Starbucks Union

By Tom PhilpottWhat happens when a few large buyers dominate a market? Anyone who keeps up with my posts -- still there, mom? -- knows what's coming next: The buyers gain the power to dictate to dictate terms and conditions to sellers. For farmers, the results of concentrated markets are devastating. As a few giant companies like Smithfield and Tyson came to dominate meat packing, they managed to drive down the farmgate price of chickens, pigs, and beef cows. As a result, hundreds of thousands of farmers were driven out of business. Survivors took on debt and scaled up, in a desperate attempt to make up on volume what they were losing on price. The result: vast animal factories known as CAFOs (concentrated-animal feedlot operations), with their abysmal environmental, social, and animal-welfare records. I often focus on meat to illustrate the ills of market concentration. But as this post from the Ethicurean's excellent Mental Masala shows, things are just as bad in produce markets. Riffing off an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, Mental invites us to consider California's mighty tomato-processing industry. Here are some highlights.

• Before World War II, California produced 20 percent of the nation's processing tomatoes. Today, it produces 95 percent. Commercial tomato processing outside of California has essentially disappeared -- even though tomatoes can be grown in all 50 states.
• California's processing tomatoes are machine-harvested, an innovation that developed after the Bracero "guest worker" program ended in 1964, closing off a major source of cheap labor.
• In the 1960s, 4,000 California farmers grew processing tomatoes. By 1973, when investments in mechanical-processing equipment had becmme necessary to remain profitable, there were fewer than 600 growers. Today, 225 farms in California grow nearly all of the processing tomatoes consumed in the United States.
• In tomato-intensive Colusa County, just eight growers have 25,000 acres in production. That farm size -- more than 3,000 acres per operation -- would not be out of place in Iowa corn country.
• Given these vast monocrops, pests and diseases are a huge problem and require regular application of poisons. Each year, the California Department of Food and Agriculture sprays malathion to limit bug damage on tomato fields. Malathion, an organophosphate, is nasty stuff.
• Growers of processing tomatoes receive 3.5 cents per pound for their goods.
• Three companies -- Heinz, Bayer CropScience, and Monsanto -- sell 90 percent of the seed for the crop. (Heinz claims to be the "the market share leader in North America and the world.")
• Growing these tomatoes is extraordinarily capital-intensive. "Long before harvest time, growers will have $2,700 dollars per acre invested in diesel, seed, labor, water and chemical costs," the Chronicle reports.
• The industry is extremely water-intensive: each acre needs two-and-a-half feet of water.
• The article contains surprisingly little information about the processors themselves. But according to this source, a single company -- Morningstar -- owns 30 percent of the tomato-paste market. Heinz claims to own 60 percent of the ketchup market.

By Guest author This is a guest post from Bill McKibben, a scholar in residence at Middlebury College and author of a dozen books, most recently The Bill McKibben Reader. McKibben serves on Grist's board of directors and is co-founder of 350.org. ----- The big international climate conferences, at least the ones I've been to in Kyoto, the Hague, and elsewhere, are pretty much the same: caffeinated, adrenalized, endless, chaotic, and incredibly hard to read. Much goes on behind closed doors, and small signals from the big players at the last minute generally make the most difference. I'm not going to Poznan until next week, for the last few days of this conference. And in an odd way, it's been easier to figure out the proceedings from a distance to make out the forest for the trees. The biggest news so far, I think, has been that some of the parties have absorbed the really salient fact of the last 18 months: the science is changing and changing fast, and the old negotiating positions no longer work, the old lines in the sand are being erased, as it were, by the rising tide. For almost a decade now, the 'tough' position has been that we shouldn't tolerate more than 450 parts per million co2 in the atmosphere, nor more than a two degree Celsius rise in temperature. When the Europeans proposed those numbers in the 1990s, they were more stringent than the old targets a vague attempt to avoid a doubling of the atmospheric concentration, which was 275 parts per million before we started burning coal and gas and oil. By now they're the consensus middle ground. But 18 months ago the Arctic melted, decades ahead of schedule and with only 387 parts per million co2 in the atmosphere. Last January, spurred by Jim Hansen's new research, we launched 350.org, arguing that the old numbers were obsolete. Arguing that we finally had a science-based red line to consider. No one likes to shift their position not governments, and not even climate campaigners, who had done yeoman work to get 450 accepted as a goal. But we've seen subtle shifts all year and this week they broke into the open. On Tuesday, the Least Developed Countries offered their "shared vision" of what a treaty should look like, and they were adamant that 350 ppm needed to be the target. The 49 LDCs comprise a mix of African, Asian, and a few other of the poorest nations and the ones most vulnerable to sea level rise, the spread of mosquitoes, the loss of drinking water from glaciers, and so on. Earlier the same day, the International Youth Climate Network also endorsed a 350 target. One way of looking at it: those who will be hit first and hardest by climate change, and those who will live with it the longest, have figured out what the bottom line really is. That understanding will spread, inexorably, as the year goes on towards Copenhagen. It may or may not prove possible to reach a treaty that actually heads us in the necessary direction (Hansen's calculations say it requires coal-burning to cease by 2030, which is a tall order). But at the very least it will become progressively harder to pretend that we don't know where the edge of the cliff actually is.

By Kate Sheppard A coalition of national environmental groups, under the moniker "Reality Coalition," today launched an ad campaign spotlighting the fact that "clean coal" doesn't actually exist. The groups are spending several million dollars on print, broadcast, and online ads, as well as a website. The campaign is a shared effort of the Alliance for Climate Protection, League of Conservation Voters, National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council, and Sierra Club. "The reality is that there's not a single home or business in America today powered by clean coal," said Brian Hardwick, director of communications and development for the Alliance for Climate Protection. "It is high time for the coal industry to come clean and admit to the American people that today clean coal is not a reality. No matter how much they say it in their advertising, coal can't truly be clean until the plants can capture the global warming pollution. With so much at stake, we can't afford to hang our hats on an illusion." The television ad (watch it below) started running this morning on national cable networks, including CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, Headline News, Comedy Central, and History Channel. It will also run during the Sunday morning shows this weekend, including Meet the Press on NBC, Face the Nation on CBS, and Fox News Sunday. The groups' print ad [PDF] shows a door labeled "Clean Coal Facility Entrance" with an empty field on the other side of it. "In reality, there's no such thing as clean coal," it reads. That ad will run in Backpacker, Body and Soul, Economist, Family Fun, Fast CompanyGQ, National Geographic , New Yorker, Real Simple, Rolling Stone, Scientific American, Time, and The Week The ads were designed and created by the agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky, the same agency that created the once-ubiquitous "Truth" anti-tobacco ads. Asked how much they're spending on the campaign, Hardwick would only say it's a "substantial buy" in the multi-millions. "It's competitive with what the coal industry is doing ... We're not prepared to give [the figure] away to the industry," he said. "Keep 'em guessing." Hardwick said the campaign doesn't have an end-date at this point: "We're prepared to run this on an ongoing basis."

By David RobertsMarc Ambinder considers something environmentalists have been discussing for months now: the possibility that Obama will create a carbon trading system via the EPA, using the Clean Air Act instead of (or before) going through Congress to get legislation. An Obama aide strongly suggested Obama would go this route this earlier this year, but backed away a bit when conservatives spazzed. (For more on how this would work, see an excellent piece from earlier this year by Michael Northrup and David Sassoon, and another from me.) A few of the policy and political angles: Advantage: speed With a quality EPA staff and administrator, Obama could design and begin implementation of such a program within his first year, in advance of the UN climate talks in Copenhagen in Dec. 2009. That would strengthen his hand (and reputation) considerably in international negotiations. This would fall within his honeymoon period of maximum flexibility, with large Dem majorities that could shrink in 2010 after two years of recession. It could be done in conjunction with massive stimulus spending to take the edge of any adverse macroeconomic impacts. In a stroke, Obama would become a historic president and make good on one of his central campaign pledges -- leaving him three years to tackle the others. Advantage: builds on state efforts Though the media has done little to tell it, the big story on climate for the past decade has been efforts by cities and states to take the lead on mitigation. As Terry Tamminen said in our interview, some 28 states are now involved in regional carbon trading programs, and more than 30 have put together climate mitigation plans. More than 900 mayors have signed the Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. These are not just symbolic declarations; underneath is a great deal of painstaking work on monitoring, tracking, and inventorying emissions, developing sector-specific strategies and allocation mechanisms, and doing other ground-level brush clearing required to make systems like this function. An act of Congress could wipe all this work away via "preemption" (though that's less probable with Waxman replacing Dingell, one of the great advocates of federal preemption, atop the House Energy Committee). The EPA, on the other hand, would ratify state efforts -- put a floor beneath them, not a ceiling above. It would establish a nationwide carbon cap, enumerate a set of regulated entities, create uniform rules for measurement and reporting of emissions, and leave most details beyond that to the states so that they can craft programs suited to their circumstances. Advantage: rationalize the Clean Air Act The Clean Air Act is flawed. Congress has been loath to open it up for reform in the last few decades, as there are any number of bad actors chomping at the bit to screw it up, but even its fans acknowledge it has weaknesses. Consider that the CAA mandates Best Available Control Technology (BACT) to reduce criteria pollutants. But reducing conventional air pollutants by attaching scrubbers also reduces power plant efficiency, which means more coal/gas must be burned for the same amount of power -- thus emitting more greenhouse gases. Again: The way the bill is currently structured, reducing conventional pollutants increases GHGs. If CO2 comes under the CAA, the act would have to be reformed to rely on output standards instead of mandated technologies (goals rather than paths!), which would make for a much more rational and economically efficient regulatory scheme. (Much more on this from Sean here.) Purported disadvantage: executive branch overreach Conservatives go apeshit at the notion of regulating CO2 via the CAA, because it wouldn't give them a chance to water the system down in Congress. Oops, did I say that out loud? What I meant to say is, because it would give an executive branch bureaucracy control over the entire U.S. economy! Command-and-control crypto-socialism, people. It's real. Keep in mind, though, that a Clean Air Act carbon program would largely cover what the CAA already regulates -- power plants, industrial facilities over a certain size, etc. The program already has mechanisms for tracking and reporting the amount of fuel emitters burn. It has enforcement mechanisms, though they've gone sclerotic under Bush. Contra conservative hyperbole, using this existing bureaucratic machinery rather than creating an entirely new scheme would be the least complex way to tackle CO2 emissions and would involve the least expansion of government. Purported disadvantage: transportation What about transportation, though -- all those cars and trucks emitting GHGs willy-nilly? Will the EPA now take on regulating millions of tailpipes? My inclination is to think the EPA will leave the vexed area of transportation emissions to the states. The CAA is not well-equipped to handle it via national carbon trading. But that's true of cap-and-trade systems generally; it's doubtful a legislative program would work much better. The thing to do -- and this is my opinion, not sure how widely it's shared -- is handle transportation primarily via other mechanisms. You could slap a straight carbon tax on oil, raise the gas tax, repeal oil subsidies, or build out public transit. You could use more finely targeted tools like feebates, pay-as-you-drive auto insurance, congestion pricing, a junker credit, or California's tailpipe emission standards and low-carbon fuel standard. Different cities, states, and regions will develop different policy portfolios, supplementary to carbon trading, and that's for the best. Possible disadvantage: allocations and offsets One of the signal features of a good cap-and-trade system is that it auctions rather than gives away the bulk of pollution permits. This raises revenue the feds can spend supporting clean energy and protecting low-income people from the impact of higher energy prices. According to the OMB (and many others), the impact on energy prices will be the same whether permits are auctioned or allocated for free -- the difference is, the impact can be offset if auction revenue is spent wisely. Another signal feature of a good C&T program is that it limits the use of carbon offsets. I don't want to get into the quasi-religious debate over offsets; suffice to say, at this stage large-scale offset markets like Europe's CDM cannot adequately guarantee that offsets represent real, verifiable carbon reductions. If a cap-and-trade system were designed by legislators, it would offer federal answers to the allocation and offset questions -- not necessarily good answers, if Lieberman-Warner was any indication. A carbon trading system under the CAA would likely leave these questions to the states. Will the answers be any better? There are mixed signs: The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI, which covers 10 Northeastern states) will auction almost all allowances. The Western Climate Initiative (WCI, which covers 11 states and provinces) will auction less than 25 percent. The Midwestern Greenhouse Gas Accord (MGGA, which covers six states) is still hashing out its program. As for offsets, RGGI allows around 3 percent compliance via offsets; WCI around 10 percent. It would be messy -- something of a "patchwork," as industry is fond of protesting -- but one man's mess is another man's federalism. Laboratories of democracy and all that. Purported disadvantage: reversibility Couldn't President Palin undo the program with a stroke of a pen in 2012? If the executive giveth, the executive can taketh away. This is actually an important point: one of the most significant aspects of a quickly established CAA carbon program is that it would create "facts on the ground." U.S. regional trading systems would hook up with other trading systems in in North America, Europe, and elsewhere. The carbon finance industry would grow large and form lobbying muscle. States in the U.S. will sign side treaties with states and regions in other countries (as they have already begun doing). There will soon form a sprawling apparatus that the next president will be hard-pressed to disassemble. Real disadvantage: public deliberation One doesn't want to be sentimental, but there is something to the argument that shift of this significance should be discussed in public and shaped by the public's elected representatives. It would be nice, in an ideal world, if reasoned debate and discussion and interest-balancing yielded the perfect program. But in this world, we're perilously late getting underway and Obama must weigh America's procedural ideals against what a wise man once called the "fierce urgency of now." Whatever it's other merits, the Clean Air Act is now.

By GristThe following is a guest essay from Hal Clifford, executive editor of Orion Magazine. ----- In the wake of Barack Obama's victory, the relief was palpable, the excitement unprecedented. For a while. And then the nitpicking started. Not from Fox "News" or the Arizona country club where John McCain conceded. From the left: He's just going back to Clinton's model, with all these appointees. What a disappointment. Or, he didn't punish Joe Lieberman for wandering off the reservation. Or this one, my favorite, from a very popular climate writer: Obama doesn't really understand what he has to do to tackle climate change, here's a list of bullet points he has to take on, and it's going to be hard. And so on. Well, duh! I read this stuff on the lefty blogs and publications and it reminded me of what David Brower once famously said about progressives: We're really good at circling the wagons and firing inward. Back in the late 1990s, a group of activists who were fed up with the way the Republicans were hamstringing President Bill Clinton formed a little group. They called it MoveOn.org. Now seems like a good time to start a new organization -- one targeted at those on the left who can't quite grasp what it means to have won. Let's call it BackOff.org. Back off, everybody. Be grateful that Obama won. He is smarter than you. He knows more than you do. Be happy in that. Know that he will disappoint you 20 percent of the time, but be thrilled about the 80 percent. Be quiet and take your lumps when it's 20-percent time. Above all, take a lesson from the Republicans, who for a quarter-century understood what Reagan called "the eleventh commandment: thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican." We won. Now we have to succeed. In this day and age, what that means for the left is to stop griping, put your shoulder to the wheel, and start pushing. Or we'll be back to Crazy-Ass Republicanland in four years. I don't expect everyone on the left to actually do this. We have lived in the political wilderness for more than 30 years. We have a deeply ingrained culture of opposition. And we have a profound tradition of focusing on what we're against. Well, it's time to be for something. And if we're going to go forward, we're going to have to leave some things behind. Your favorite wilderness bill? Your wish to fund sea turtle monitors on every southern beach? A national bottle bill? Nice ideas, but they very well may not get funded as Obama turns his attention to the big crises of our day -- the modern four horsemen of climate change, war, economic collapse, and overpopulation. And when your pet green project doesn't make the grade, you can make a stink, or you can see the big picture and remember that the guy in charge is actually on your side. What will you do? That's up to you to decide. As for me, I have realized I have to get over some of my old hangups, my cynicism and even some of my pet causes, and lean forward for something bigger than all of that. All of us do. Barack Obama doesn't need the criticism, advice, or nitpicking from the peanut gallery. Until he really, really screws up -- and I honestly expect that he will not -- let's all back off. Then we can try again on circling those wagons.

By Kate Sheppard The CEOs of the Big Three automakers are back in the Capitol today (this time, they drove in hybrids rather than taking private jets), prepared to offer their revamped plans for restructuring to lawmakers. Their latest proposals contain considerably more promises to use a government bailout to make more efficient automobiles. Under pressure to prove they wouldn't spend bailout funds on more gas-guzzlers -- perhaps their only hope of getting the money they say they need to stay afloat -- they offered plans to convert operations. "General Motors well understands the challenges to energy security and the climate from worldwide long-term growth in petroleum consumption," wrote the company in its new restructuring plan [PDF]. "GM believes that as a business necessity we must look to advanced vehicle technologies to reduce petroleum dependency and greenhouse gas emissions, and has structured this Plan accordingly." They're asking for a $4 billion loan from the federal government right away, and up to $6 billion in additional loans early next year. In return, the company, whose CEO Rick Wagoner arrived in Washington in a Chevy Malibu hybrid yesterday, pledged that between 2009 and 2012, 22 of their 24 new vehicles would be "more fuel-efficient cars and crossovers." They also promised "full compliance with the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act" -- a mighty generous offer, seeing as it's a law and all -- "and extensive investment in a wide array of advanced propulsion technologies." Their plan also includes a line with which many enviros might beg to differ: "Flex fuels represent the fastest way for the United States to reduce its dependence on imported oil."Ford wants a "stand-by line of credit" of up to $9 billion [PDF]. "We fully appreciate that the industry needs to transform itself to better compete by developing safer, greener and even better quality vehicles," the company wrote in its appeal. They promised to produce six new small and medium sized vehicles in the next four years, increasing the car and crossover segment of their product mix from 48 percent to 60 percent. They also noted that they will reduce the segment of trucks, vans, and SUVs from 52 percent to 40 percent of their line, though heavier vehicles aren't going away: "Although we believe that the shift to smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles is permanent, trucks, vans and SUVs will continue to be an important part of the North American market." They pledged to double the production of flex-fuel vehicles by 2010, and make half of their products capable of running on E85 by 2012. As for hybrids, they said they will "continue to develop and deploy hybrids while reducing cost for expanded market applications." Ford also requested that in developing a stimulus plan, Congress should "consider incentives for consumers to trade in older vehicles and move to more fuel-efficient vehicles." But their request also included this dig at California's request for a waiver to set higher tailpipe emission standards (which Obama is likely to grant): Ford was proud to support stronger CAFE standards, and we are absolutely committed to meeting them. However, we urge Congress to maintain one economy-wide set of national standards on fuel economy. A patchwork of standards would place enormous financial and engineering burdens on manufacturers and have the effect of reducing consumer choice -- all for little or no environmental benefit. Chrysler says it needs [PDF] $7 billion or it could be broke in the next few months. Their "viability plan" promises "24 major product launches through 2012, including a wide portfolio of hybrid electric-drive vehicles within several categories: Neighborhood Electric Vehicles (NEV), City Electric Vehicles (CEV), Range-extended Electric Vehicles (ReEV), and full-function battery electric vehicles (BEV)." They note that they plan to have their first full-function electric-drive model out in 2010, and additional models by 2013. They "will have close to 100 vehicles dedicated to testing and development" by the end of next year. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said earlier this week that they plan to have a plan for the automakers ready to go to the floor on Monday.

By Lisa Selin DavisLast month, Circuit City announced that it would close 155 of its stores, most of them big boxes: those 50,000- to almost 300,000-square-foot warehouse-like structures, often built far from city centers. By one estimate, there are almost 3,000 vacant big boxes littering the American landscape, with more to come as major retailers falter. Makes Wal-Mart's logo, that "Always" emblazoned on their façades, seem ironic: what's really permanent is the big box as retail grave. The environmental impacts of big box stores are well documented -- among other things, they consume green space, encourage driving, and soak up public funds. But what happens when they shut their doors? Often a municipality has put in new roads and electric lines -- what Julia Christensen, author of Big Box Reuse, calls "corporate-specific infrastructure" -- to coax a big box like Wal-Mart to come. When the company abandons the original store -- whether to downsize operations or, in some cases, to move on to an even bigger facility -- it leaves a big-box carcass. These hulking structures are poor candidates for "adaptive reuse." "The challenge is size," says Christensen. "It really is hard to find an institution that uses 200,000 square feet of space, and since they're built for single purposes they're hard to use for multi-purposes." The easiest reuse for a big box is another big box, and that's not always allowed. Wal-Mart, which maintains a whole separate company, Wal-Mart Realty, to handle its 1,000 or so empty stores (and encourage development around them) often inserts a clause into contracts that no competing company can occupy the property. "You can bet a Wal-Mart building will never be a K-Mart building," Christensen says. So what will it become? Christensen has spent years seeking out and documenting reborn big boxes, those rare adaptive reuses; so far she's found about 35. A Wal-Mart in Round, Rock, Tex., became an indoor raceway. Another Wal-Mart transformed into a senior center in Wisconsin Rapids. A Hastings, Neb., K-Mart turned into a Head Start. In Austin, Minn., the old K-Mart was reconfigured as the Museum of Spam. The most common reuse Christensen found in her (admittedly un-empirical) research was charter school, which tells us something about the dire need for school construction. But more surprising than the number and kinds of reuses was the attitude of those who inhabited the revived spaces. "Across the board, there was a sense of joy and excitement about turning something like that into a community space -- this sense of 'look at what we did,'" she says. Teachers joked that they taught in the cheese section; students ate lunch in the electronics aisle. But Stacy Mitchell, author of Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America's Independent Businesses, thinks reuse might not be the answer. "Most of these buildings are pretty cheaply constructed, not made to last a century," she says; in her opinion, razing and rebuilding is a better use of space. "The ideal situation is that these sites are redeveloped completely as multistory properties, and that the building isn't saved." That, of course, presents another environmental problem. As Christensen says, "What kind of landfill do we have that 3,000 empty big box buildings can go into?" Reuse or raze, the real issue is the overbuilding that led to so many millions of square feet of abandoned, difficult-to-reinvent space in the first place: too many big boxes, and too-big big boxes, built too far away. Mitchell says there were 19 square feet of retail space per person in the U.S. in 1990; by 2005, that number had doubled, but spending per person went up only 14 percent. We made far more retail space than we can use. Luckily, we're beginning to learn from our mistakes. Towns are adopting big box ordinances, some of them banning big boxes or insisting that they have broken-up facades, so it looks like many stores instead of one, making it easier to reuse. Some municipalities require a developer to pay for future demolition, should the property become vacant. Says Christensen, "They're going to take design decisions into their own hands, and not accept these corporate homogeneous structures over and over again." Meanwhile, there could be as many as 3,000 empty stores out there, waiting for their next incarnation. What do you think your local big box should become?

By Lester BrownThere are many things we do not know about the future. But one thing we do know is that business as usual will not continue for much longer. Massive change is inevitable. Will the change come because we move quickly to restructure the economy or because we fail to act and civilization begins to unravel? Saving civilization will take a massive mobilization, and at wartime speed. The closest analogy is the belated U.S. mobilization during World War II. But unlike that chapter in history, in which one country totally restructured its economy, the Plan B mobilization requires decisive action on a global scale. On the climate front, official attention has now shifted to negotiating a post-Kyoto protocol to reduce carbon emissions. But that will take years. We need to act now. There is simply not time for years of negotiations and then more years for ratification of another international agreement. It is time for individual countries to take initiatives on their own. New Zealand is leading the way, having announced in 2007 that it will boost the renewable share of its electricity from 70 percent, mostly hydro and geothermal, to 90 percent by 2025. The country plans to cut per capita carbon emissions from transport in half by 2040. Beyond this, New Zealand plans to expand its forested area by some 250,000 hectares by 2020, ultimately sequestering roughly 1 million tons of carbon per year. We know from our analysis of global warming, from the accelerating deterioration of the economy's ecological supports, and from our projections of future resource use in China that the western economic model -- the fossil-fuel-based, automobile-centered, throwaway economy -- will not last much longer. We need to build a new economy, one that will be powered by renewable sources of energy, that will have a diversified transport system, and that will reuse and recycle everything. We can describe this new economy in some detail. The question is how to get from here to there before time runs out. Can we reach the political tipping points that will enable us to cut carbon emissions before we reach the ecological tipping points where the melting of the Himalayan glaciers becomes irreversible? Will we be able to halt the deforestation of the Amazon before it dries out, becomes vulnerable to fire, and turns into wasteland? What if three years from now scientists announced that we have waited too long to cut carbon emissions and that the melting of the Greenland ice sheet is irreversible? How would the realization that we are responsible for a coming 23-foot rise in sea level and hundreds of millions of refugees from rising seas affect us? How would it affect our sense of self, our sense of who we are? It could trigger a fracturing of society along generational lines like the more familiar fracturing of societies along racial, religious, and ethnic lines. How will we respond to our children when they ask, "How could you do this to us? How could you leave us facing such chaos?" As we have seen, a corporate accounting system that left costs off the books drove Enron, one of the largest U.S. corporations, into bankruptcy. Unfortunately, our global economic accounting system that also leaves costs off the books has potentially far more serious consequences. The key to building a global economy that can sustain economic progress is the creation of an honest market, one that tells the ecological truth. To create an honest market, we need to restructure the tax system by reducing taxes on work and raising them on various environmentally destructive activities to incorporate indirect costs into the market price. If we can get the market to tell the truth, then we can avoid being blindsided by a faulty accounting system that leads to bankruptcy. As Øystein Dahle, former Vice President of Exxon for Norway and the North Sea, has observed: "Socialism collapsed because it did not allow the market to tell the economic truth. Capitalism may collapse because it does not allow the market to tell the ecological truth." As we contemplate mobilizing to save civilization, we see both similarities and contrasts with the mobilization for World War II. In this earlier case, there was an economic restructuring, but it was temporary. Mobilizing to save civilization, in contrast, requires an enduring economic restructuring. Still, the U.S. entry into World War II offers an inspiring case study in rapid mobilization. Initially, the United States resisted involvement and responded only after it was directly attacked at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. But respond it did. After an all-out commitment, the U.S. engagement helped turn the tide of war, leading the Allied Forces to victory within three-and-a-half years. In his State of the Union address on January 6, 1942, one month after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt announced the country's arms production goals. The United States, he said, was planning to produce 45,000 tanks, 60,000 planes, 20,000 anti-aircraft guns, and 6 million tons of merchant shipping. He added, "Let no man say it cannot be done." No one had ever seen such huge arms production numbers. But Roosevelt and his colleagues realized that the world's largest concentration of industrial power at that time was in the U.S. automobile industry. Even during the Depression, the United States was producing 3 million or more cars a year. After his State of the Union address, Roosevelt met with automobile industry leaders and told them that the country would rely heavily on them to reach these arms production goals. Initially they wanted to continue making cars and simply add on the production of armaments. What they did not yet know was that the sale of new cars would soon be banned. From early 1942 through the end of 1944, nearly three years, there were essentially no cars produced in the United States. In addition to a ban on the production and sale of cars for private use, residential and highway construction was halted, and driving for pleasure was banned. Strategic goods -- including tires, gasoline, fuel oil, and sugar -- were rationed beginning in 1942. Cutting back on private consumption of these goods freed up material resources that were vital to the war effort. The year 1942 witnessed the greatest expansion of industrial output in the nation's history -- all for military use. From the beginning of 1942 through 1944, the United States far exceeded the initial goal of 60,000 planes, turning out a staggering 229,600 aircraft, a fleet so vast it is hard even today to visualize it. Equally impressive, by the end of the war more than 5,000 ships were added to the 1,000 or so that made up the American Merchant Fleet in 1939. In her book No Ordinary Time, Doris Kearns Goodwin describes how various firms converted. A sparkplug factory was among the first to switch to the production of machine guns. Soon a manufacturer of stoves was producing lifeboats, merry-go-round factory was making gun mounts; a toy company was turning out compasses; a corset manufacturer was producing grenade belts; and a pinball machine plant began to make armor-piercing shells. In retrospect, the speed of this conversion from a peacetime to a wartime economy is stunning. The harnessing of U.S. industrial power tipped the scales decisively toward the Allied Forces. Winston Churchill often quoted his foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey: "The United States is like a giant boiler. Once the fire is lighted under it, there is no limit to the power it can generate." This mobilization of resources within a matter of months demonstrates that a country and, indeed, the world can restructure the economy quickly if convinced of the need to do so. Many people -- although not yet the majority -- are already convinced of the need for a wholesale economic restructuring. The purpose of my book Plan B 3.0 is to convince more people of this need, helping to tip the balance toward the forces of change and hope. Originally posted at earthpolicy.org. Adapted from Chapter 13, "The Great Mobilization," of Lester Brown's Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008), available for free downloading and purchase at earthpolicy.org.

By David RobertsStill a box of rocks.

By David RobertsColbert on the National Hummer Club: Via Andy Revkin, who has a good post on related matters.

By Joseph RommLike landfills, oil sands, and "occasional irregularity," the term Clean Development Mechanism is in the euphemism Hall of Fame. But once a rip-offset, always a rip-offset. Reuters reports: The U.N. climate change body has suspended one of the largest auditors of clean energy projects under Kyoto Protocol, a move highlighting problems long aired by critics of the climate pact's greenhouse gas trading scheme.Norway's DNV had their accreditation as project auditors suspended late last week for five "non-conformities" relating to its practices, the U.N. said after performing a spot check of the company's operations in early November. Speaking of euphemisms, if George Carlin were still alive I'm sure he'd add "non-conformities" to his famous list. DNV wasn't fraudulent or incompetent. No. It's just a misunderstood nonconformist. Fortunately, DNV isn't a big player or central to the entire CDM process. DNV is a major player in the $13 billion CDM market, having validated close to half of the projects registered by the U.N. D'oh. Well, at least the non-conformities weren't in areas central to CDM credibility, like, say project auditing and verification would be. DNV said the non-conformities related to project auditing and verification procedures. Never mind.Seriously folks, let's remember that the West got suckered into giving China some $6 billion to destroy greenhouse gas refrigerants that probably cost Chinese companies $100 million to capture and destroy. Let's remember that a major 2008 analysis from Stanford found: ... "between a third and two thirds" of emission offsets under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) -- set up under the Kyoto treaty to encourage emissions reductions in developing nations -- do not represent actual emission cuts. Let's remember: U.N. regulators are also concerned that some independent auditors of these projects, who are responsible for vetting their environmental legitimacy, have been letting project developers push through ventures of questionable environmental value ... In a presentation to U.N. officials last fall, the head of Tüv Süd's carbon business told U.N. officials that the quality of projects the auditors are receiving from carbon brokers is "going down," according to the U.N. panel's Mr. Schmidt, who was at the meeting ... "There is a high incentive" for companies to put together environmentally questionable carbon-credit projects, "because there is a lot of money that can be earned," he said. "People are getting more inventive, so it's getting harder to detect the black sheep." Let's remember that instead of using the money to fund the transition to a sustainable economy, the World Bank "has loaned $1.5 billion to fossil-fuel companies to make minor greenhouse-gas reductions," and "then sells carbon credits for those reductions," and "takes its 13 percent cut"? Let's remember that "The vast majority of schemes that sell carbon credits to offset pollution are delivering 30 percent less than they promise"? But here's some news that will warm your heart if you are a hard-core (i.e. Lehman- or Enron-loving) capitalist: A DNV spokeswoman said the company had not lost any clients as a result of the suspension, and would carry on as usual with project validation and verification work."We assume that we'll be back in business in January," the spokeswoman said. "We will be very quick in closing these non-conformities." Thank goodness. We wouldn't want to take this opportunity to reconsider the whole CDM business in the light of evidence that suggests we have run out of friggin' time to pay other countries to do questionable rip-offset projects while the West keeps running fossil-fuel plants. Heck, it's not like fossil carbon dioxide emissions have a mean atmospheric lifetime of 30,000 years while CDM rip-offset projects last a few decades if we're lucky, and they aren't just purely fraudulent. Or maybe it is. Enough! This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

By David RobertsObama did not drop his oil windfall profits tax or reverse his pledge to implement one. The tax was supposed to kick in when oil went above $80/barrel. It's now below that. I know everyone is desperate to get the first told you Obama was just another lying politician!!1! story, but please, try to wait for one that isn't fake.

By Joseph RommThe car companies have come back to D.C. begging for money. But this time they have put on the table serious restructuring plans. At first glance, Ford's plan [PDF] appears to me sounder than GM's plan [PDF]. I'm interested in your opinions. Assuming we believe they will do what they say, the reports reveal a fair amount about the company's plans for cleaner cars. Interestingly, Ford does not use the word "hydrogen" or "fuel cell" at all -- a huge shift from even a year ago when briefings that I received from the car company suggested they were still enamored of "The car of the perpetual future." For Ford, the future now seems to be electrons: The next major step in Ford's plan is to increase over time the volume of electrified vehicles, as battery costs improve and as the transition from Hybrids to Plug-in Hybrids to Battery Electric Vehicles occurs. If Ford follows through with this vision, then they are likely to survive and thrive in the coming years, since electricity is the winning fuel. GM's plan is not as sharp. First off, GM is still pushing its corn ethanol yellow-washing: General Motors is also the world leader in flex fuel technologies, with over 3 million flex fuel-equipped vehicles on U.S. roads today. Flex fuels represent the fastest way for the United States to reduce its dependence on imported oil. Uhh, no. Corn ethanol remains the worst energy policy idea of the past two decades with very limited potential to replace significantly more imported oil. Meanwhile, scalable, affordable cellulosic ethanol is not right around the corner. GM continues to waste money on and brag about hydrogen cars:General Motors will also continue to invest in hydrogen fuel cell technology, which -- when commercially deployed -- will reduce automobile emissions to non-polluting water vapor. Already, General Motors has deployed 90 Equinox compact SUVs in U.S. customer hands, in what constitutes the world's largest demonstration fleet of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. As a result, it is difficult to know just how excited to get about this statement: "During the 2009-2012 Plan window, General Motors will invest approximately $2.9 billion in alternative fuel and advanced propulsion technologies." How much is going to be flushed down the toilet on hydrogen cars? Still, GM will be first to market with a serious plug in hybrid, the Chevy Volt, even if it is somewhat overdesigned with a 40-mile all electric range: GM will launch the ground-breaking Chevrolet Volt in 2010. As indicated in Table 8, GM is investing over $750 million in the Volt and its propulsion system, prototypes of which are currently on test at GM's Milford Proving Grounds. An extended-range electric vehicle, the Volt will deliver up to 40 miles on a single electric charge, well within the daily commute of approximately 80% of Americans. Volt represents a fundamental reinvention of the American automobile industry, creating new growth and environmentally-friendly/sustainable industries, and represents a giant step toward energy independence. No other car company has made such a commitment to the American people. It involves the development of advanced batteries, power electronics, systems integration and manufacturing methods. The company's product plan includes additional vehicles utilizing Volt's extended-range electric vehicle system and potentially, the assembly of battery packs in the United States. And GM is starting to embrace the efficiency, even if all car companies should be forbidden from touting a cars mileage based on its highway performance: General Motors today offers 20 models with 30 miles per gallon or more on the highway -- more than any other manufacturer ... By 2012, GM will offer 15 hybrid models. Ford has perhaps even shrewder plans: Our plan also includes building on our competence in hybrid vehicles, as demonstrated by the industry-leading fuel economy of the Ford Escape and Ford Fusion hybrids. We are now developing our next generation full hybrid technology, which includes plug-in capability, for vehicles in 2012 and beyond. We are targeting a substantial increase in hybrid volume through a greater than 30% reduction in cost, installation of hybrid capability in global platforms and hybrid vehicles that are uniquely styled. Cutting the cost of hybrids is crucial because that's what Toyota and Honda plan. And Ford has advanced another essential strategy for medium-term survival: Small Car Profitability. As part of our Plan, we will reverse the decades-long trend of losing money on the production of small cars in the United States. In order to accomplish this improvement in profitability, and secure our ability to continue to produce all types of vehicles in the U.S., we are taking the following actions: • Increase global platform volume of Focus sized vehicles to over 2 million units per year; • Increase volume of Ford Focus cars to over 1 million units per year; • Improve margins by:

• improving revenues by making vehicles that are exciting in design, both exterior and interior, with class-leading fuel economy, safety performance, craftsmanship, and technology. The improvements across all Ford vehicles are improving customer perception of the Ford brand;
• improving costs to competitive levels through reduced complexity and global purchasing scale; and

• Improve fixed costs through increased manufacturing and supply base capacity utilization and sharing of engineering and tooling costs globally. This is an especially important strategy because a return to high oil prices is inevitable -- sooner rather than later. Detroit must figure out how to make money on smaller cars because we are certainly headed back toward $5 gasoline and higher over the next decade. Bottom Line: Ford Motor company goes into bailout negotiations with a much healthier balance sheet. And based on their restructuring plans, I wouldn't be surprised if Ford ends up more successful in the long term. This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

By Kate Sheppard Several big environmental groups have issued statements praising Barack Obama's nomination of Bill Richardson today to serve as secretary of commerce. The pick, they said, will help spur green business. National Wildlife Federation President and CEO Larry Schweiger: If there's anyone who understands that a green shovel can help dig us out of our economic crisis, it's Bill Richardson. He knows that clean energy and climate action can create jobs and repower America's economy while protecting our natural resources. League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski: As Secretary of Commerce, Governor Richardson will continue to be a powerful advocate for clean energy. He recognizes both the economic threat of global warming and the economic potential of renewable energy. His long experience with these issues will help America's businesses rebuild our economy with clean energy and create international solutions to the international challenge of global warming.LCV also dug up Richardson's answers to the questionnaire it gave to all of the presidential candidates last year. Keeping in mind that the Department of Commerce encompasses the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, here's what Richardson had to say about oceans: The oceans are critical. We need an ocean protection program -- including not drilling in the ecologically critical [outer continental shelf] -- that will also allow us to lead other nations by example. I know that fishing and transportation interests will have to agree in their own long-term interest, but moving them will require presidential leadership to implement needed ocean policy reforms. And here's what he had to say about international policy: Everything we do at home should be leveraged into international policy. [As president,] I will immediately go back to the international negotiating table. I will restore bilateral partnerships with other nations that want to implement new technologies and efficiencies and control greenhouse gas emissions. I will get the North American Energy Council going not only to push for regional carbon trading but also to bring renewables and efficiency to market. I will implement a new, coordinated, international energy and climate policy, and America will return to international leadership on these issues.

By Joseph RommI have been quite critical of the mainstream media for using the global recession to attack clean tech. One reason the storyline was lame is that a recession this deep is going to hit all new capital projects. A second reason is that there had been no evidence that clean tech was being harder hit than any other sector and some reason to believe it would be hit less hard. And, of course, the election of a Barack Obama means there is going to be a massive infusion of funding for clean tech. While it is premature to say that green tech won't suffer seriously from the recession -- after all, we don't know how long and strong the slowdown will be -- the WSJ acknowledged today it may have have been premature in proclaiming trouble for one of the biggest recent winners in the clean tech business: Fears of a coming slowdown in the wind-energy business may be a little overblown, if wind turbine makers are an accurate weathervane.Big turbine makers like Vestas of Denmark, Gamesa of Spain, General Electric and even troubled Suzlon of India are still booking orders for next year, in spite of fears that the economic slowdown, the credit crunch, and falling oil and gas prices would stifle new investment in clean energy. (Though Gamesa's latest big order was just part of a long-term supply contract signed in 2007.)Industry bellweather Vestas provides a peek on the sector's prospects. The Danish company recently dialed back its expectations for 2009 due to the economic mess. But in just the last month, Vestas has booked another 500 megawatts of wind-turbine orders, bringing its order book to over 4,000 megawatts.Jeffries Research analysts say Vestas' robust pipeline is a sign that wind energy might not suffer as much from the financial fallout, especially as bigger, richer power companies elbow out small wind-power developers: These orders illustrate that Vestas is still finding customers for 2009, despite concerns over financing availability. [The big order from Sweden's Vattenfall] illustrates that demand from utility scale players, with the ability to fund growth through internal cash flow generation, may be less affected by the financing situation than smaller developers. While Vestas and other clean-energy players aren't entirely out of the woods, the sector's apparent resilience during the time of darkest economic news from the U.S., Europe, and Asia should offer clean tech some hope. In short, reports of the death of clean tech have been exaggerated. This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

By JMGI was doing some research in preparation for upgrading my attic insulation, and what do I find?That, in its wisdom, Congress has decided that home weatherization is a good idea that needs incentives for 2006, 2007, and 2009 ... but not 2008.That's right. The feds want you to delay energy-conserving, pollution-reducing, job-creating home weatherization improvements until 2009.

By Tom Philpott In conventional development dogma, the fresh-cut flower industry makes plenty of sense. Nations in the global south need foreign exchange and jobs; folks in the industrialized north have plenty of disposable income for buying pretty things. Moreover, land tends to be cheap in the south and dear in the north. Pursuing the promise of what economists call "comparative advantage," why not set up a vast fresh-cut flower industry in places like Ecuador, designed to supply markets in the United States? Of course, that is precisely what has happened. According to the trade group Society of American Florists, floriculture has blossomed into a $20 billion industry. Fully two-thirds of fresh flowers are imported -- and 93 percent of flower imports come from Latin America. And in classic comparative-advantage fashion, U.S. companies control the trade; the global south supplies land and labor. Dole declares itself [PDF] the "the largest producer of fresh flowers in Latin America" as well as the "the largest importer of flowers in North America." What could be wrong with this picture? To a conventional economist, all is going according to Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, and thus well. A market has been identified and supplied, capital has been deployed, profits have been booked, and jobs -- by one reckoning, 190,000 -- have been created in the global south.When you look a little closer, though, the picture looks less rosy. As with so much in conventional development, the flower industry's success bobs on a sea of externalized costs. From Reuters Health (hat tip to the great blog The Pump Handle): In a study from Ecuador, babies and toddlers born to women employed in the cut-flower industry during pregnancy showed poorer communication and fine motor skills than children whose mothers were not flower workers. These children were also nearly five times as likely to have vision problems, the study team found. The problem appears to be copious use of poisons. Pesticides are used heavily in the cut-flower industry, especially organophosphates, carbamates, and dithiocarbamates, and animal studies suggest exposure to these chemicals before birth may impair neurological development both in the womb and in infancy and childhood. However, that's not the only possible factor. "Long work days, job stress, and difficult work responsibilities where women are on their feet most of the day could contribute to adverse pregnancy outcomes," the researchers note, according to Reuters. "Furthermore, flower laborers work in a greenhouse setting where heat and exhaustion may also play a role in maternal and fetal health."None of this is new, of course. In a paper published in the March 2006 Pediatrics (summarized here), researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health came to similar conclusions. Also studying women who work in Ecuador's flower industry, the researchers found strong evidence that prenatal pesticide exposure adversely affects brain development.To this unconscionable human cost, we can add the greenhouse-gas consequences of shipping millions of cut flowers each year north and keeping them cool and "fresh." Seen from these angles, the fresh-cut flower industry seems less like a triumph of conventional development and more like a calamity.

By Kate Sheppard In an event Tuesday that brought together a motley crew of leaders with an interest in the future of energy policy, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid promised that the issue would be a top priority for him next year. "As the new Congress convenes, I will make it a priority to work with the Obama administration to advance bold, broad policy ideas that can bring to America a vibrant clean energy economy and a healthy environment," said Reid, at an event sponsored by Third Way. Reid was the marquee speaker, but perhaps the real significance of the event was the wide range of groups represented around the giant table. There were at least 44 different speakers, representing renewable energy companies and industry groups, fossil-fuels industries, labor groups, big green groups, think tanks, and local government agencies. There was the American Petroleum Institute and the Alliance for Climate Protection, the Teamsters and Dow Chemical. There were also several folks with close ties to the next administration in attendance -- Rose McKinney-James, who is heading up the transition review team for the Federal Regulation and Oversight of Energy (FERC), and Jason Grumet, president of the Bipartisan Policy Center and an Obama campaign adviser. There were also several individuals rumored to be top candidates for key posts in the administration, like Google director of climate and energy initiatives Dan Reicher and World Resources Institute president Jonathan Lash. With such a large group, each representative was allotted just two minutes to speak. For the most part, they agreed on what the next administration needs to do, at least in broad terms: invest in infrastructure, improve the electricity grid, increase energy efficiency, and put in place a price on carbon. Several others called for massive federal investment in renewable energy and the creation of a federal renewable portfolio standard. One of the few dissenting statements of the day -- though relatively polite, and still calling for a price signal in the near future -- came from American Petroleum Institute president Jack Gerard, who made an appeal for keeping fossil fuels in the picture. "We know we have relied on these important fuels for many years and they are the backbone of our economy. But as we look to the future as we make this transition to a more clean environment, a more clean energy future, we hope people remember the important role of the basic fuels like oil and gas in making this transition," he said. Gerard tried to make the case that fossil-fuel industries are critical players in moving to renewables, arguing that over the last seven years they have spent $188 billion on research and development on new energy technologies -- $121 billion of those dollars from the oil and gas industry. "We're significant players in terms of the innovation that we're going to have to have moving forward," Gerard said. Reid, perhaps having heard that ExxonMobil, for instance, only spent 1 percent of its massive 2007 profits on renewable energy, asked Gerard for more specifics. "We're in all sorts of things, Senator. As you might be aware, British Petroleum is one of the key players in the solar sector, Chevron and others are big into wind, ExxonMobil spent a lot of time on battery development for electric cars and others. The list goes on," Gerard replied. "I'd be happy to come visit with you and go through that at great length." He also pointedly noted that the revenues to the federal government for fossil fuels will be essential for making investments in other energy sources. "Since 1953 we've generated over $200 billion into the federal Treasury, and it's estimated based on only what we know of today in terms of oil and gas resources here in the United States, there's an additional $880 billion to be generated in royalties alone. So we can help solve that question and bring additional revenue to the federal Treasury as part of expanding the energy infrastructure." At that rate, revenues will reach $880 billion in ... 244 years. For the most part, the panel was enthusiastic about shifting to a new energy economy. Reid also expressed hope that there will be green components of a second stimulus package, to come early next year. It will most likely include massive infrastructure investment, upgrading the country's energy transmission system and investing in energy efficiency programs, Reid said. Speaking to reporters after the event, Reid indicated that Congress will look to the Obama administration for the next stimulus package. While he hasn't yet seen what they may have in the works, he said they "have to have something that is robust," and he expects it to be "big -- big in terms of $400 billion and up." "Obama will give us a plan and we will sort through it as quickly as possible," Reid said. As for what to do for the automobile industry, which is lobbying for, ahem, stimulus as soon as possible, Reid said he expected to have something on the floor by next Monday.

By Joseph RommA guest post by Eban Goodstein, Professor of Economics at Lewis & Clark College and project director of the National Teach-in on Global Warming Solutions. ----- One thing you can do to stop global warming right now is tell a teacher -- a friend, your kid's teacher, a cousin, or a colleague -- about The National Teach-In on Global Warming Solutions, set for Thursday, Feb. 5. With the election over, it is tempting to assume that the hard work is done. But the same coalition that has stifled progress to date -- the fossil-fuel industry, along with "government is the problem" politicians -- are still in Washington, still fighting to preserve the "business as usual" that unchecked, is on track to destroy half the life on the planet. The only thing powerful enough to overcome D.C. gridlock is a mobilized American public -- so get moving, and tell a teacher (or a leader at your church, synagogue, or mosque) to join the Teach-In! Participation in the teach-in is easy:

• Screen the launch web cast, The First 100 Days, featuring David Orr, Hunter Lovins, and youth climate leaders Billy Parish and Wahela Johns. The webcast will draw on solutions from the Presidential Climate Action Project. Watch the webcast in a campus auditorium, church basement or hold a D.I.Y. Teach-In in your living room.
• Campuses can engage further with day-long teach-ins -- we have model curricula for schools from K-8 to university levels. Schools planning major events include the University of Central Florida, Skidmore College, and Missouri State. Use the Teach-In to highlight progress on your campus -- or lack of it -- towards the American College and University President's Climate Commitment.
• End your teach-in with a round-table dialogue of decision-makers: inviting Governors, mayors, and city-councilors to sit down with young people for face-to-face conversation about solutions. Let us know, and we will also invite your federal representatives to engage with your teach-in via video dialogues that we are setting up in the capitol on Feb. 5.

Already, more than 400 colleges, universities, high schools and K-8 schools around the country (also churches, synagogues, mosques, libraries, civic organizations, and businesses) have signed on to participate. At a critical moment at the beginning of the new administration, help mobilize thousands of institutions and millions of Americans, and on this one day, raise global warming solutions to the top of the nation's agenda. This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

By David Roberts"There's a reason when you turned on the Olympics to watch them this past summer, you saw mag-lev trains going over 200 miles an hour in supposedly a third world country [i.e., China] in terms of its economy, blowing into town, dealing with environmental problems they have as well as transporting people in a way that we don't even come close to being able to do. And as Barack has pointed out, and John Corzine knows, I may have a bit of a pro-rail bias. I think of the jobs we can create in both construction and innovation if we make similarly bold investments here in the United States, as well as the environmental payoff that flows from that kind of investment." -- Vice President-elect Joe Biden