1) After Cheney
This is a brilliant profile of Joe Biden. I had the privilege of seeing him speak last weekend at Iowa’s Jefferson Jackson dinner, the first time I’ve seen him since he became Vice-President. Thankfully, he has stayed grounded and is still the same old “Joe” despite the transformative role he is playing in the Obama administration and in the job description of the Vice President. This piece echos my observation. Mr. Biden himself admitted that he is among the most powerful occupants of his position in history, but hopefully for the right reasons unlike his predecessor. The article, which appeared in The New York Times Magazine this weekend, covers his relationship with the President, his role in Iraq decision-making, his relations with other power players in the Obama administration, how he is separating himself from Cheney’s legacy and many other topics. This is an absolute must-read.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/magazine/29Biden-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&ref=magazine
2) The Secret Details of Obama’s Afghan Plan
Les Gelb, who I rarely agree with but always find to be an interesting read, has used his insider sources to go slightly further than what most mainstream media sources have confirmed. We know that there will be a troop increase of 30,000-36,000 and a change in strategy. Yet we don’t know how many of these troops will be designated to train the Afghan forces nor what parts of Obama’s plan will be conditioned upon Hamid Karzai cleaning up his government. Leslie is right for once. I have maintained that Karzai poses as much of a problem to the United States as does the Taliban and al Qaeda. Kabul, and not Washington, must take the lead in fighting terrorism in the region in the coming years. Most conspicuous is the absence of what the economic and developmental commitments will be. As I argued, these are key to disabling terror and creating an Afghanistan that will be a reliable ally, allowing us to draw out our troops and focus on spending on solving our problems at home.
3) Corn Ethanol: A Growing Disaster
I have long said that corn ethanol is not smart policy, not even as a stopgap and increasing the amount of corn ethanol is gasoline is not a smart move. The United States has an abundance of corn, but that does not mean that we should turn it into ethanol. Sugarcane ethanol is cheaper and more efficient to produce. Unlike sugarcane, the process of growing corn for ethanol and converting it uses more energy than the finished product will give in the fuel tank of a car. Further, the change in the demand curve for corn raises the prices of corn as a commodity. Even worse, tile cropping of annual crops such as corn poses terrible environmental consequences and the model of farming in the United States is far from being sustainable. I applaud the New York Times for pointing this out. The influential farm lobby, the reason we use corn for ethanol, is much more powerful than a mere newspaper, but the dialogue is important and I am glad to see it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/28/opinion/28harding.html?_r=1
4) New US-India Green Partnership Improves Prospects for Global Climate Deal
In a guest post to Climate Progress, a leading blog on climate-related issues,Julian Wong of the Center for American Progress discusses the bilateral deal that the United States and India reached on green issues, largely mirroring what the United States agreed to with China just over a week ago. Yes, Manmohan Singh and Barack Obama did more together than enjoy a fancy dinner. The first and most interesting feature of the announcement is a commitment to a strong outcome in Copenhagen, grounded in “full transparency. While the United States and India have gone further in their rhetoric than ever before in declaring the need for efforts to comprehensively cover “mitigation, adaptation, finance and technology,” the areas that UN laid out, does this signal a commitment to a Kyoto-like agreement on a five or six page declaration of intentions? The other two I find far more positive and concrete – comprehensive collaboration on clean energy development and deployment, as well as capacity building in India for climate adaptation and effective environmental governance. No matter what happens this December, the United States, China and now India will be working together to improve their own climate futures. With an agreement between the United States and Brazil be next? An analysis of the strategy behind these agreements sounds like the foundations of a future column…
5) Historic: U.S. to pledge emissions target!
So progress is slow and invariably disappointing but, for the first time ever, the U.S. will make a pledge to the world community to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. The pledge will be to reduce U.S. emissions by approx. 17% below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83% by 2050.
Senator John Kerry calls this a “game changer” that will help pave the way to an international agreement in December at the Copenhagen Climate Conference, but is it really? Let me just throw some different numbers at you: national emissions cuts in the range of 30 to 40 per cent, compared with 1990 levels, by 2020.
That’s the pledge many nations — particularly China — are asking us to make by next month. Sides seem a little further apart than Kerry is letting on to.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/26/us/politics/26climate.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper
Many thanks for your explanation and taking the time to email me as well