As much as I hate the concept I understand that people, with their grubby little hands itching to hold new baubles, require products to satisfy their infantile impulses. If the change in the products/services comes as a result of governmental/regulatory pressure than so be it. But when it’s cheaper for a corporation to buy off congressional votes than to bow to congressional pressure there’s no incentive for change; obviously the groundswell of hybrid-driving college educated middle-class have not been effective in forcing companies to meet their new environmentally friendly demands because everyone hears about one issue (climate) and reacts by buying one thing (Prius) without examining or understanding the greater implications between point A and point B, or even bothering to see how much is done by B. Not to be cynical…

Thanks for the note on Fuji. I don’t buy bottled water unless I’ve failed in the planning department but I hadn’t heard about this great slap to the forehead. Avian in foreign lands was the last great water scandal I’ve heard about at all and that was a pretty popular news story.

Anyways, keep up the good fight and thanks for stopping by.

On the other hand, I do think that a lot of folks have decided to be for Prop 7 just because the utilities are against it. This is unfair. Now, I’m not a big advocate for most so-called “market-based solutions” to global warming (many of them end up being more about the “market-based” and less about the “solutions,” but there’s no denying that big change is going to have to involve bringing the market along too. Which means, basically, that we need to see a Manhattan Project-style investment in renewable energies here in the next year or so, or we (and the frogs and the whales and the polar bears) are in serious trouble.

“Green capitalism” has largely turned out to be an oxymoron. The “Fiji Green” campaign is a current and egregious example of this kind of thing (http://toxicculture.wordpress.com/2008/05/08/dont-drink-fiji-water/). But the markets aren’t going away, and people like to buy stuff. A combination of draconian regulations and incentives is probably going to be the best answer.

But nobody has the political courage to do what’s required. Alaska will look like Dubai before a major U.S. politician has the guts to stand behind a carbon tax. And in the meantime, we’re wasting away under a series of poorly conceived incremental reforms like this year’s ballot initiatives.