This is rich.

HONG KONG — The United Steelworkers union filed a legal case with the Obama administration Thursday morning, accusing China of violating World Trade Organization rules by subsidizing exports of clean energy equipment to the United States.

…

The filing asks the Office of the United States Trade Representative to begin formal consultations with China, which would lead to proceedings at the W.T.O. in Geneva if Beijing did not agree to repeal the subsidies.

“Unless China’s policies are urgently addressed, the U.S. may never get a fair shot at making the green technologies of the future,” the filing said.

You can’t see me but I’m shaking my head. We’re filing a petition with the WTO against China for unfair export subsidies for clean energy. Put another way, China is pursuing its own unfair competitive advantage against us for stuff we’re not doing.

China’s manufacture of solar panels, wind power turbines and other clean energy products — with the strong support of its government, through land grants and low-interest loans — has turned that nation into the global leader in those markets. China has more than one million jobs in all clean energy industries combined.

Meanwhile, American and other Western manufacturers of solar and wind power equipment have struggled to compete. Some American clean energy companies have scaled back production and laid off workers, while moving operations to China.

Exasperation mine. I think this whole ‘American’ and “Chinese” set of distinctions is really old hat. Business moves at the speed of business… don’t these countries watch commercials? A communist country is out-capitalisming us. Remember: rules… Ha!

And, speaking of “Hey – you can’t do that!” How about all the wingnut kvetching on Operation burn-the-Koran? As little as a few days ago they were all-hate all-the-time, but now it’s, “we’re weren’t saying you should actually burn the holy book, No way!” Hate speech is hate speech and anti-Muslim (or anti-black, or anti-latino, or anti-Obama, or anti-tax or anti-whatever) rhetoric can escalate, so you should damn well think about that before you engage in stirring it up. Especially if you want to stake out some high ground later. If there is any.

Joe Romm details the curious case of the Koch-funded influence on PBS’ Nova (and a Smithsonian exhibit on climate change and human evolution) in the context of the PBS Ombudsman’s response of, “Wha?”

But not PBS ombudsman Michael Getler.  He seems to have no trouble whatsoever with David Koch, a leading funder of the anti-scientific climate disinformation campaign (and the anti-science Tea Party), funding an episode of the great science show Nova, which:

• is an effort to greenwash Koch’s activities
• just happens to whitewash the threat human-caused global warming

Getler ignores the first concern entirely, and his entire defense of Nova’s dubious entanglement with Koch is “As a viewer of what strikes me and a lot of others as a consistently first-rate program, I trust NOVA.”  The beauty of that defense is that it could apply equally well to essentially every PBS show.  Hey, they are all first rate programs, so what the heck are you listeners complaining about?

It is becomes very difficult to navigate the morality of rich billionaires funding things you like, like museums and opera houses, at the same time they’re bankrolling nefarious schemes to muddy the water on global climate change. They know it’s tender conundrum and maybe that’s why support the arts – as a sort of protection racket for their own hobby horses and political affinities. This is either cynical of them, or me for thinking it – but you have to ask yourself it’s better to be aware of the poisoning of your favorite wells or just to keep on lapping it up because it’s always tasted so good. But just because it’s hard to discern doesn’t mean you don’t have to do it.

As an example, and a pretty good one because it’s ostensibly about the royal family and mostly beyond the realm of my caring, I read this article about phone hacking by the British tabloids and, the take away is the depths of the corruption of which the Murdoch News Group avails itself. The extent to which they are connected to Scotland Yard and can afford to settle with complainants (who then sign non-disclosure agreements) and/or simply hire former government officials is profound. The side story about how the new Conservative PM will embark on a campaign to de-fund Murdoch’s UK competitor, aka the BBC, is also handsome bit of roughtrade. But again, good to know and better even to acknowledge that this kind of corruption goes on and some/many view it as a perfectly proper way to do business using everything at their disposal. Now you can’t say we didn’t tell you.

On a side note, you just read the 501th post.

A friend who recently visited UCSB was telling me about the bike lanes all over campus there. But without the current crazy amount of car congestion on the campus just outside my window, that would be greatly alleviated by the use of bicycles – and the construction of dedicated bike lanes like you see here – I might not have tried to find a picture.

So… you can see it. But you can also see that such volume of riders is not just about getting people on bikes but also making bikes-as-transportation safe and reliable. It IS a way to get rid of many cars where close-proximity driving (less than 1 mile) is the norm. But it takes a commitment to develop the infrastructure to support it – just as it takes for cars. Unfortunately there is no sign of any such commitment presently visible from my or any other nearby windows.

Okay maybe not the trays, I just happen to like those, personally. But no bikes – they’re part of an evil plot.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes is warning voters that Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper’s policies, particularly his efforts to boost bike riding, are “converting Denver into a United Nations community.”

“This is all very well-disguised, but it will be exposed,” Maes told about 50 supporters who showed up at a campaign rally last week in Centennial.

Maes said in a later interview that he once thought the mayor’s efforts to promote cycling and other environmental initiatives were harmless and well-meaning. Now he realizes “that’s exactly the attitude they want you to have.”

Exactly. Now back in your car, ma’am. I realized a while back that this whole green thing was a sucker’s game. But I didn’t know you could also play it from the other side. What we want you to think is that everything is out to get you, that if you don’t become deeply suspicious on your own, we’ll have to force you to do so.

But they’re going to ruin this, too; because when everything becomes Communist, of course nothing will be. Really.

I’ve heard and read several variations on this theme today, that new residential construction is down.

New residential construction dropped in June, another indication that the U.S. housing market is struggling.

But that’s a new kind of sentence fragment – you know, where they leave off the important part. The rest of the sentence should read: to admit to itself that the last thing the housing market needs is a bunch of new houses.

“The housing industry remains stuck in a rut, with both sales and construction activity moribund,” said Michael D. Larson, an interest rate analyst with Weiss Research. “Builders simply lack the confidence — or in some cases, the financing — to ramp up construction, especially in the wake of the home buyer tax credit’s expiration.”

The poor report for housing starts follows news Monday that builder confidence in the new home market sank to its lowest level in more than a year, according to an industry index. Home sales plunged 33% in May, the latest sales figures released, and many economists expect a difficult year for builders now that the federal tax credit for buyers has expired.

This is news? That’s what’s holding them/us back, the expiration of the homebuyers tax credit? Sorry, guess again.

As a result, builders have cut back on home construction. “Builders remain very cautious in light of the sluggish pace of the economic recovery and the hesitancy they are seeing among potential home buyers,” National Association of Home Builders Chairman Bob Jones said in a statement.

What’s more, builders who can work up the confidence to take on new projects are finding it increasingly difficult to get financing. “If you think it is hard to get a mortgage to buy a house, put yourself in the shoes of a developer trying to throw up a subdivision,” Larson said in an interview. “It is really tough to get that kind of financing.

Does anyone ever think to ask why would they want to throw up a subdivision? Because that’s just what they do is no longer operative, developers. Wake up. We don’t need a lot of new houses and condos right now or for the next 12 1/3 years (random). This is again, one of the definitions of insanity – doing the same things over and over but expecting different results. Put on some different shoes, developers. Those have worn holes all the way through to the top. It’s tough to get the financing because we don’t need any more (single family) houses in (far flung) places where we don’t already have too many of these. You can look it up.

Developers: keep your careers if you must but change your MO. Walkable, to work and for provisions, proximity to transit, high density. That kind of building comes back, someday. The other kind, not so much.

Hardly even looking, I found this. But that was a fluke. Things are actual quite the opposite when it comes to news about climate or the environment generally. No news is… no news.

It always makes sense to push hard to keep journalism accurate and to reveal disinformation wherever it pops up. But asserting that the bad quality of some fraction of 1.5 percent of media coverage is the key impediment to societal and congressional action on energy and emissions seems utterly silly.

That’s 1.5 percent. Of the news measured from compilations of weekly summaries. The ‘Mego’ concept/trend in newspaper editing is interesting (My eyes glaze over). So even news about climate denial or opening new oil fields should be encouraged, as at least it keeps the subject tangentially on any screen, in any way. Which is a weird thing to think about while the Gulf is on fire. It’s all of a part with the ludicrous objects of fascination du jour that win attention, of course, but also another a reminder of the need for solutions beyond the political.

So one of the small ‘l’ lessons would be, we can’t repeat this stuff enough. Until you think of something. So get off the baby sitter.

Best op-ed in the Times this week is again by Bob Herbert.

The risks unleashed by the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig are profound — the latest to be set in motion by the scandalous, rapacious greed of the oil industry and its powerful allies and enablers in government. America is selling its soul for oil.

Uh-huh. The double-bite of the green metaphor just gets more twisted and foul.

Are they burning oil, money, their public image, a political rationale? All four? Let’s hope.

The burn operation began at 4:45 p.m. Central time Wednesday. “They have lit off the burn,” Coast Guard Petty Officer David Mosley said.

The process consists of corralling concentrated parts of the spill in a 500 foot long fireproof boom, moving the oil to another location and burning it. While the process has been tested effectively on other spills, it is complicated by weather and concerns over ecological impact.

The generous version: When these kinds of events (corporate environmental pillage, war, financial crises that enrich single entities at the expense of millions) creep up and in on us, it’s possible not to think so much of them; not saying they’re normal/natural but the precipitous slopes of their peril fit in somewhat with other elements of our, um, progress.

But if this was an opening sequence to a film or a novel that we walked into or opened up and suddenly were encountered with the Gulf of Mexico on fire on purpose, it would be obvious that it was a dystopian setting, foreshadowing further suffering and annihilation to come. We would brace ourselves, even in the context of art, for further destruction. What are we doing as the sea burns now?

Even if you’ve only noticed [or tied to ignore] this casually, it’s hard not to find it unreal, bizarre.

We’re stupid if we don’t see this for what it is.

There is a good story by Salman Rushdie on Sloth in a recent edition of Granta magazine (Thanks, whoever sends that).

A recent report from researchers at Georgia Tech and Duke turns its attention to gluttony, particularly the energy gluttons also known as the Southern United States. Evidently, no other region uses more and tries less to save energy and stave off the need to build more power plants. For example take Arkansas (no Please… ):

With a population of about 2.8 million people,2 Arkansas represents about 0.9% of U.S. population, 0.7% of the nation’s GDP, and 1.1 % of U.S. energy consumption (Figure 1). Thus, compared to the rest of the nation, Arkansas has a higher-than-average level of energy intensity (i.e., it consumes more energy per dollar of economic activity).

Arkansas’ industrial energy consumption as a percentage of its overall energy consumption exceeds that of the nation and the rest of the South (Figure 2). This is one reason that Arkansas ranks 15th nationally in per capita energy consumption, well above the national average.

But not to pick on them – the story is the same all over the former former confederacy.

Relative to the rest of the country, the South consumes a particularly large share of industrial energy, accounting for 51% of the nation?s total industrial energy use. In addition, the region has a higher-than-average per capita energy consumption for each of the end-use sectors covered in viii

this report: the South consumes 43% of the nation?s electric power, 40% of the energy consumed in residences, and 38% of the energy used in commercial buildings. This energy-intensive lifestyle may be influenced by a range of factors including:

• the South’s historically low electricity rates
• the significant heating and cooling loads that characterize many southern states,
• its relatively weak energy conservation ethic (based on public opinion polls),
• its low market penetration of energy-efficient products (based on purchase behavior) and
• its lower than average expenditures on energy-efficiency programs.

The idea that there are principled stands being taken on various sides of issues, and therefore legitimate points of view worth highlighting, and perhaps defending or bringing into high contrast with opposition, is seeming more and more quaint.

Environmentalist groups and celebrities are celebrating “Earth Hour” tonight. They ask that you turn your lights out for an hour, to call attention to global warming.  Folks at the Competitive Enterprise Institute suggest that “this sends the wrong message — to plunge us all into darkness as a rejection of technology and human achievement.” In fact, they point out that it’s Earth Hour every night in North Korea, where people lack basic freedoms, as well as affordable, reliable access to many human achievements, such as electricity. Check out this famous photo of environmentally conscious North Koreans observing Earth Hour all night, every night.

CEI rejects the rejection of technology.

Via. So while it may seem more interesting to set up the complex moral conundra surrounding an issue as a way of laying bare the essence of a particular debate, noting does it quite like realizing that some, many, in denial of ______ (because, really, the issue often doesn’t even matter) only want to piss off hippies.