Green Options

New York City’s Empire State Building is the latest poster child for green innovation. Earlier this week, Anthony Malkin, president of W&M Properties, the company that owns the building, announced that they would begin a $500 million self-financed program to renovate the world famous landmark – $100 million of which would be used to reduce the building’s energy consumption and carbon emissions.

Hopefully the US economy will be strengthened from the increased government spending included in the Economic Stimulus Bill, but it is important to look beyond our borders whenever debt is incurred. China is the largest holder of U.S. government debt and actually needs it for investing Chinese surpluses. China has nothing else to invest in, as few other countries have debt markets large enough.

Certain pairs just seem to go together: peas and carrots; peanut butter and jelly; and teenagers and cell phones. Clinton and China is another magical combination: at least, that has been the case for Bill Clinton.

Throughout his presidency, a time in which China entered the WTO, and subsequent philanthropic involvement in China, Clinton has enjoyed a popularity that, by my completely unscientific measure, exceeds just about any other American or American leader since Nixon.

This may explain, in part, how Hillary earned a favorable reputation in China a while back. I have encountered countless cabbies whose thumbs up for “xi-la-li” (Hillary) came after their thumbs up for “ke-lun-dun” (Bill Clinton). [Full disclosure: not directly after; that spot is usually reserved for "Le-wen-si-ji", another American who enjoys tongue-in-cheek popularity in China.] At the beginning of the primaries, it seemed that China might be pulling for a Clinton victory; but warm feelings turned sour when Clinton’s stance on China became increasingly critical.

We will soon find out how China will receive Clinton in her new position as Secretary of State, since she has just announced her first trip to Asia, with China scheduled to be a critical stopoff. What’s more, Clinton aides have identified energy and climate change as two issues that will be at the top of her agenda.

There will be many firsts at Tuesday’s Presidential Inauguration, but mentioning the environment in the inaugural address will not be one of them: though pretty darn close.

Video source: NPR

While both presidential hopefuls addressed the morning plenary at the 2008 Clinton Global Initiative in New York on Thursday, only Senator Barack Obama couched his remarks in terms of the CGI theme: making specific commitments.

After announcing yesterday that he would be suspending his campaign to work on the ongoing economic crisis, many in the room at the morning plenary session of the 2008 Clinton Global Initiative on Thursday were surprised to hear Senator John McCain basically give a version of the stump speech he’s been giving over the last several months.

Gore said for the carbon lobby to be trying to convince their stockholders that renewable energy is risky business and that climate change is a hoax, they are purporting a type of stock fraud that should be addressed by attorneys general across the country.

At the opening session of the 2008 Clinton Global Initiative in New York, Bill Clinton announced a joint commitment from AREVA and Duke Energy to proceed with the development of several woody biomass power plants in the United States.

You wouldn’t necessarily expect Bill Clinton and the Democratic party to have very much in common with oilman and 2004 “Swift Boat” funder T. Boone Pickens (who helped finance the ads that slighted John Kerry’s service in Vietnam during the last presidential election), but these are strange times we live in.

In a stunning reversal of direction, the Bush administration has officially requested a new addition to the Endangered Species list. What threatened species could elicit this drastic change of course for the Bush Administration? It is, of course, the elusive Climate Change Skeptic (dubium mundus fervesco), whose habitat is being threatened by rational thinking, increased rates of deforestation, low gas-mileage standards, and the abundance of “cheap” coal. The stunning news comes just after a story in the Washington Post reported that the current administration has never requested that an animal be protected by the Endangered Species Act. Of the current administration’s 59 listed species, none of them were requested by the administration themselves.

But the Bush administration is not alone in wanting to protect such skeptics as Fred Singer and Patrick Michaels, in fear that the breed may die out completely in the coming years. Fortunately, the skeptics have received significant funding from coal and oil companies, including ExxonMobil.