Electric cars and the future

Just a quick note that today the automotive world was opened up to a new reality that has been much harkened-to but until now not realized: the electric, mass-produced automobile. And guess what? It's rather attractive! The Tesla Model S was officially unveiled today, with seating for 7 and a three-hundred mile range in the top-of-the-line model. What's more, it accelerates to 60 miles per hour in 5.6 seconds with a top speed of 120 mph. All-wheel drive is available too, making it a viable option for our snowbelt brethren.

The interior features a 17-inch touch screen with haptic interface, meaning it "clicks" when you touch it, like the recently released BlackBerry Storm smartphone. There is a quick-charge option that, with a 480 volt power outlet, allows you to fully recharge the battery in 45 minutes.

Granted, the base price is $57,400 ($49,900 with the federal $7,500 tax credit) for a version with a 160 mile range , so it's not going to be affordable to everyone. But if you consider it in the larger scheme of things, for roughly the same amount of money you could purchase a BMW 535i, which is probably the premier sports sedan in the world, or at least the benchmark against which all others are measured. That BMW, however, would be a stripped-out model, which technically don't exist in the world of German luxury cars, which virtually always include numerous options that would quickly drive the price up. In addition, the BMW would not be able to hold 7 passengers in comfort, and its highway mileage is rated at 26 mpg, hardly a headline-grabber when you're up against a car that is emissions-free.












So why is this car significant today, despite the fact that it won't be available until 2011? I would argue that we are now entering the world of the automobile 2.0, beyond the internal-combustion engine that has dominated our roads since the late 1900s. Yes, there was the GM EV1, but that was a two seater that was extremely light and rather spartan, and it was leased to consumers with the stipulation that GM could take them back, which GM did, famously crushing the vast majority of the cars in a special machine, fueling the formation of conspiracy theories (see "Who Killed the Electric Car"). The Model S will be on full sale, no ifs ands or buts, and no take-back clauses in the bill of sale.

Take a look at the luxurious interior in the photo above, the Alcantara (artificial suede) covered armrest with contrasting stitching, the lovely sculpted seats. This is a car that will appeal to the well-heeled, early-adopting tech person who does not want to sacrifice luxury for friendliness to the planet. It is these early, more expensive cars that will pave the way for future, more affordable cars as high-capacity batteries become more widely available and their prices come down. This is a first step, and I believe it is a big one.

Indeed, the one last issue to be resolved for the auto enthusiast is the lack of a fruity, rumbling exhaust note that is the hallmark of a highly-tuned internal combustion engine. Batteries don't make noise, and electric motors just whine, hardly the stuff that gets one's heart racing. Enter the German auto tuner Brabus, who added a V8 soundtrack to the Tesla Roadster. With the arrival of the Model S, I have no doubt Brabus will have more business in artificial engine soundtracking.

By the way, for more on the Model S and everything related to green automobiles, I highly recommend the excellent Autobloggreen.com.

More on food with Michael Pollan

Since he's always a good read and a reliably "big" thinker, I thought it wise to link to an interview with Michael Pollan in the same Mother Jones I cited yesterday. Pollan discusses Tom Vilsack (our U.S. Agriculture Secretary and former Governor of corn-ethanol-farm subsidy-heavy Iowa, or haven't you been paying attention?), the various agriculture lobbies, and Obama's corn ties. Interestingly, though, he talks a lot about how to divide the farmers, the farm lobby, in order to reshape their crop plantations towards more sustainable, less subsidy-dependent products than corn for ethanol. In perhaps the most telling passage, Pollan gets at the heart of the US' industrial agriculture/nutrition problem:

One of the more encouraging things that Vilsack said in his press conference when he was nominated was that he was going to put nutrition at the center of his nutrition program in the Department of Agriculture, which must have struck a lot of listeners as, "Well, duh," but in fact nutrition has not been at the center of these programs; disposing of agricultural surplus has been at the center of these programs. So if that really comes to pass I think that would be wonderful. (emphasis added)

"Disposing of agricultural surplus?" Perhaps this is why we have been reaping the "benefits" of corn ethanol in our fuel for the past number of years? Corn ethanol which, in its most common form of E85, reduces fuel mileage by about 25%? (Read further on in the linked Consumer Reports article and you get to the fact that the Bush Administration gave tax credits to the American auto manufacturers to build "flex-fuel vehicles," usually large-trucks/SUVs, so that the auto manufacturers could greenwash their vehicles through the use of an inefficient biofuel that contributes to the creation of high-fructose corn syrup that is making our children fat. I would argue that it is through the collusion of the federal government in cases such as this that permitted the US auto manufacturers not to move towards more efficient vehicles, thereby helping them get to their mostly insolvent current state. Hmm, nefarious much Bushies?) When you get right down to it, is it not the mark of a society with a surplus of surplus that we would even consider developing a source of food into a fuel to put in our automobiles? Not only that, but the fact that all of government could get behind this inefficient fuel as a way to satisfy a key caucus state in the presidential primaries? (See page 2 of the Pollan interview.) How can we justify ourselves to nations with millions of starving people?

The battle between Tom Vilsack and the environmental wing of the Obama Administration that will occur is going to be rather fascinating, and knowing what I have observed of Obama over the past 1.5 years of close observation, I am sure he will find a third way to walk between the two extremes. I'm really thrilled about Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy, however. This guy has credibility to spare, being a Nobel Laureate in physics and all, but he will also have to toe the line on conventional versus alternative energy in order to satisfy Congressional Republicans and moderate Democrats. The fact that last week Chu and Obama effectively declared Yucca Mountain, the boondoggle of a nuclear waste storage facility 100 miles outside of Las Vegas, dead shows me that Chu won't be playing by the usual Washington rules of continuing to fund Yucca simply because it's a waste of money to let it die. Hopefully he'll shake up the rest of our energy sector the same way, starting with the electrical transmission system in our country that needs upgrades and expansion to accommodate future alternative energies.

So this post was supposed to be about food, not energy, but honestly, the fact that food is being employed for energy production these days forces me to address both, so I apologize for getting "off-track" somewhat. It pains me to think of the children I saw in Rwanda with their bellies swollen from malnutrition, while knowing that millions of cars getting gas pumped into them in this country are ingesting food that could benefit those children. As with so many things in life, this will be a wait-and-see deal, but keep your eyes peeled for news of Obama's energy plan and where ethanol fits into the picture.

Organic food: Solely an either-or proposition?

Huffpo highlighted a brilliant article today on the complexities of organic farming from Mother Jones Magazine that suggests various methods for scaling-up the organic model for mass consumption. The main (and probably most provocative) conclusion the author comes to is that in order to expand organic farming from its current small-farm, close-to-market concept, the organic standard will likely have to be diluted somewhat to further incorporate notions of sustainability. For instance, is it sustainable to have organic crops picked by an underpaid worker with no health-care access? Are farmers' markets that are supplied by dozens of separate trucks from small farms more sustainable than big-box grocery stores supplied by tractor-trailers that haul thousands of items at a time? Those are only two examples, and I won't get into all the specifics of what form that dilution could take, as I will refer you all to the author, Paul Roberts, however the pragmatist in me can't help but see it in a positive light. The organic standard is not something I would like to see diluted, per se, however the expansion of a sustainable food system that can serve to feed the masses in an affordable way is something I'm sure many people could get behind. Can organics be expanded to serve more people without completely subverting the mission of organic, sustainable agriculture?


Living in the food-centric Bay Area, and especially in the somewhat schizophrenic Mission District of San Francisco, I run up against the stratification of food choices in society daily. Food consumption, i.e. what one eats, and where one buys one's food, is linked rather directly with status here. One can find an artisan variety of virtually any food item, from heirloom tomatoes with detailed pedigrees to the beef found in one's otherwise unremarkable burger (grain-fed, free-range, non-rGBH, your cow's flatulence was collected to create methane gas etc.) While it certainly is pretty cool to eat organic, "sustainable" food from worthy small local producers, the rub for me has always been a battle between my eco-side and my desire to support small businesses in my neighborhood. Over the past year, as I have shifted my diet towards more fresh fruits and vegetables and away from Trader Joe's pre-packaged products (which, despite being "all-natural" or "low fat" usually still tend to have lots of preservatives and generally a fair amount of sodium) I have tended to lean towards the local markets. Let's face it, while $.39/lb. oranges from Chile fit into my budget far more than do $1.39/lb. oranges from Texas, it is honestly the interactions with the locals in my neighborhood and the consequent feeling of community that convinces me to shop locally.

So in reading the article linked above, I realized that perhaps I haven't been so un-green after all. While I support Rainbow Grocery in its mission and concept, the fact is, one must be willing to pay a hefty premium to shop there, so I go there only sparingly. (The fact that basic concepts of human courtesy seem to be suspended in the bulk food bins section of the store irks me to no end, as well. It's as though self-righteous "conscious eaters" feel that showing another human being some sort of deference when both are seeking to simply buy a pound of quinoa would undermine their life-mission of universal egalitarianism. The kind of egalitarianism that reduces humans to the lowest common denominator of consumer-defecators, and therefore to show another consumer-defecator the slightest kindness would be to elevate that one above the masses. I have no time for world-resenting Greens in my life, apologies.) By shopping locally I have been paying back the immigrant store owners who worked so hard to set up their place of business in San Francisco, an incredibly business-unfriendly city. Those store owners have been providing jobs to others in the community and numerous other benefits with them, and so the question becomes, do I eat only for myself, or do I eat for others around me as well?

In sum total, I would far prefer to democratize food and to spread the bounty to those places that truly need it (see Rwanda, in the archives) than be offered the multitude of mushrooms artisan farmers provide me with. Easy for a somewhat idealistic young person to say upon returning from their first intense third-world country experience, but still, it pays to think not only of the "organicness" or sustainability of one's food, but its economic impact as well. Bringing all of these elements together to reform the food system in our country and the world will prove to be a central challenge of this century, it appears.

Close calls of a Constitutional kind

Today we entered some scary territory, Constitutionally-speaking, and it is apparent that more is yet to come. Memos from the period immediately following 9/11 have been released by the Obama Justice Department that were written by the Bush Administration's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), and that justified, rather speciously, a range of extra-constitutional presidential prerogatives. Newsweek's Michael Isikoff has more:

In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the Justice Department secretly gave the green light for the U.S. military to attack apartment buildings and office complexes inside the United States, deploy high-tech surveillance against U.S. citizens and potentially suspend First Amendment freedom-of-the-press rights in order to combat the terror threat, according to a memo released Monday.

Many of the actions discussed in the Oct. 23, 2001, memo to then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's chief lawyer, William Haynes, were never actually taken. [snip]

[/snip] In perhaps the most surprising assertion, the Oct. 23, 2001, memo suggested the president could even suspend press freedoms if he concluded it was necessary to wage the war on terror. "First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully," Yoo wrote in the memo entitled "Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activity Within the United States."

This claim was viewed as so extreme that it was essentially (and secretly) revoked—but not until October of last year, seven years after the memo was written and with barely three and a half months left in the Bush administration.

This is the stuff Orwell's nightmares were made of, and it is this type of legal rationale to justify presidential actions that was one of the greatest fears of constitutional lawyers for the past eight years. Beyond the warrantless wiretapping of foreign and domestic targets, extraordinary rendition, and CIA "black sites" in foreign countries, these memos outlined the legal procedures for the establishment of no less than a police state.

The implications of what these memos could have meant for the general population, for you and for me, are staggering. One does not need to be a legal scholar to understand that the President suspending free speech protections and being able to direct the military inside US borders is a serious threat to American civil liberties. Keith Olbermann and constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley have more from Countdown tonight:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

What is perhaps most disturbing of all is that there are apparently a number of other legal opinions from the Bush Administration that the Justice Department is considering making public. What else could be contained in those opinions is anyone's guess, but the fact that the Justice Department has hesitated to release them suggests that they are either more controversial or more nefarious, or both. I'll update again when/if they are released, watch this space.

Heartbreak

I came across this article through Andrew Sullivan at the Atlantic, and the case of Annie Leibovitz and Susan Sontag is one that dramatizes the very real financial burdens that result from marriage inequality in our society. At a very basic level, the whole situation begs the question as to why the state should at all be involved in the decision of whom one loves and (theoretically, at least) decides to spend the rest of one's life with. As a straight male, it offends me that I am able to marry any woman off the street without having to know anything more than the basic "who what where when" details of her life, yet committed same-sex partners of 30 or more years do not share in the ability to publicly declare their covenant with each other.

This movement to expand equal rights is not about a government decree from on high; it is an ongoing conversation amongst friends and neighbors that challenges opinions and assumptions and asks for explanations. Think of Annie and ask why.

Doing what we sent him to do?

Yesterday, in his weekly Saturday morning address, President Obama pronounced himself to be preparing for a massive battle with the entrenched corporate interests of the energy, health care, and education industries. This, in the same week that he nominated a key arms-control expert to oversee the Pentagon's weapons procurement, a position that is subject to intense lobbying by defense contractors including Raytheon, Boeing, McDonnell-Douglas and others. Weapons procurement doesn't sound like the sexiest or most controversial area of government, but Fred Kaplan of Slate.com provides a glimpse of the difficulties in cutting defense spending through the example of the highest-profile military purchase in some time: the F-22 Raptor fighter jet. Read it and weep.

There will be no movement back to fiscal sanity and deficit-cutting without cutting programs and increasing government revenues through closing tax loopholes and reversing tax cuts for selected industries that would continue to do quite well without them (i.e. the energy sector). Obama's first budget aims to accomplish many of these goals, and his efforts will be opposed vigorously by those industries affected and by their defenders in Congress who benefit from corporate largesse in the form of campaign contributions. These are big battles to be waged on many fronts, and the fact that Obama is putting the nation on notice about his intentions to wage those battles appear to me to point to cojones we can believe in. I am personally excited to see where this goes.