It has to start some place.

Our point of view is, lets not be so elitist that we can't honor good, hard, dignified, ennobling work: people working with their hands, building things, putting up solar panels, weatherizing homes, working on organic agriculture, building wind farms. We don't have robots in society, so somebody has to do that work. Lets make sure that the people who can use that work get a chance to do it. I see that as a first step toward bigger and better things.

Our big problem in this country: everybody wants people to climb out of poverty themselves. I'm for that. But they want people to climb a six story ladder with four rungs on it. Lets put some rungs on this ladder, and lets make sure that ladder is pointing toward the green economy and not the grey economy.

GO: You had the opportunity to testify before Congress about green collar jobs just a few days ago. How did that opportunity come about, and what did you have to say?

VJ: It was one of the happiest days of my life. I'll put it in the top five. It was like a movie! You put your suit on and get your shoes polished and get in the cab to go over to the big building with high ceilings and marble floors. Then you sit in front of this little table with three other people. The Congresspeople all walk in, and they sit up there like they're gods. They give their speeches, and then it's your turn, and you get a chance to talk to people who, if they believe you, can vote to send hundreds of millions of dollars to your constituency. And… it was just great.

I got a chance to say everything I had to say. Representative [Edward] Markey and Representative Hilda Solis, their comments were… I was thinking, "We should put that on our website!" They were saying things we've been saying. That was really cool: to see people in powerful positions like that saying "green pathways out of poverty" and "green collar jobs". That's stuff that the Ella Baker Center was saying in 2004 and 2005 when it was really novel. People hadn't really thought about that before. Now we've gotten to a place where people in high office feel like they can say it in public and nobody's going to laugh. That's a big change.

The opportunity came [to testify] because we were just doing our work and somebody from [Speaker of the House Nancy] Pelosi's office heard about it. They called us in and asked some questions. We were clearly being vetted in a way. The next time they called us over, the Speaker was actually there. We got a chance to be in a meeting with her, and then did a press conference. So, basically, we ended up with about $5 million worth of free lobbying just doing this work here in Oakland and believing in it, and because we're just a stone's throw from the Speaker's home office.

It was weird to me because it was like being back in high school civics. It was like, [sings] "I'm just a bill. Yes, I'm only a bill." An idea comes from the people, then a representative introduces it and it becomes law. I'm thinking, "This is starting to get corny!" And I'm right in the middle of it!

GO: Do you have any interest in someday running for office yourself?

VJ: No. No. Not at all. I'm totally excited and fascinated by politics and politicians. I listen to NPR and Rush Limbaugh. I'm a big political junkie. Thus, I know better than to run for office. [Laughs]

GO: What are the most important things that individuals and individual businesses can do to ensure that green collar jobs and eco-equity become realities?

VJ: I wish it was easy. Just say, "Hire urban youth." I wish it was that easy, but it's not that easy. Our public schools and our foster care system and our juvenile court system have so failed a generation of urban youth that some of them are not job ready. We may as well be honest about that.

What is possible is to identify those community-based organizations that work with young people. Those community colleges. Go out of your way to find those helping themselves to get job ready. You probably cant do it by posting on your individual website, "We have a job." You're going to have to go out of your way a little bit to identify community-based organizations or churches and say, "Look, if you have any young people who are job ready or close to it, let me know." It does take extra work. You do have to go out of your way. But every community has reputable community centers, reputable pastors, who can help you navigate that and help you find people who will do a good job.

If you want to go a step beyond that, every county has some kind of a workforce investment board or has job training available. Usually it's through the community colleges and vocational schools. Go to the local community college and say to them, listen, this is what we're doing: if you train people in solar installation or in some other particular thing I'm doing, I will hire three or four people in the next year from your program. That's all you have to say to a community college. They will turn on a dime if they believe they can get their graduates jobs.

Unfortunately, it's the polluters and the despoilers and the big-box stores that dictate what a kid can learn in a community college. It's just one section of the business community, frankly the worst section, in industries that are mature enough that can actually dictate, "We want XYZ employees." Most eco-entrepreneurs, they're hiring their dorm buddies to do vocational work, because they're so disconnected from traditional blue collar communities.

So, minimally, reach out to those community groups that are reputable. And it may take you a few times. Don't give up based on the first setback. You may hire somebody that doesn't work out. It's okay to hire, it's okay to fire, and it's okay to try to hire again. That success story is one hire away. You don't give up because this one didn't work out. You don't do that for anyone else. You never say as a business person, "Well, I'm never going to hire another college graduate! That one was a fool!"

GO: You named the Ella Baker Center after an "unsung civil rights heroine." Who are some of the Ella Bakers of the environmental movement?

VJ: You gotta start with Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was murdered by Shell and Nigerian activists. You can never honor him enough in terms of the commitment he made to the Ogoni people and his willingness to work across so many different boundaries. He put the Ogoni people on the map and Nigeria on the map and Shell on the map. And the price he paid [was] being murdered by the government with the duplicity of big corporate America.

Vivian Chang here in Oakland's Chinatown. About to become a mom, in her thirties, never seeks the spotlight. But, you go over to an event at the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, there are nine different Asian nationalities there. She's doing the real work.

I love Juliet Ellis at Urban Habitat. She's just so smart and fast and able to deal with these big white bankers and also able to deal with these low-income organizers, and is impressive within herself all the time.

Majora Carter in the South Bronx, who's becoming a sung hero! [Laughs] She got the MacArthur [Fellowship], but she should get the MacArthur and the Nobel Prize and whatever else they've got.

We're really lucky to have such a strong and growing environmental movement in the country. I love Billy Parish with Energy Action. He's willing to try to figure out how to get all those wonderful white kids working together, and he's wanting to figure out how to connect with other struggles. I don't know if he's sung or unsung, but I'd add him to my list. Keep it diverse. [Laughs]

But, Julia Butterfly [Hill] is always at the top of my list. She's sung certainly well enough by now, but that's my girl. Julia Butterfly, in my life, will always be my number one through ten.

Homebrewing biodiesel has many advantages: it usually costs well under $1 a gallon to produce, it eliminates trips to the gas station, and it makes a hell of a hobby.

I've been making biodiesel in my garage for almost two years with equipment that I built myself from instructions available for free online and with used vegetable oil that I pick up for free from a local restaurant. But, we're getting ahead of ourselves. Like most homebrewers, I started my bio-adventure by making small test batches of biodiesel in my kitchen.

Before we go any further, the Green Options legal team has asked me to include a short note about safety:

Almost everything you'll be dealing with when making biodiesel can be very dangerous. You'll be handling hot oil, methanol (which is poisonous and potentially lethal if consumed, if it gets on your skin, or if its vapors are inhaled), and sodium hydroxide (lye, which is poisonous and corrosive if consumed or inhaled, and which will burn your skin quickly and painfully immediately upon contact). Always wear heavy-duty, chemical-proof gloves, eye protection, and a dust mask during every step of the process. With methanol, not even cartridge respirators can protect you from fumes. Always minimize the time that anything containing methanol is unsealed. Literally, hold your breath for the few moments that you're working with open methanol containers. Above all, use common sense.

Biodiesel is simply heated vegetable oil mixed with methoxide (methanol + lye). The lye in the methoxide breaks apart the vegetable oil and allows a methanol molecule to recombine where a glycerin molecule used to be (methanol and glycerin are both alcohols). When the reaction is finished, the darker glycerin settles to the bottom, and the lighter biodiesel is left on top.

Here's what you'll need to make your own test batch at home:

• Safety equipment listed above

• 1 Liter of any virgin, unused vegetable oil (non-hydrogenated!)

• 1 bottle of "Red Devil Lye" drain cleaner, available at most grocery and hardware stores. Red Devil is very close to pure NaOH (sodium hydroxide), and is perfect for making small batches of biodiesel. If you can't find Red Devil, contact a local chemical supply house and ask for sodium hydroxide.

• 1 bottle of "HEET" brand antifreeze (the yellow bottle) available at most auto supply stores. HEET is close to 100% pure methanol. If you can't find it, look for a local racing fuels retailer that sells methanol.

• 1 large sealable glass jar or bottle, like a mason jar (at least 1.5 liters)

• 1 small sealable glass jar or bottle, like a mason jar (at least .5 liters)

• 1 glass (not plastic!) measuring cup (at least 250 mL)

• A scale that measures in grams

• 1 funnel

• 1 thermometer

• 1 paper cupcake wrapper

This "recipe" only works with virgin veggie oil. If you want to try making a batch from used oil, check out the external resources provided below. You'll need to do a titration to determine how much lye to use.

How to make methoxide:

1. First, go outside. You'll want to do this in a well-ventilated area. Measure out 250 mL of methanol (HEET). Pour it into the small glass jar and seal it.
2. Measure out 6 grams of NaOH (Red Devil). Don't let the lye touch anything plastic or anything living, including you. You can use a paper cupcake wrapper on the scale to hold the NaOH if necessary. Lye tends to stick to anything and everything else.
3. Unseal the jar containing the methanol and carefully pour in the NaOH. Re-seal the jar.
4. Gently swirl the jar to dissolve the lye in the methanol. This may take a few minutes. The jar will probably become slightly warmer. This is normal. A small amount of pressure will also be built up. Gently vent this pressure outside by opening the lid, but do not breathe the fumes!
5. Leave the jar outside for now, but not in the sun.

Unwashed Biodiesel (with glycerine removed)How to make biodiesel:

1. Begin by heating the liter of vegetable oil to 140-145 degrees Fahrenheit on the stove or carefully in the microwave.
2. Pour the heated oil into the large glass jar using the funnel if necessary.
3. Take the oil jar and the funnel outside. Carefully but quickly pour the methoxide into the oil jar using the same funnel. Re-seal the jar.
4. After ensuring that the jar is completely sealed, shake the mixture vigorously for 20-25 seconds.
5. Set the jar down in a well-lit area and watch the magic happen!

You'll notice immediately (probably even while you're shaking) that the mixture turns a much darker color than the original oil. This is the dark glycerin molecules being broken off of the original veggie oil molecules by the lye. After just a few minutes, you'll begin seeing the glycerin fall to the bottom of the jar. Within an hour or two, if all went well, all the glycerin should have separated out and you should have two clearly separate layers: dark glycerin on the bottom (20-25% of the volume), and cloudy looking biodiesel on top. Success!

Washed BiodieselCan you run back outside and pour the biodiesel directly into your diesel car or truck? Well, it's probably not a good idea. The reason the biodiesel layer looks cloudy is because there is still some leftover lye and other impurities floating around in there. Though some homebrewers do use this "unwashed" biodiesel, most of us choose to take a few extra steps to "wash" the fuel of all the impurities before putting it in our tanks. You can see the clarity difference in the two images. The reddish unwashed biodiesel above is too cloudy to see the text behind the jar. The washed fuel on the left is almost perfectly clear. (Don't worry about the color difference: they're just two different kinds of vegetable oil.)

If you're ready to learn more about making biodiesel, here are a few of the resources that helped me move from making small test batches to making 30 gallon, road-ready batches in my "Appleseed Biodiesel Reactor", wash tank, and dry tank:

• The Collaborative Biodiesel Tutorial - Everything from building your own processor to using the leftover glycerin to getting restaurants to give you their used oil.

• InfoPop Biodiesel Forums - The greatest and most helpful homebrewers in the world hang out here. If you're planning to become a homebrewer, trust me, you'll need their help.

• Yahoo! Biodiesel Basics Group - More great information and knowledge from experienced homebrewers.

• Green Options Resources: Check out our biodiesel archives, biodiesel in our Green Guide, and our residential biodiesel expert Clayton Bodie Cornell.

• My collection of posts about going biodiesel at The Higher Pie.

Utah Biodiesel Supply photo by Jack Jones, courtesy of Graydon Blair.

Novazone

Ozone is simply three oxygen molecules bonded together (O³). Because ozone is an unstable substance, Novazone’s solutions create ozone on site from the oxygen in the air. When used as a food and water purifier, ozone can control and eliminate the spread of pathogens such as bacteria and mold without using chemicals or leaving any residue. Once the ozone has done it’s job, it quickly reverts back to safe, breathable oxygen (O²).

In anticipation of an announcement that the company made yesterday, I spoke with Novazone’s CEO David Cope in San Francisco on April 20^th.

Green Options: I think a lot of people have probably heard of ozone being used to clean and purify food and water, but the EPA says that ozone is a pollutant at ground level. What makes it safe for your applications?

David Cope: Actually, that’s sort of an urban myth. If you read carefully, ozone is a proxy indicator of pollution. It itself is not pollution. When sunlight reacts with pollutants, it will create ozone as a byproduct. That [created ozone] is something that is easier to measure than sulfur dioxide, for example. So they measure ozone as a proxy indicator.

It has a very short half-life. [It breaks down into O²] literally in seconds sometimes, out in the open and depending on the temperature. So it’s actually very, very misunderstood. Ozone itself is not a pollutant. But, having said that, on average it’s healthy not to breathe in a bunch of extra ozone. OSHA has come in and has well-defined safety levels. For example, at 100 parts per billion in the air, you can have up to eight hours of continuous exposure. In none of our applications is there any ambient ozone.

GO: So it’s also safe for workers who are handling the ozone?

DC: Ozone, like all clean technologies, as a substance is not that interesting, but it’s the unique application science, the unique application of how to apply it in the right dose at the right time in a safe way, that’s interesting.

As we evolve, we come up with more clever ways to use nature to solve these problems. From the cavemen burning logs for fuel, to jet fuel and gasoline, to now, “Hey, we can use corn and we can use grass clippings to make ethanol!” Ozone is one of those things. It’s a unique way to use oxygen to solve a problem.

GO: What is ozone replacing as far as what’s typically used to purify produce? And why is ozone preferable?

DC: We can replace things like fungicides and oxidizers like chlorine that are used to disinfect produce and that get coated on produce to eliminate mold-induced decay. We can eliminate the need for those chemicals by using electrified oxygen from the air.

In the real world, most of our customers are using our products to either eliminate it or reduce chemicals. Many of them, because they’ve been using these chemicals for so long, are ratcheting down the use of their chemicals, and using less and disposing less by using our applications. Many of them, of course, are certified organic, so they use none of these chemicals.

GO: What do companies like Colgate and Proctor & Gamble use your products for?

DC: Oh it changes all the time, but literally all of their products from moist towelettes that you can’t have growing bacteria and molding once they’re wrapped up to water for Mr. Clean or Sunny Delight drinks.

GO: The term “suspended animation” has been used to describe the potential results of ozone purification. How much longer do fruits and vegetables last once they’ve been treated?

DC: I’ll give you an example: pears in the Pacific Northwest in cold storage. We have pears typically stored for six months, and we can add two months to their storage time. But more importantly, they don’t decay during that amount of time, and we actually naturally control the ripening process, so when you take the pears out of storage, they’re natural. There’s no chemical residue, no fungicides. They look beautiful. They’re not decayed, they’re nice and fresh with all the sugar content you’d expect.

GO: Do you only need to treat produce once with ozone right at the farm? Or does it get treated along the way at different places?

DC: We use what you call a low-dose, steady-state application, where the fruit will go in, and we supplement the atmosphere with parts per billion of ozone. We have specific concentrations by commodity that we’ve learned both the good and the hard way over the years to be right. We have a lot of scientists that work for our company, including ex-USDA plant pathologists, who help us figure that out.

And you’ve sort of tied in to [Novazone's announcement]. Most of who we’ve been selling to is the grower and the packer. They harvest the produce and put it in these huge cold storage rooms and pack them. But of course there’s a whole supply chain to get little Johnny his apple. What we observed is that once these growers and packers, even if they used applications like ours, once they put it down the supply chain, they lost all control.

When you look at the food industry, what’s interesting is that domestic consumption is pretty much flat growth. The big growth is exports. And what happens with exports is that you have longer routes to market with more people handling the product, more risk of decay and over-ripening, and food safety issues. And so what we’re announcing is a new product called PurFresh that we’ve developed to move down the supply chain into the shipping segment. So now we can provide decay control, ripening control, and food safety enhancement for all produce shipped anywhere in the world.

Our PurFresh unit snaps right into an existing shipping container, and it uses the latest in Silicon Valley technology to, by commodity, generate, maintain, and record, precise dosages of ozone to control decay, control ripening, and enhance food safety.

GO: So are PurFresh units affordable to everyone along that supply chain?

DC: Well, this is interesting: we don’t actually sell the units, it’s a service. So you would say, “I’d like a PurFresh shipment.” What that would mean is that when your produce got from, say, Chile to Hong Kong 40 days later, you have no decay, you have nice, firm fruit that hasn’t ripened in transit, and you’d pay anywhere from $500 to $1500 depending on the trip premium for a PurFresh shipment.

We’ve talked about the growth of exports, but there’s another thing that’s adding fuel to that fire which is the growth of organic food. Organic is growing at 30-35% a year, compared to 2% for conventional food, so it’s the highest growing category around. You know about Wild Oats and Whole Foods and Wal-Mart trying to green themselves. What happens when you have more and more food with longer times to market, and a greater percentage of that food is organic, by definition without fungicides and pesticides, you have greater decay.

And so what happens when you have greater losses? Those losses are subsidized by price. So today consumers are paying about a 120% price premium for true, certified organic produce… With us, you could ship organic, eliminate those losses, and now get organic produce that’s the quality of conventional food and the price of conventional food without the chemicals.

GO: Something the green community has been urging for a long time is to eat local food. To not eat food that’s been shipped all the way around the world…

DC: And the people by the way against that the most is the Organic Trade Association. They hate that idea the most, which is interesting.

GO: Why do you think that is?

DC: Because I think they view that as sort of regulating the ultimate growth of organic. And by the way, this is not me expressing my opinion, this is reading what the OTA thinks: by not having the economies of scale that you get with the larger growers, you won’t be able to ever make organic truly efficiently distributed in the marketplace. It’s not my opinion, but I believe it’s their perspective.

GO: Do you see a place for ozone applications in a more localized food economy?

DC: Sure, absolutely. We have many [customers] like that, like a little grower called Kuyama is the Santa Barbara mountains that’s tiny, but probably has the premium organic Fuji and Pink Lady apples in the world. They use our product. For cold storage room applications, [our products] start very affordably for the small guy, and now they can store their organic apples for a long time pathogen free and chemical free. If they’re big enough to ship, they get enhanced decay and ripening control in transit without the use of chemicals. So I actually see it as a leveling factor for them. They can start to compete on a price basis with some of the bigger guys.

GO: Ten years from now, how will ozone be used? Am I going to have an ozone generator and applicator next to my microwave?

DC: I think you will. I think you’ll have very low levels of ozone in parts per billion in the crisper of your refrigerator. And there’s technology called “ozone destruction” so that when the ozone comes out of the refrigeration, it’s instantly destructed into pure oxygen, so there’s no risk of it getting out into the atmosphere.

GO: In response to the spinach crisis last year, you were quoted as saying, “If you use enough chlorine, you won’t have E. coli in your spinach, but people want fresh, safe food. When you get really smart, you use natural processes.” Is ozone effective enough that you believe future crises like the spinach scare can be eliminated completely?

DC: I do, I do. As a matter of fact, I won’t say who, but about a month before this crisis we were talking to the company and their concern about exposure to E. coli. We showed them a way to implement a solution, and they thought it was expensive, and then literally a month later the rug was pulled out from underneath them. I’m sure our solution looks pretty cheap now.

There’s this collision of forces taking place. On one hand, everybody wants safe food and water. In the past, the way you prevented eating E. coli was with what they call “the farmer’s little helper”: they just use a lot of chemicals. And truly, if you just use a lot of chlorine or chlorine oxide or whatever… you would not have an E. coli problem. But today, unlike ever before, we see consumers saying, “I want safe food and water, and by the way, give it to me without the use of chemicals.”

We lie at that intersection. And clean technologies lie at that intersection. An efficacious, safe solution that gives you food safety and water safety without the chemicals. That’s really what we do.

Mercedes is billing the E320 BLUETEC as the “cleanest diesel vehicle in the world.” Engineers incorporated a modular design concept which uses a series of components, such as an oxidation catalytic converter and a maintenance-free particulate filter, to “wash” emissions from the engine before anything leaves the tailpipe. Those features, combined with an advanced new approach to reducing nitrogen oxide emissions, make the BLUETEC’s emissions cleaner than even a standard gasoline automobile.

The BLUETEC also offers a combined 36 mpg (700 miles per tank), all the luxury Mercedes is known for, and a 208 horsepower V-6 engine that goes 0-60 in 6.6 seconds. Not bad. The last diesel vehicle I owned went 0-60 in about 6.6 minutes when the turbo still worked and with wind pushing it down a steep hill.

Though the BLUETEC’s new diesel engine technology greatly reduces emissions, Mercedes still only approves the use of B5 (5% biodiesel/95% dino-diesel) in its diesel vehicles. Unfortunately, this effectively means that Mercedes doesn’t approve of the use of biodiesel. By the time next year’s World Green Car contest rolls around, it would be a thrill to see Mercedes and other car manufacturers embrace existing and available renewable fuels along with their commitment to reducing tailpipe emissions. (If you missed Clayton’s excellent “Green Myth Busting” post on biodiesel, be sure to check it out.)

To be eligible for the World Green Car prize, vehicles must:

• Be available to the public now or in the near future, and

• Meet or exceed the requirements of California’s SULEV (Super Ultra Low Emission Vehicle) regulations or the US EPA’s Tier 2 standards, or

• Get at least 47.6 mpg, or

• Use advanced technology aimed at increasing the vehicle’s environmental responsibility.

The E320 beat out two other finalists, the BMW Hydrogen 7 and the 60+ mpg diesel Volkswagen Polo BlueMotion, to claim the award.

Speaking of which, from my view here in the peanut gallery, it looks to like the World Green Car jurors may have chosen the wrong car! At least, they may have chosen the wrong diesel car. The E320 BLUETEC is a fantastic automobile, and a few dozen people in the U.S. might even be able to afford one ($52,000 for the base model). The VW Polo BlueMotion diesel, on the other hand, get 25 more miles per gallon than the E320 BLUETEC and has a very reasonable MSRP of under $20,000. Of course, the downside is that VW has yet to announce when the car will be available to US consumers, if ever.

Oh Lord, maybe you can buy me a Mercedes-Benz after all…

Now they've set their sites on spurring innovation closer to earth. We learned today from Chris Baskind at Lighter FootStep that the X PRIZE Foundation has formally announced its rules for the new Automotive X PRIZE. The multi-million dollar prize will be awarded to the teams in two categories who build cars that get at least 100 miles per gallon of gasoline (or its equivalent with other fuel types).

The first category is for a "mainstream class" automobile that can carry four or more passengers, has four or more wheels, and has the size and general capabilities that consumers are used to. There is also an "alternate class" category for a two or more person car with no size or wheel limits.

X PRIZE isn't just looking for nifty science fair projects, though. They want the winners' cars to be desirable, cost-efficient, and mass producible. Automotive X PRIZE rules (PDF) state that the winning vehicles cost "must be reasonable enough to justify sales of 10,000 units per year in the intended market(s)", and that it is doubtful that any car priced at more that $75,000-$80,000 will meet this requirement.

Other Automotive X PRIZE requirements include:

• C02 emissions per mile to be no more than 200 g/mi

• Accelerate from zero to 60 in under 12 seconds

• Have a minimum top speed of 100 mph (80 mph in the alternate class)

• Have safety equipment, air conditioning, heat, feedback gauges, lights, horns, and most other common features consumers have come to expect in a vehicle.

X PRIZE will begin accepting registration applications later this year and will announce the prize winners sometime in 2009.

That's why it's more important that ever to make the right choice when deciding where to fill 'er up. In today's Tip o' the Day, we at Green Options will try to make that choice easy for you. The best decision you can make is to drive on over to your local ExxonMobil.

Last year, ExxonMobil sold more gasoline in the United States than any other company. By keeping ExxonMobil America's top gasoline retailer, we'll be ensuring that more oil is in their hands than anyone else's. That's great news for the environment for many reasons. For one, by keeping ExxonMobil #1, there's a good chance that when the next inevitable oil spill happens, it will most likely happen to ExxonMobil. Because of their unparallelled expertise in dealing with these unfortunate situations, we can rest assured that ExxonMobile will be there to provide top-notch clean-up services before any real ecological damage can be done. Are we willing to concede that another company can provide the same level of quality environmental management? For the sake of the earth, we simply cannot afford to make that assumption.

You'll also know that ExxonMobile will use any profits they may make in environmentally responsible ways. Not only has ExxonMobil taken over the reigns here at Green Options, but for decades, they've been contributing heavily to some of the world's leading environmental groups like the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, the Free Enterprise Education Institute, and the Center for Defense of Free Enterprise to name just a few. When you fill up at ExxonMobil, you're making a difference.

The next time you visit your local ExxonMobil station, you'll also want to sign up for your very own ExxonMobil Credit Card. When gas prices start going up like they have been lately (which the oil companies have little control over, and which are largely due to government regulations and the invisible hand of the free market), you can give your wallet a rest by using your new Exxon Card for all your gas, snack, and lottery purchases. Since you'll have a super-low interest rate and easily affordable minimum monthly payments, you won't have to worry the next time you're out of gas, out of cash, and need to make that 65 mile commute to work. Just use your card at the pump, run inside and grab a cup of coffee and a donut, and pay for all of it when you get that overdue raise a few months from now.

Depending on which of ExxonMobil's credit cards you choose to sign up for, you'll even have the chance to earn gas rebates and travel rewards! The more gas you buy, the more rewards you'll receive. Just ask your friendly ExxonMobil store clerk for more information.

As the old Iroquois Confederacy used to say, "In every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations." With that in mind, there's no doubt that it's essential, for your children and for your children's children and for your children's children's children and so on, to "put a tiger in your tank." Make ExxonMobil your pump of choice.

UPDATE: April Fools! 

Well, okay, almost never. Giving up the meat was far easier than I ever expected. Eggs? Never liked those much anyway. Milk? Soymilk made de-dairying a breeze. Even ice cream, you ask? Let me introduce you to Turtle Mountain and Tofutti. All was well in our vegan world, except for one thing: cheese. Even vegans have a recommended daily intake of pizza!

At first, we decided we would cheat with cheese and pretend we were vegans anyway. This became harder and harder to do as we learned more and more about the environmental harm dairy farms can cause. We tried vegan soy cheese alternatives, but found that most brands (but not all) were mouth-numbingly bland, didn't melt, and/or tasted like wet cardboard marinated in that water you pour out of tofu packages. Mmmm.

Clearly, it was time for something new. I first read about cashew "cheese" when I read Eric Marcus' excellent book Vegan: The New Ethics of Eating (now available as a free e-book download!). I thought the idea of vegan cheese made from cashews sounded crazy… Crazy enough to try!

Fast forward a few years, and I've now refined my own version of a cashew cheese recipe to the point where I actually prefer it over cow cheese. It's also one of my favorite DIY projects because I get to use my favorite power tool: the food processor.

As with anything you put on your plate, cashew cheese can be made even greener by using ingredients that are grown locally and grown organically.

Vegan Cashew Cheese

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup cashews (raw is best, roasted is still great, and try flavored cashews too)

• 1/2 cup water (or slightly more)

• 1/4 cup red bell pepper (raw or roasted)

• 1/4 small red onion (if you're cooking for a date, or more otherwise!)

• 1/4 cup yeast flakes

• 2 garlic cloves (see "red onion")

• 3 tbsp lemon juice

• 2 tbsp Bragg's Liquid Aminos (on the health food isle everywhere, or use lite soy sauce)

• 1 tbsp sesame oil

• 1 tsp sea salt (optional) if the cashews are unsalted

Put everything in a food processor and blend it until it's creamy. If it's too thick, add more water. If it's too watery, add more cashews. It should have a Cream of Wheat-like consistency, or just a bit thicker. For a pizza, spread it thinly over pizza sauce (it's very rich, so a little bit goes a long way), top it off with your favorite vegetables, and pop it in the oven. If the cashew cheese becomes golden-brown more than a few minutes before the pizza crust is done, cover the top of the pizza with foil.

This recipe is plenty for a medium-sized pizza. I like making larger batches and keeping leftovers in the fridge.

Cashew cheese is also great in quesadillas, toasted sandwiches, or just about any other dish that calls for cheese. Lactose intolerant? You're welcome.

Enjoy! If you try the recipe, be sure to let us know how it turns out.

That's right, sports fans. After a long, cold winter, the 2007 baseball season is just around the corner!

While many of you this time of year are watching the madness of 19 year-olds tossing balls at hoops, I'm spending my time examining Oakland A's box scores, listening to webcasts of Spring Training games, participating in Fantasy Baseball drafts (team name: Renewable Synergy), and, most importantly, keeping track of the latest efforts by Major League Baseball and its teams to "go green".

There's plenty of good eco-news coming from Major League front offices lately. Just last week, the San Francisco Giants announced that they're becoming the first team to install solar panels at their ballpark. (Our very own Senior Editorial Correspondent Jeff McIntire-Strasburg wrote about it at Treehugger, too.) Best of all, the Giants are installing the panels on the port walk by McCovey Cove, so every time Barry Bonds launches one of his signature "Splash Hit" home runs, the panels will be prominently displayed on Bay Area television and nationwide on highlight shows. If Barry himself really wants to help the cause, I'd suggest that he do his best to break Hank Aaron's home run record during a home game. If he did, the panels would become a big part of baseball history when the upper deck camera pans from home plate toward the water beyond the right field wall. Just make sure to pull it, Barry.

Other teams are showing some earth love, too. The Washington Nationals and Minnesota Twins are in a race to become the first team with a LEED Certified stadium. In seeking LEED recognition from the United States Green Building Council, the teams are planning to minimize and filter waste streams, design for energy efficiency, incorporate public transportation considerations into their planning, and take dozens of other eco-conscious steps.

The New York Yankees have hired the one of the same architectural firms as the Nationals (HOK) for the new Yankee Stadium project, though the Yankees haven't yet announced any plans to go green in the Bronx. They are the Evil Empire, so I'm not holding my breath. (Sorry, I'm still not over Game 3 of the 2001 playoffs. Where did Jeter come from!? Slide, Jeremy. Slide!)

There's also good news for those of us who choose to leave meat out of our plates: there's stuff for us to eat at the ballpark! Just a few years ago, we were stuck with peanuts and Crackerjacks at most stadiums. Now, you can get a veggie dog or veggie burger almost anywhere, and at the best venues, the selection is even much more exotic than that. When PETA ranked the top 10 veg-friendly ballparks last year, the Giants stole the show with such offerings as grilled vegetable kebabs, grilled veggie baguettes, and vegetarian sushi. My A's were ranked fourth, though I was disappointed when I walked into the Coliseum last April and discovered the Black Muslim Bakery no longer had their booth with lots of yummy vegan food behind home plate. The Yankees? Not on the list. They didn't even get an honorable mention. Figures. They must not have room for vegetables in their budget what with their $9 billion payroll and all.

For greeniac baseball fans, the hits just keep on coming. There are advanced recycling and waste reduction programs already in place at several stadiums, my forward-thinking Oakland A's became the first team to sell adult beverages in compostable, cornstarch-based cups, and Major League Baseball has formed a partnership with the Natural Resources Defense Council to help the league green its act.

I know there are lots of other green initiatives being implemented stadiums all across the country. What have you seen at your local ballpark? What changes would you like to see?

See you at the ballpark. Enjoy the season, everyone! (Yankees fans not included.)

Editor's note: Red, Green and Blue is Green Options' weekly take on politics and the environment from both sides of the aisle. Ryan Thibodaux represents the progressive position. Jimmy Hogan's conservative take on this issue is available here.

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful uninhabited Alaskan paradise called St. Matthew Island. In 1944, the United States Coast Guard arrived and stationed 19 men on the island to aid ships and aircraft with navigation. To ensure a backup food supply for the men, the Coast Guard released 29 reindeer on the island.

When World War II ended, the Coast Guard decided to abandon the island base, leaving the reindeer with no predators and with a seemingly unlimited food supply of thick carpets of yummy lichen. For the reindeer, it was undoubtedly heaven on earth.

In fact, by the time Dave Klein of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service became the next human to step foot on the island in 1957, more than 1,300 reindeer were thriving there. They were healthy, fat, and their numbers were still growing.

Klein returned to St. Matthew again in 1963 and counted more than 6,000 reindeer this time, but all was not well in the island paradise. Klein found that food availability for the reindeer had decreased dramatically, and the toll the reindeer were taking on the health of the rest of the island's ecosystem was astounding. The reindeer themselves were smaller than they had been 6 years earlier, and Klein observed that the relative populations of males and of young reindeer were decreasing.

Klein returned once more in 1966. He was astonished to find just 42 living reindeer. The dramatic population decline was due in part to a harsh winter in 1963-64, but rapid over-consumption of resources combined with explosive population growth was also heavily to blame. By 1980, the reindeer were completely extinct on the island.

Between 1944 and 1963, the reindeer "GDP" was seemingly in great shape. They were growing, healthy, happy, well-fed, and doing their Darwinian duty of making as many of themselves as possible. They were the undisputed rulers of the island. Unfortunately, natural selection had not blessed the animals with the ability to think critically, reason inductively, or observe scientifically. If they had those abilities, they would have undoubtedly noticed that they were destroying the limited resources available to them on their small island, and were driving themselves toward an inescapable rendezvous with oblivion.

We humans, too, are living on a small island in the middle of the universe. We rule the planet with an iron fist and have lived for millenia under the assumption that the commons are limitless. Even in 2001, the Vice President of the United States could be heard saying, "Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy."

Conservation is a personal virtue. It is also a national virtue, a political virtue, and a human virtue. There's no need to stop there, either. Conservation is a fantastic basis not just for sound energy policy, but water policy, food and farm policy, waste management policy, trade policy, and, well, just about any other policy, too! Call me optimistic, but I'd like to think that humans are smarter than the reindeer of St. Matthew Island. I'm thankful that we (apparently) possess the mental abilities that could have led the reindeer to salvation.

We know that our system of industrial capitalism is adept at valuing human, financial, and manufactured capital, but arrogantly ignores the fourth essential form of capital: natural capital. We know that doing so is entirely unsustainable and in direct defiance of the laws of nature.

We recognize the limitations of GDP and other economic indicators when it comes to true economic health (not to mention quality of life, happiness, and social justice). We know that the depletion of air, water, soil, energy sources, and natural ecosystems are expenses that don't show up on balance sheets or quarterly government economic reports, but that those actions are enormously costly nonetheless.

The bookworms among us even know that Teddy Roosevelt (Republican, conservative) had it figured out a century ago:

To waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase it's usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very properity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed.

We do know all of this, don't we?

Now don't get me wrong: it's not farm subsidies and certainly not alternative fuel subsidies that I have a problem with. I just think that the government should encourage farmers to grow (organic and sustainable) food, not fuel. It should also support those alternative fuels and technologies that provide a demonstrable measure of increased efficiency and decreased reliance on fossil fuels. Ethanol does neither.

You may recall hearing about a report by UC Berkeley geoengineering professor Tad Patzek and Cornell ecology professor David Pimentel that concluded that it takes more energy to make ethanol than the finished ethanol actually contains:

The two scientists calculated all the fuel inputs for ethanol production—from the diesel fuel for the tractor planting the corn, to the fertilizer put in the field, to the energy needed at the processing plant—and found that ethanol is a net energy-loser. According to their calculations, ethanol contains about 76,000 BTUs per gallon, but producing that ethanol from corn takes about 98,000 BTUs.

Those 98,000 BTUs of energy? They come mostly from fossil fuels. I'll freely admit that the results and biases of the Pimentel/Patzek report have been the subject of much debate and consternation from ethanol supporters, but it's clear that producing ethanol from corn requires lots of energy. Even with the American Coalition for Ethanol's best case estimates, it still takes a half gallon of fossil fuel to make a gallon of ethanol.

It's one reason why you'll have to forgive me for choosing not to get too giddy when American automakers start mass-producing vehicles that get 10 miles per ethanol gallon.

There are other reasons too. First, with a still-growing population, with poverty and malnutrition still a global problem, and with the unpredictable results of global climate change, do we really want to devote an increasing amount of productive farmland to growing fuel? Pimentel has aptly called government support of ethanol "subsidized food burning." If we do allow food and fuel to fight over farm acreage, we would also have to be prepared to accept the unsustainable industrialized farming of corn monocultures (in the U.S.) that would be required for ethanol to make a dent in America's fuel demands.

As a biodiesel homebrewer, I have many of the same concerns about large-scale biofuel production (and subsidies, too). The vegetable oil I use for biodiesel has already served it's purpose as fryer oil at a local restaurant. I take that waste product and turn it into fuel. Using virgin oil fresh from America's farms makes little sense to me. Even so, and even though I use some really gross, inedible waste oil, my wife and I are still planning to move beyond biodiesel and build an all-electric car later this year that will be fueled by solar energy.

With all of that said, I am still hopeful about the possibilities of the next generation of ethanol. There have been some promising advances in producing ethanol (bioethanol) from agricultural wastes, not virgin crops. These advances are indeed exciting and certainly worthy of being pursued further. Using waste to produce ethanol "would allow agricultural land to be used more efficiently and at the same time prevent competition with food supplies." (And just as bioethanol may be a solution for a more rational ethanol future, algae oil may prove to be the biofuel answer.)

Ethanol can play a role in America's clean, independent energy future, but it's important to remember that it's just one (small?) piece of the puzzle. Many of the best minds in the environmental movement have been telling us for decades that there is no one perfect answer. I think they're right. We don't need ethanol alone, or biofuels alone, or solar panels alone, or wind farms alone, or hydrogen alone, or conservation alone. We need all of them and more.

It would take a book to chronicle the eco-disaster that is the Bush Administration, and thankfully Robert F. Kennedy Jr. already wrote that book. If you're looking for a laundry list of Bush's environmental misdeeds, the NRDC can help with that, too. Here, we'll take a look at just a few of Bush's worst environmental offenses:

• The Kyoto Protocol - Even after promising to regulate carbon emissions in his 2000 campaign, Bush promptly pulled the U.S. out of the Kyoto Treaty shortly after taking office. Sure, Kyoto is flawed in some ways and would have required industrialized countries like the United States to re-prioritize and take immediate steps toward emissions reductions and renewable energy development. That was the point, wasn't it? But Bush didn't work to make the adjustments that would have made Kyoto a better and fairer agreement. He simply took his ball and went home.

• Cheney's Energy Task Force - In 2001, President Bush formed a task force to help him develop a national energy policy and appointed Vice President Cheney to head it. Their meetings were held in secret and most of the participants were not disclosed. Though many of the Task Force's documents have yet to be released completely uncensored, it is known that several of Bush and Cheney's old oil friends, including Enron's top brass, were influential contributors. It is also known that the Task Force's final recommendations heavily favored oil, gas, and coal companies. The Nation reported in 2002:

When Cheney and [Enron CEO Kenneth] Lay met in April 2001, Lay handed Cheney a three-page "wish list" of corporate recommendations. Representative Henry Waxman, the ranking minority member of the House Committee on Government Reform, ordered an analysis of the memo against the final report of the task force; it shows that the group adopted all or significant portions of the recommendations in seven of eight policy areas. Seventeen policies sought by Enron or that clearly benefit the company… were included.

The results of those recommendations are still Bush Administration policy today, which is no doubt why Bush and Cheney have fought so hard over the years to keep the full, uncensored records of the Task Force unavailable for public consumption.

• Renewable Energy Research and Development - This one is easy: Bush constantly uses the State of the Union address or other high-profile events to promote the idea of increased funding for renewable and clean energy, and then cuts that funding time and time again. This type of behavior inspired a popular book by the next Senator from Minnesota.

• Clear Skies, Healthy Forests - It's not just the condescending Orwellian language that has pushed progressive environmentalists to new heights of indignation, but also the genuinely awful policy changes that proposals like the Clear Skies initiative and the Healthy Forests Act reflect. "Clear Skies" does nothing to combat global warming and weakens a variety of existing laws and regulations on air pollutants. "Healthy Forests" takes the idea that no trees equals no forest fires and lets logging companies run with it.

These are just a few of the blights on the Bush enviro-record. There are many more. I invite you to use the comments below discuss which of Bush's crimes against nature make your head spin the most.

The response from the right to many progressive criticisms of Bush's environmental record usually takes the form of, "It's the economy, stupid!" There are two basic flaws with the "economy above all" argument. First, why is it assumed that the investments made in renewable energy technology, pollution reduction, (actually) healthy ecosystems, and so on, will result in no return on investment? We aren't talking about the Star Wars Missile Defense system. In the long run, green investments will pay off far more than building another coal-fired power plant or drilling another oil well in ANWR. We can grow the GDP without sacrificing the future. It's the sustainable economy, stupid!

Second, if you'll excuse my bleeding heart, what meaning does "strong economy" have if, in a generation from now, kids are fighting wars over the last reserves of drinkable water and smoking the equivalent of three packs of cigarettes a day just breathing? Sometimes the invisible hand has an equally invisible relevance. That is a concept that George W. Bush seems unable or unwilling to grasp even at its most fundamental level, and that inhumane, myopic view is clearly reflected by his almost total lack of genuine leadership on environmental issues.

Want to discuss Ryan and Jimmy's posts further? Visit the Red, Green and Blue discussion forum.

They did, however, help continute the "debate" on carbon dioxide's connection to rising global temperatures. CO2 may be necessary for life, but too much of it causes global warming. Really, it does! Look:

No, it isn't proof. Scientists don't often speak in the language of proof and absolute truths. With that said, the above variation of a graph developed and published in the journal Nature by J.R. Petit in 1999 shows a striking correlation between the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and temperature over the last 450,000 years. The graph also shows that the earth does a lot of its own regulating of both CO2 and temperature, a truth that climate change and CO2 connection skeptics are all too eager to point out. Fair enough, but in that entire 450,000 year span, CO2 parts per million levels were never above 300. Today, atmospheric CO2 concentration has surpassed 380 ppm, and is climbing rapidly (think Al Gore riding the lift up to the top of the screen in An Inconvenient Truth).

Will the temperature line in the graph follow the CO2 line's lead? The earth hasn't needed this degree of self-regulation for at least 800,000 years. Worse still, we haven't yet experienced the full consequences of this astonishing carbon dioxide concentration.

It isn't just me and Al who say so. The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report confirmed the CO2 connection and the human responsibility for the dramatic increase in its atmospheric levels. They concluded (PDF):

Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.

"Very likely" is defined as a greater than 90% probability. As summarized in the UK's Independent, the IPCC also reported:

The target for stabilising CO2 levels in the atmosphere which some scientists and politicians increasingly hope to aim for - an upper limit of 550 parts per million - would probably involve a rise of 3C, perhaps one as high as 4.5C, and almost certainly no lower than 1.5C, the report says.

But a 3C rise would bring about enormous damage to agriculture, weather patterns and ecosystems across the world with catastrophic effects on human society.

The figure of 550ppm represents a doubling of atmospheric CO2 compared with the level pertaining before the Industrial Revolution. The current CO2 level is about 382ppm, having risen from 315ppm 50 years ago, and is rising by more than 2ppm annually, with the rate increasing.

The IPCC, a collection of more than 2000 of the world's top climate scientists, concluded without reservation that climate change is happening, that humans are responsible, and that emitting billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is one significant culprit. But can their findings really be trusted? The NRDC writes:

• Overall, the IPCC report will include work from more than 2,000 scientists appointed by more than 130 countries…

• The process is rigorous, based on open and transparent peer review.

• The Summary for Policymakers is reviewed line-by-line by scientists and government experts to ensure that it is a completely accurate reflection of the detailed scientific findings and that all comments have been fully considered.

• The IPCC brings fresh eyes to the issue — 75 percent of Fourth Assessment Report writers were not involved in the Third Assessment.

Now that we all agree that carbon dioxide is a major contributor to climate change, I know what your next question will be: "But what about the much discussed 'issue' of 'global warming' on SUV-free Mars?" Well, unless you're planning on buying a timeshare there, it's not much of an issue at all. More importantly, that globe isn't really warming, at least not in terms that have any parallel here on earth.

Some warming has been observed over the past 30 years, but it is largely confined to Mars's South Pole Cap region. To the extent that any truly "global" warming has occurred on Mars in recent years, it is a warming trend with decidedly unearthly roots. Mars's climate, unlike the earth's, is highly sensitive to immense dust storms. When these storms are active, the dust absorbs the sun's heat and warms the thin Martian atmosphere. When the storms aren't active, no such warming happens. Massive dust storms are not a cause of global warming or much of anything else on earth, making the comparison of the two planets' climate mechanisms crude at best and grossly misleading at worst.

Coming back to our little blue world, it is important to remember that carbon dioxide is not the only cause of global climate change. Other greenhouse gasses like nitrous oxide and methane are intense heat trappers as well, and their levels have also increased dramatically in the earth's atmosphere in the Industrial Age.

It's not just gasses, either. A variety of feedback loops also intensify warming trends. For instance, ice at the poles does our planet the great service of bouncing sunlight away from the surface and back out into space. When this ice melts, however, the (no longer white) water molecules absorb the sun's heat instead of radiating it away. The oceans warm. More ice melts. More heat is absorbed… Vicious, isn't it?

That viciousness is why we need to take immediate steps to curb carbon emissions and other climate change triggers. Mandatory carbon caps? Market-based carbon reduction incentives? Individual carbon taxes (while reducing personal income taxes)? I'm for it. All of it.

Now.

Temperature and CO2 image credit: Woods Hole Research Center

Want to discuss Ryan and Jimmy's posts? Leave a comment, or go to the Red, Grenn, and Blue discussion forum.

Last week, House Representative Ron Paul, a Republican from Texas who is also running for president in 2008, was joined by 9 Democratic co-sponsors in introducing House Resolution 1009, the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2007. The bill would "remove restrictions on the cultivation of non-psychoactive industrial hemp." Paul gave his reasons for sponsoring the bill:

It is indefensible that the United States government prevents American farmers from growing this crop. The prohibition subsidizes farmers in countries from Canada to Romania by eliminating American competition and encourages jobs in industries such as food, auto parts and clothing that utilize industrial hemp to be located overseas instead of in the United States. [...] By passing the Industrial Hemp Farming Act the House of Representatives can help American farmers and reduce the trade deficit — all without spending a single taxpayer dollar.

Currently, industrial hemp is illegal because the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) doesn't distinguish between different varieties of Cannabis sativa. The variety used for recreation and medicine contains large amounts of delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol, THC, while industrial hemp contains almost none. The requirement in Canada, where industrial hemp farming is legal, is that the leaves and flowering parts of the plant contain 0.3% or less THC.

Long story short: Smoking industrial hemp is about as psychoactive as smoking organic arugula. (To my knowledge, no research has been done on the effects of smoking non-organic, chemical-laden and pesticide-laced arugula. It's probably not a very good idea.)

The major concern from the DEA's perspective seems to be that farmers can or will grow other, more lucrative varieties of Cannabis hidden among the industrial plants. If your answer to that is, "So what?", well, that's just, like, your opinion, man. VoteHemp.com's more articulate answer is threefold: Industrial hemp is grown differently, needs to be harvested at a different time, and cross-pollination between the different varieties would reduce the THC potency of the marijuana plants, making it a poor business decision to try it in the first place.

Why is hemp an environmentally friendly crop? There are three main areas where hemp is an attractive alternative to the current status quo: clothing, paper, and energy. Hemp is often discussed as a replacement for cotton in clothing and other products. In the United States, more than 25% of all pesticides are sprayed on cotton fields. Hemp grows well without pesticides and herbicides. Hemp also yields three times more fiber per acre than cotton.

For paper production, an acre of hemp yields more pulp per acre than forests. Unlike trees, hemp can also be harvested each year, leaving what's left of the earth's forests to work their carbon sequestration magic.

Finally, hemp seeds contain about 30% oil. That hemp oil, aside from being edible, can be used for biofuel production.

More industrial hemp resources:

North American Industrial Hemp Council
Vote Hemp
Andy Kerr on Industrial Hemp

But occasionally, one of our friends in Washington gives us genuine cause for celebration. Last week, that politician was Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT). At a news conference, Welch announced that he is pledging to make both of his offices (one in D.C. and one in Vermont) carbon neutral:

Congressman Peter Welch can't put solar panels on Capitol Hill, or used french fry grease to power the commercial plane that jets him back to Vermont each week. And he can't make his staff read by candlelight.

But the Vermont Democrat says he can make his offices "carbon neutral" — by promoting renewable energy projects in Vermont that negate his staff's impact on the environment.

To accomplish this, Welch will offset the estimated 56 tons of carbon dioxide produced by his offices and his travel by investing in an anaerobic methane digester on a dairy farm and a wood pellet-fired boiler that will replace a fossil fuel-fired boiler at a Vermont college. The total cost of his investments to offset that 56 tons of carbon dioxide? $672. And there's more good news, taxpayers: Welch is making the investment with his own money, and is proposing legislation that encourages his fellow lawmakers to do the same.

As Maria noted last week on Green Options, "carbon credits", also called "carbon offsets," have received quite a bit of attention lately, but they're also often misunderstood. (We hope you'll find our Renewable Energy Credits entry in the Green Living Guide and Maria's "Carbon Credits" series, with the second installment coming tomorrow, useful in this regard). In short, carbon credits are investments in clean, renewable energy that "offset" the consumption of "dirty", carbon dioxide emitting energy. Rep. Welch's offices will not directly use the renewable energy his investment helped produce. But! Somebody else will be using that clean energy instead of coal, oil, or natural gas, thereby "offsetting" or "neutralizing" the carbon emissions his offices caused.

Not only do Rep. Welch's actions raise awareness of little-known and underappreciated options like carbon credits and ideas like carbon neutrality, but they also (here's a thought) set a great example for us average citizen types. Our elected representatives have large roles to play in developing global solutions to climate change, but we, as ordinary folks, play equally important roles with our individual actions. Rep. Welch recognizes this, and he put his money where his mouth is. That's leadership.

For all I know, Rep. Welch's car gets 8 miles per gallon, his thermostat in the winter is set to 78 and in the summer to 63, and he flies in salmon from Alaska nightly for dinner. Even so, today we can proudly and sincerely say: kudos Congressman Welch.

On Friday, the administration embraced a study from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that concluded with "90 percent certainty" that human carbon emissions over the last 250 years have caused the global climate to warm. Before warning of possible "unintended consequences" of mandatory carbon caps, Bush's Energy Secretary Samuel Bodwin went so far as to say:

Human activity is contributing to changes in the Earth's climate. That issue is no longer up for debate.

You might think that acknowledging the human responsibility for climate change while worrying about possible economic consequences of fixing the problem seems a bit disingenuous, but that's just because you've been reading too much Orwell.

While all this was happening, California Rep. Henry Waxman was holding hearings in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on a recently released report (PDF) from the Union of Concerned Scientists accusing the Bush administration of systematically manipulating science to meet their policy goals. More than 1600 government climate scientists were asked about their experiences, and findings in the report include:

Nearly half of all respondents (46 percent of all respondents to the question) perceived or personally experienced pressure to eliminate the words "climate change," "global warming," or other similar terms from a variety of communications.

Two in five (43 percent) perceived or personally experienced changes or edits during review that changed the meaning of scientific findings.

More than one-third (37 percent) perceived or personally experienced statements by officials at their agencies that misrepresented scientists' findings.

Nearly two in five (38 percent) perceived or personally experienced the disappearance or unusual delay of websites, reports, or other science-based materials relating to climate.

Nearly half (46 percent) perceived or personally experienced new or unusual administrative requirements that impair climate related work.

The report, and the subsequent Waxman hearings, inspired an exceptional editorial from the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

Good climate scientists have no political agenda. They seek to apply their skills within the long-established norms of scientific inquiry to understanding what is happening to global climates and what that portends. Their findings are critical to ensuring that the U.S. government embraces the wisest possible climate policies. Ensuring the integrity of federally funded climate science should thus be a high priority for the U.S. government, which does most U.S. climate research. Unfortunately, the Bush administration has turned that priority on its head. [...]

The reason for the political interference is clear: The Bush administration has an indefensible pro-business bias that trumps even the health and welfare of the nation's citizens. Because efforts to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming could have severe impacts on deep-pocket companies close to the administration, its perverse logic dictates that the global warming science be suppressed.

Scientists often have good news for us ("We cured polio!"), but sometimes they figure things out that we'd rather not hear ("Sorry, but the earth isn't the center of the universe."). Climate science is no different. It turns out that when a few billion people participate for decades in the uninterrupted practice of releasing heat-trapping gasses into the earth's fragile atmosphere, things start to heat up a bit. Denying, censoring, and distorting science in the past has set us back centuries in the quest for knowledge and truth. Denying, censoring, and distorting climate science may not leave us with too many more centuries.

Members, you and I will work together in the months ahead on… a cleaner environment (applause)… - G.W. Bush, State of the Union, 2002

Our third goal is to promote energy independence for our country, while dramatically improving the environment. (Applause.) I have sent you a comprehensive energy plan to promote energy efficiency and conservation, to develop cleaner technology, and to produce more energy at home. (Applause.) I have sent you Clear Skies legislation… - G.W. Bush, State of the Union, 2003

America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world. The best way to break this addiction is through technology. Since 2001, we have spent nearly $10 billion to develop cleaner, cheaper, and more reliable alternative energy sources — and we are on the threshold of incredible advances. [...]

So tonight, I announce the Advanced Energy Initiative — a 22-percent increase in clean-energy research — at the Department of Energy, to push for breakthroughs in two vital areas. To change how we power our homes and offices, we will invest more in zero-emission coal-fired plants, revolutionary solar and wind technologies, and clean, safe nuclear energy. (Applause.) - G.W. Bush, State of the Union, 2006

And then there was 2007:

It is in our vital interest to diversify America’s energy supply — and the way forward is through technology. We must continue changing the way America generates electric power — by even greater use of clean coal technology … solar and wind energy … and clean, safe nuclear power. We need to press on with battery research for plug-in and hybrid vehicles, and expand the use of clean diesel vehicles and biodiesel fuel. We must continue investing in new methods of producing ethanol — using everything from wood chips, to grasses, to agricultural wastes.

The old "nucular" "nuclear" and "clean coal" workhorses are still in the mix, but once again Bush mentioned, on national television, "solar" and "wind" power and even bioethanol (though not by that name). He also had something wholly new in store for his audience:

These technologies will help us become better stewards of the environment — and they will help us to confront the serious challenge of global climate change.

This was Bush's seventh State of the Union Address, and the very first time he's spoken specifically of global warming or climate change. The speech was, from an environmental perspective, the most forward-thinking of Bush's political career by a wide margin. He even offered specific policy proposals such as:

Tonight, I ask Congress to join me in pursuing a great goal. Let us build on the work we have done and reduce gasoline usage in the United States by 20 percent in the next 10 years [...]

To reach this goal, we must increase the supply of alternative fuels, by setting a mandatory Fuels Standard to require 35 billion gallons of renewable and alternative fuels in 2017 — this is nearly 5 times the current target. At the same time, we need to reform and modernize fuel economy standards for cars the way we did for light trucks — and conserve up to 8.5 billion more gallons of gasoline by 2017.

An increase in CAFE standards, too? Fellow ecophiles, I cannot say for sure, but it's possible that we have entered the Matrix. And yet, much of Bush's energy rhetoric seems vaguely familiar, which freshman Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va) pointed out in the official Democratic response:

Further, this is the seventh time the President has mentioned energy independence in his State of the Union message, but for the first time this exchange is taking place in a Congress led by the Democratic Party. We are looking for affirmative solutions that will strengthen our nation by freeing us from our dependence on foreign oil, and spurring a wave of entrepreneurial growth in the form of alternate energy programs. We look forward to working with the president and his party to bring about these changes.

Given Bush's record of follow-through on past green-ish SOTU policy proposals, one could be forgiven for being entirely skeptical this time around. We have been here before, and we have been disappointed in the days, weeks, and months that followed. Think Progress has even compiled a video of unfulfilled environmental promises from previous SOTUs.

In the midst of the genuinely clean and renewable energy sources that Bush mentioned, we might also be concerned about presence of "clean coal" and "nuclear energy" in the speech along with the statement:

So as we continue to diversify our fuel supply, we must also step up domestic oil production in environmentally sensitive ways.

Not to worry, oil companies: you've still got a friend. Make yourselves at home in our national parks, wildlife refuges, on our shores, and in our waters. Bush, not surprisingly, did not offer his blessing to the bill that passed the House last week that repeals tax breaks and subsidies for oil companies and diverts the money to alternative and renewable fuel research and development.

But maybe we skeptics are not giving the president enough credit. Maybe he'd like future historians writing about his legacy to include paragraphs on issues other than Iraq, the PATRIOT Act, wiretaps, unprecedented executive secrecy, Katrina and New Orleans (conspicuously missing from the speech tonight), dismal approval numbers, Kyoto withdrawal, and special prosecutors. Again from an environmental perspective, it was a B+ speech near the end of a D- presidency from a politician who never again will be asking for our votes and from a president that for the first time must face an opposition Congress. Perhaps President George W. Bush is finally ready (and/or forced) to take the green road less traveled.

It could make all the difference.

The bill, which was unveiled on Friday and is scheduled for a vote on Thursday, is called the "Creating Long-Term Energy Alternatives for the Nation" or "CLEAN" Act. One major focus of the bill is to eliminate a royalty loophole for Gulf of Mexico drillers:

The issue stems from an error — or perhaps something more nefarious, though nothing more has been proven — in which the Interior Department failed to include in 1998-99 leases the required language that would have forced the oil companies to pay the government royalties on the oil and gas taken if prices reached a certain level.

The contracts, which involved deep-water drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico, exempted the company from having to pay royalties as a way to stimulate exploration of the deep water areas of the Gulf of Mexico. That was OK as long as oil and gas prices stayed low as they did in the 1990s.

Times and oil prices changed, but the contracts did not. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) has estimated that closing the loophole will mean $9 to $11 billion in additional income for the federal government, which Hoyer also said would be used to fund alternative fuels research and development.

The proposed bill would also disallow oil companies from being classified as manufacturers, thereby excluding them from a massive 2004 tax credit for manufacturers. This component of the bill will cost oil firms $4 billion over the next ten years. Furthermore, a tax cut under the Energy Policy Act of 2005 would be repealed for the six largest American oil companies, adding another $1 billion to federal coffers over the next decade.

The Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA), which represents more than 5000 mostly small oil and natural gas producers in the US, is not amused:

If the goal is to lessen our dependence on foreign oil, then this bill falls far short," said IPAA President Barry Russell. "The American oil and natural gas industry is our most precious and primary defense against increased oil imports. This is a time to encourage American investment in energy projects here at home, not discourage it. This bill takes capital from U.S. oil and natural gas companies that otherwise would be spent on domestic energy exploration.

It should be noted that the Russell isn't talking about clean alternative fuels exploration and development, but simply exploration of domestic fossil fuels.

To the delight of energy policy wonks everywhere, the CLEAN Act in the House is being joined on the Senate side by an Obama/McCain/Lieberman greenhouse emissions cap proposal and by Alaska Republican Sen. Ted Stevens' (surprising?) bill proposal that would drastically increase CAFE fuel mileage standards. It's shaping up to be a great week to introduce your TiVo to C-SPAN.

Several thousand bills and resolutions are referred to committees during each 2-year Congress. Committees select a small percentage for consideration, and those not addressed often receive no further action.

In other words, committees in the House and Senate play a major role in determining the legislative agenda for the rest of Congress and the nation.

In the Senate, Barbara Boxer (D-CA) will replace James Inhofe (R-OK) as chair of the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works. Over the last few years, Inhofe, who will remain on the committee as minority chairman, has drawn the ire of environmentalists by delivering a series of anti-environment and/or unenlightened remarks. Barbara Boxer received a perfect environmental voting record score from the League of Conservation Voters in 2006 and has aggressive environmental legislation planned for the new Congressional session.

The Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Committee will also see changes. Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) will replace Pete V. Domenici (R-NM) as chairman. Bingaman has long been an advocate for renewable energy and federal action on climate change, though his ardent support for his home state's two nuclear research labs (Los Alamos and Sandia) and endorsement of "clean coal" worry some.

Over on the House side, Rep. John D. Dingell (D-MI) will take the reigns of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Dingell's chairmanship may be the least attractive of committee changes from a green perspective. Dingell has often expressed skepticism about the causes of climate change and the viability of proposed solutions. Then again, he is replacing Joe "But for us to try to step in and say we have got to do all these global things to prevent the Earth from getting any warmer in my opinion is absolute nonsense" Barton (R-TX).

The House Resources Committee will see multiple changes including a new chairman and a new (old) name. The committee will regain its pre-Gingrich Revolution moniker of House Natural Resources Committee to show "commitment to conserving our nation's unique natural and cultural heritage — including its natural environment, public lands and forests, and fish and wildlife" said Rep. Nick Rahall. Rahall (D-WV) will replace environmental bad-boy Richard Pombo (who was defeated in California's 11th District last November by wind energy expert Jerry McNerney) as committee chairman.