The "Whiskey Tastes Better..." Book Club

I finished this book over a month ago, but I'm finally getting around to giving my $0.02 on Breakthrough: From The Death of Environmentalism to The Politics of Possibility by Ted Norhaus and Michael Schellenberger. I first heard about this book on 89.3 The Current when Mr. Schellenberger was part of the Policy and A Pint series. I learned a little more about them when I downloaded a podcast from iTunes U that features the authors discussing the book's subject material at Berkeley. So the next logical step would be to actually read the damn book.

And I did.

I don't know where to start with this book. I guess I'll first say that these two guys sound really damn smart. Almost too smart at times. They are very thorough in making their points and use long stories to illustrate their arguments. Unfortunately, I would get too drawn in to their stories and examples and then forget what point they were trying to make.

This is why I'm having trouble trying to write about this book. There were so many bases covered, I can't really find a main point to drive here.

The part I really agree with is that in order to address important issues like global warming, you need to separate it from other "environmental" causes and pitch it as an economic issue. No matter how much press global warming gets, it's still not that important to the vast majority of Americans (and I imagine people of other nationalities don't care that much either). The book cites some polls where they gave people a list of 20 issues and asked them to rate the issues in order of importance. The issues at the top of the list were the economy, health care, national security, energy independence, and the war in Iraq. Global warming was consistently in the bottom 5. In fact, they say they polled once before the release of Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, and once after it was released. Even after all of the publicity, discussion, and positive reviews that his movie generated, global warming dropped in importance in the second poll.

To get people behind global warming solutions, it needs to be tied to issues that they are concerned about. From the poll that was in the book, some obvious choices would be the economy and energy independence. My friend Becca sent me a video of Al Gore giving a speech about the future of our country's energy policy, and he said a lot more in that five minute clip than he did in the entire 90 minutes of An Inconvenient Truth. A lofty goal he sets is moving the country to 100% renewable electricity in 10 years. This would mean moving away from coal fired plants and investing heavily in wind and solar energy. This would provide a huge economic stimulus for the country as thousands of jobs would be created for people manufacturing, installing, and maintaining new equipment such as wind turbines, solar panels, and transmission lines. I would imagine a bit of backlash from members of the coal industry, however. I don't know how realistic it would be to completely phase out coal-fired energy plants within a decade, but his ambitions are in the right place.

Another guy that's been making some noise lately is T. Boone Pickens. He's an absurdly rich oil baron who's now devoting his billions of dollars to promoting a new energy plan for the country. In a brief video on his website, he breaks down where all of our electricity comes from. He shows that 22% of electricity is generated by natural gas. He advocates fulfilling that slice of the pie chart with wind energy instead. Then all of the excess natural gas not being used for electricity can be used towards fueling vehicles. He cites that this would save the US billions of dollars each year since we wouldn't have to spend that money on oil imports. This was only on his little introduction video. I haven't really researched either his or Al Gore's full plans.

This is a good sign. Both of these men are extremely powerful and wealthy. They can do some serious lobbying for change in our nation's energy policy and create thousands of jobs in the process. I really hope for the day that I see President Obama/McCain make the same speeches that Pickens and Gore have made. Then the energy revolution will explode.

I believe this is the type of solution we need to get the population to fight against such a vast and complicated issue like global warming. This is what the book means when they say "the politics of possibility." People don't want more restrictions and regulations like carbon "cap and trade" programs (what the book refers to as the "politics of limits"). Instead of simply reducing carbon emissions, it would serve us better to find solutions that give us new technologies that emit no carbon at all. They talk about JFK's "We choose to go to the moon" speech and how the Apollo project spurred a whole era of expansive technological development. This country has vast resources and can do some seriously big things in a hurry if we have the support and incentive from our government. Let's hope that comes sooner rather than later.

You Know What? You Stink!

There was an asinine column by Nick Coleman over at the Strib last week. He's basically complaining about the ballpark being put next to the waste incinerator on the edge of downtown. A note about this columnist is that he has been adamantly against the new ballpark using public funding, and he's been trying to find a way to complain about it ever since the funding bill passed.

It's been discussed over at Twins Ballpark 2010, and here are my two favorite comments:

I spent lots of time in the HERC neighborhood when my company was located in Ford Centre and I never smelled anything. Nothing. Never. Ever. Not even once. As another commenter put it, it doesn't smell any worse there than it does throughout the rest of downtown.

It's a complete non-issue and that is proven by the number of people who are choosing to live very close to it. They wouldn't do that for long if it stunk.

But my bigger point is this: Whether you agree or disagree with Coleman, his writing is atrocious. By adopting a condescending tone and a "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" style, he somehow manages to lower the level of discourse on just about every subject he touches. Even when I agree with him, I cringe while reading. He belongs on some crappy talk radio station (I can think of one).

His columns are like talk radio for newspaper. That is NOT a good thing.

Between him and Kersten, the Strib B-section is starting to look like the Jerry Springer Show of newspapers: Write whatever you want as long as it provokes a reaction.

If that's your strategy for selling newspapers, you won't be selling them for very much longer...

Posted on July 17, 2008 at 12:24 AM by Rick

before i go: nick coleman points out something from which the ballpark must distance itself: the garbage burner. no matter how much people will go on the record saying there's no smell, the fact that the herc is referred to as "the garbage burner" is a psychological dent in the ballpark. it's kind of like when someone says "don't think about an elephant..." and the first thing that jumps into your mind is an elephant. the herc simply must be moved, decommissioned, or transformed into a wind/solar plant.

Posted on July 17, 2008 at 10:32 AM by yeaklye

These two comments bring up some good points on two unrelated subjects:

1. The first brings up the declining quality of the Strib's columnists. Reading them is like listening to an obnoxious talk radio program. I understand the position the Star Tribune is in, though. Readership and circulation is down, and it has a lot more to do with the changing ways that people now get their news. They keep these writers on staff to have them write columns that will spark arguments and controversy. If they didn't have that, there would be even less readers. But it seriously hurts the integrity and entire reputation of the newspaper.

2. The second comment makes a very level-headed assessment of the situation. No matter what it really smells like down in that area, being next to "the garbage burner" is going to give people a negative perception of the site. I used to park down in the Rapid Park lots a lot when they were open, and I never really smelled anything out of the ordinary. I even toured that plant with a college class and while I was expecting the entire place to reek, the only area that did was the actual warehouse area (I believe it's referred to "the pit" in the article) where the garbage is dumped and stored until it is brought to the incinerator. But any remotely foul smell at this ballpark is going to automatically be linked with the HERC plant. A big sweaty guy sitting next to you while watching the Twins game could fart, and you would automatically think it's the garbage next door. So I do agree with the commenter that they will eventually have to get rid of this plant in order for that neighborhood to continue to develop with new housing, retail, and parks.

Breaking The Law

So I'm sitting here at work on a slow Saturday and figured I'd use this time to catch up on some posts. Our work policy forbids the use of personal e-mail, blogs, and social networking sites while at work, but I feel like rebelling today.

Midnight Premieres of Summer Blockbusters are good! We went to the midnight showing of The Dark Knight on Thursday. I can vouch for all of the reviews you've read that say the movie is fan-freaking-tastic. But what makes the movie-going experience all the more fun is going to the midnight opening with all the other hard-core movie fans.

I've been to the midnight openings of Prince Caspian, Indiana Jones, and The Incredible Hulk so far this summer. The Dark Knight was the largest of all these openings by far. We went to the theater in Southdale and they must have been showing this movie on over a half-dozen screens. Typically, as was the case with the other midnight premieres I've seen, the theater will usually have it on one or two screens. On Thursday night, we got our reserved tickets and the usher just told us the number on our tickets were irrelevant and that we should just grab a seat in any theater that has a seat left. The mall was long closed, but the entire south, east, and west parking lots were full of cars until after 3 am. It was quite the event. I'd never seen a crowd this size at a midnight premiere; not even for Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings.

The highlight of the evening was probably about 20 minutes into the film when there were some "technical difficulties" with the film reel. The film basically just came to a halt, complete with the audio slowing down and lowering it's pitch like when you're listening to a cassette tape and the batteries die on your Walkman (if anybody still listens to their Walkman anymore). Then the uproar from the audience came. So what does the theater staff do? They send some employee -who looked and sounded like the Squeaky Voiced Teen character on The Simpsons- to address the crowd. Poor kid. He was probably shitting his pants up there, but the audience was civil for the most part and didn't hassle him too much. Lucky for him that we all left our pitchforks and torches our cars.

Yeah, I'll Play

Sorry I haven't had anything real posted in a while, but I couldn't resist this nonsense. I dedicate this to my three faithful readers. It was a fun little game, but my Google settings have all the filters turned off. There were some pretty appalling photos I found for "Christopher," "Louise," and "farmhand." If you want to know what I'm talking about, go to the Preferences link on Google, turn off the SafeSearch Filter, and then look up those words I mentioned.


Answer the following questions by typing the answers into Google Image Search. Then post the picture that you like best for the answer.



My Age:





A Place I Would Like To Visit:





My Favorite Place:





My Favorite Object:





My Favorite Food:





My Favorite Animal:





My Favorite Color:





Town Where I Was Born:





A Past Pet:





My First Name:





My Middle Name:





My Last Name:





A Bad Habit:





My First Job:





My Current Job:





My Grandmas' Names:







What I Am Doing Now:

Good Lord...

As the 4th of July holiday approaches here in Minnesota, I thought I would post this little article in case anybody is making plans to go tubing on the Otter Tail River. Just imagine leisurely floating down the river, sipping a beer, when suddenly this guy jumps up and bites your damn arm off! No, I'm not talking about the old man biting your arm off; I'm talking about the gi-normous muskie he's holding. It could happen.