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The United States and 140 other countries have signed or otherwise associated with the Copenhagen Accord, in which it is agreed that the nations of the world should “hold the increase in global temperature below 2°C, and take action to meet this objective consistent with science and on the basis of equity.” For there to be a chance — even just a 50/50 chance — of limiting temperature rise to 2°C, global greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2020 (earlier for the developed world) and fall by 9 or 10 percent a year every year thereafter.

Nothing like that has ever been done. Not even close. No major energy transition has ever moved that quickly. Carbon emissions have never fallen that fast, not even during the economic collapse brought on by the demise of the USSR. Getting to change of that scale and speed is not a matter of nudging along a natural economic shift, as clean energy cost curves come down and fossil fuels get more expensive. That scale and speed seem to demand something like wartime mobilization.

That metaphor gets used a lot. I’ve used it many times myself. But is it apt? And what would it mean to take it seriously? There’s been lots of academic attention to the technology side of rapid, large-scale mitigation, but little attention to the governance side. How could a country engineer such a transition? What powers and institutions would be necessary?

An interesting pair of papers from Laurence L. Delina and his colleague Mark Diesendorf at the Institute of Environmental Studies at the University of New South Wales helps to frame the discussion. “Is wartime mobilisation a suitable policy model for rapid national climate mitigation?” will be published in Energy Policy, and “Governing Rapid Climate Mitigation” [PDF] was delivered at the Earth System Governance Conference this year in Tokyo.

The papers, which are focused mostly on the U.S. but meant to draw lessons applicable to other countries as well, “commence the process of developing contingency plans for a scenario in which a sudden major global climate impact galvanises governments to implement emergency climate mitigation targets and programs.”

Let’s pause right here for a second. This entire project is premised on the notion that harsh climate impacts will eventually spur the public to demand emergency action from governments. That is, to put it mildly, a debatable premise. I’ve always thought people put way too much faith in it. It’s really, really difficult to know what kind of impact would be big or frequent enough to spur that kind of public unity, especially directed at climate change mitigation (as opposed to adaptation). After all, no one will be able to prevent climate disasters within their lifetime through mitigation — the next 50 years of climate change are already “baked in.” So we’re talking about the peoples of the U.S. and the world rallying around emergency measures, wartime sacrifices, on behalf of future generations. I can easily imagine that never happening. And if it does, it’s going to take some kind of shock that I can’t even really imagine.

Delina and Diesendorf acknowledge that politicians will resist adopting a true emergency posture:

Since rapid climate mitigation responses on the scale and scope of warlike mobilisation mean that governments may have to turn away from business-as-usual and predominantly market solutions to place more emphasis on centrally organised and publicly funded activities, politicians are less likely to support emergency climate actions for the fear of losing corporate support and, in countries with large fossil fuel reserves, tax revenues.

Uh, ya think?

Because of political resistance, moving to a wartime-mobilization footing will require serious grassroots pressure:

Unless the climate action movement can exert strong, growing pressure on governments, by means of lobbying backed up with media, public education, legal actions, building alternatives and nonviolent direct action, it seems unlikely that governments will undertake emergency mitigation, even when life-threatening climate disasters occur.

Yup.

But anyway. For the sake of discussion, let’s imagine such disasters did unfold and there was enough grassroots pressure to force politicians into wartime posture. What would that look like? How would it work?

Delina and Diesendorf take a close look at America’s experience during WWII. (It’s worth digging into the first paper’s section on that topic — there’s lots I didn’t know about the government’s domestic policy during that period.) During that time, the country went from manufacturing almost no war material to manufacturing enough of it to run the world’s biggest military. It was an industrial turnaround of astonishing speed and scale.

The lessons that emerge from that period aren’t ones I’m particularly comfortable with, and it sounds like the authors aren’t totally thrilled with them either. Long story short, what’s required in wartime mobilization is an enormous amount of centralized federal executive authority, an enormous amount of borrowing and taxing, and an enormous amount of labor displacement and retraining. At least temporarily, the economy will be more government-directed than market-based.

Among other things, pulling that off will require some sort of large-scale strategy, a set of goals and programs, that is durable enough to be insulated from the ebb and flow of passing administrations and changes in public opinion. It must be focused on long-term mitigation rather than merely immediate adaptation (which is what all the short-term political pressure will favor). At the same time, however, the mitigation strategy can’t be so rigid that it is immune to public oversight and control. Some measure of democratic control must be preserved.

Delina and Diesendorf recommend the statutory creation of two new institutions in particular:

• A special Ministry for Transition to a Low-Carbon Future as the principal agency of rapid mitigation activities to conduct technical requirement studies, set and enforce production goals [for renewable energy technologies], institute efficient contracting procedures, cut through the inertia and ‘red tape’ inhibiting institutional changes, and serve as the coordinating agency for all transition activities.

• A separate institution, independent of the Executive and the above Ministry, reporting directly to Parliament/Congress and the community at large, to prepare a transition timeline specifying the period when executive control starts and ends; to conduct appropriate checks and balances; to scrutinise government/executive actions, especially those of the Ministry for Transition; and, through legal powers, to ensure that the government/executive sticks to its transition mandate.

So it’s your basic balance-of-powers set-up: a single coordinating agency and a watchdog to keep it honest. The delicate dance here is to hand over extraordinary power to the executive branch on the premise that it can and will be handed back after a set period of time.

Among the many dangers in this approach is that executives are not generally inclined to give up power once it’s been granted them. And it’s not like the climate situation will be any less dire in 10 years, or 20. Once you switch over to wartime government in the face of a foe that cannot surrender and never stops, how do you ever switch back? (The parallels to the “war on terrorism” should be obvious here.)

Delina and Diesendorf acknowledge that the WWII mobilization comparison is not perfect, because climate mobilization will be even more difficult and more complicated. (Whee!) It will also involve state and provincial governments, along with civic and private institutions. It will also, crucially, involve international coordination and enforcement. It will eventually have to go beyond particular economic sectors and address the larger issues of population and consumption. “Getting all these acts done in a coordinated and democratic/participatory manner,” Delina and Diesendorf write, “is definitely a huge challenge.”

You could say that.

So. Assuming that the climate movement can tie climate impacts together enough to galvanize the public against climate change; assuming politicians can actually be swayed by public pressure into radical, immediate action; assuming that executive power can be expanded and the economy transformed as though it were 1942; assuming that, at the end of the sprint to zero carbon, the federal government cedes back the extraordinary and democratically suspect powers it adopted … well, assuming all that, we’ve got this climate governance thing nailed! Yeeesh.

One final note about this. A political conservative will see this post and think, “Aha! I knew it all along! Liberals are using climate change as a pretense to grow government and increase its power over our lives!”

As an assessment of the motivations and ideology of those fighting against climate change, this is absurd, of course. But as an assessment of what must be done to secure real climate safety, it is accurate. In any scenario where mitigation is big enough and fast enough, government really will need to be bigger and more intrusive. That is very much worth worrying about; getting through this ordeal while retaining the open, democratic character of U.S. government (such as it is, anyway) will be a tough needle to thread.

However, it’s worth noting that eschewing mitigation and instead trying to adapt to a 4°C world will create widespread suffering, migration, and desperation. Those, in turn, will lead to civil unrest and resource conflicts. Guess what governments do in the face of massive disruptions and unrest? They get bigger and more authoritarian!

There’s no libertarian choice here. A huge, global challenge like climate change is inevitably going to mean more government action and intrusion. The choice is, do you want managed big government, with a bounded set of plans and some amount of oversight built in, or do you want panicked big government, responding to migrations, famines, and conflict? I’m not exactly excited about either choice, but the former definitely strikes me as the lesser of two evils.

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In this episode of Slow Ride Stories, the crew stops in Lee, N.H., to visit with Carol and John Hutton on their farm. Carol, an eighth-grade earth science teacher, has noticed the growing season getting longer, and she believes climate change is the cause. “Man has interfered,” she says.

A hot September last year and a dearth of snow in December meant big losses for the Huttons’ farm. On the flip side, says John, he’s growing soybeans in New Hampshire — something that was unheard of when he was growing up. “One door closes, another one opens up.”

Watch as Erik and Albert chew the fat with the Huttons, then have an epic race through the corn maze.

Erik Fyfe and Albert Thrower are traveling across the Northeast by motorcycle, talking with a wide range of people about their perceptions of climate change and experiences with extreme weather. Their aim is to spark conversations about the changing climate and collect local stories about how it may impact everyday Americans. Find all of the Slow Ride Stories here.

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The clothing industry is finally partaking in a little retail therapy, as a band of brands — from Adidas to Patagonia to Walmart — takes the first steps in measuring the environmental impacts of making our tees, ties, and toe shoes.

The Sustainable Apparel Coalition, which represents around a third of the world’s apparel dollars, publicly released its long-awaited Higg Index Thursday morning. The index measures the overall practices and policies of a company, specific product components (such as fabric), and the water, waste, and energy used to run facilities (millhouses, warehouses, etc.).

The Higg Index is a mashup of tools developed by Nike and the Outdoor Industry Association, a trade group for companies that make gear and clothes for the hiker/boater/climber set. The coalition piloted the index with over 60 companies and hundreds of products and spent over 1,300 human hours improving the tool, according to Executive Director Jason Kibbey.

If you’re waiting for an “organic”-style label for clothing, don’t hold your breath, however.

“This isn’t just about putting a seal of approval on a product, and I think that’s what’s really different from a lot of other standards or certifications,” Kibbey says. “It’s not like saying, ‘You passed, you’re good enough. Go about your business while the planet continues to deteriorate.’”

Instead, for the time being, the Higg Index will be used internally. The coalition hopes businesses — from the greenest eco-conscious business to the flimsiest clothing company — will use the tool to do a little self-reflection and continuously improve.

“The old adage is, ‘You don’t manage what you don’t measure,’” says Kevin Myette, director of product and supply chain sustainability for the outdoor clothing and gear giant REI, which helped test the tool. “The index allows you to be very systematic about management. As you engage more with the supply chain, they become more comfortable with why we’re asking these questions.”

That is, companies become conscious of environmentally destructive habits — and that, Myette says, spurs them to change. “It’s not about, ‘You’re checking me.’ It’s more about, ‘Wow, if I do this, I can actually improve my organization, my business.’”

In an age where most companies have figured out that greenwashing is more profitable than actual sustainable practices, you’re forgiven for being skeptical. Without the ability of the public to really dig into companies’ findings (the coalition hopes to release a consumer-facing aspect of the tool, but doesn’t know when that will happen), we’ll be hard pressed to hold them accountable for the problems they discover. And it’s hard to imagine big businesses taking a cut in profits to fix major issues the public doesn’t even know about.

Still, Kibbey says, it’s in companies’ best interest to get up to speed on problem areas. Failing to understand social impacts has been “a very painful process” for many companies, Kibbey says. (For example, Gap was embarrassed and had to scramble on PR in 2007 when a newspaper uncovered photos of child labor in its supply chain.)

“[The companies] don’t want to go through that again with sustainability and environmental impacts,” Kibbey says. “They’ve already been bruised by that once before. I don’t think anyone felt good about it.”

While it’s tempting to laugh off a coalition that includes H&M as just a corporate tool, greater transparency and self-reflection are never a bad thing. “The world is going to buy clothing unless there was some sort of a government mandate that required people to buy less clothing,” says Kibbey. [Editor’s note: Sounds like someone’s never heard of Agenda 21.] “What we’re trying to do is allow people to make better decisions.”

It could be a few years before consumers are given the tools and inside information to make better decisions, too. Until then, keep an eye out for news about the worst offenders and take a big breath before making any purchases. And lay off the toe shoes, will ya?

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At this point, denial is the official Republican Party stance on climate change. Not a single one of their presidential or (to my knowledge) congressional candidates has affirmed the existence, much less the danger, of anthropogenic climate change in the 2012 election cycle.

But Bob Inglis is bucking the trend.

Inglis was drummed out of the U.S. House in 2010 when South Carolina voters gave his Tea Party challenger more than 70 percent of the primary vote. Among Inglis’ sins: daring to be concerned about climate change. And despite the fact that it arguably cost him his seat, he hasn’t given up on climate, or on his party. This week, Inglis is launching an Energy & Enterprise Initiative at George Mason University to promote conservative solutions to global warming. I caught up with him by phone recently to find out what those solutions are and who else is on board.

Q. Tell me about the new organization you’re starting.

A. It’s called the Energy & Enterprise Initiative. It’s an effort to advocate for the elimination of all subsidies for all fuels and the attachment of all costs to all fuels. That’s the free-enterprise fix to energy and climate. If you correct the market distortions and make all fuels accountable for all of their costs, that will drive innovation and as a result reduce CO2 emissions.

The freebies for coal and petroleum are substantial even if you leave out the climate change impacts — just consider the health impacts, or attach to petroleum some of the defense costs in the Persian Gulf.

We want the accountability that is a key value of social-issue conservatives, who believe, as I do, that human beings are responsible actors. The argument to social-issue conservatives will be, if you’re coal, you gotta be accountable! If you’re causing 23,600 premature deaths in the U.S. annually, over 3 million lost work days annually, pay up!

And to the economic-issue conservatives, the argument is, don’t you see the market distortion? If those costs aren’t attached to coal, how will you ever build a nuclear power plant? It used to be convenient for us as conservatives to blame enviros for why we’re not building nuclear power plants, but if we update our rhetoric to the actual facts, what we find is it’s more a question of economics. It just doesn’t make sense to build a nuclear power plant if you can build a coal-fired plant that can belch and burn for free.

For the libertarian conservative, our case will be that we shouldn’t socialize costs and privatize profits. And for the national-security conservative, the case is, why haven’t we broken this addiction to oil? Why has every president since Richard Nixon made the same speech that Barack Obama made last spring? Because we haven’t said we’re ready to fight this thing; we’re gonna make the economics right. We fund both sides of the war on terror. We fund them with our gas pump purchases and then we fund the bombs to blow them up.

So the concept is, all four docks on the waterfront of conservatism, we think we’ve got a case — social-issue, economic-issue, libertarian, and national-security conservatives.

Q. What is the group’s primary purpose?

A. Well, it’s a 501(c)(3), so therefore it’s education, of course with a point of view: We believe in pro-growth, free-enterprise principles, and we believe that those principles will fix the energy and climate problem. We think it is the particular province of conservatives, but we acknowledge that there are many progressives who would agree as well that you fix the market distortion and good things happen. We want to celebrate that profit motive; we think it’s fabulous. We want people to make a lot of money off of selling these technologies and create enormous wealth for themselves and others. Progressives might shy away from celebration of all that profit. But both would likely agree that we haven’t tapped the power of the free-enterprise system yet.

Q. Are you hoping to have impact on the 2012 elections? Or is this more of a long play?

A. Long play. We think it’s 2015, 2016 before anything happens. After the next midterm. Either a new Republican president will, under market pressure, say to the country that we need a grand bargain to bring down rates and broaden the base, and a great way to do that is to shift off of taxing income and toward taxing CO2. Or it’s a second term for President Obama and the same market pressure pushing Congress and the president to do something. Perhaps some of the rejectionism of Obama will be declining because he’s a lame duck, just like the Clinton hatred subsided some as he moved toward the end of his second term.

Q. Do you have a sense of how many conservatives share this point of view?

A. Because of the economic pain that we’re all experiencing, there’s a lot of anger, sadly being aimed right now at a scapegoat. We’re searching for somebody to blame it on. We’re all in this together. We have a structural deficit. We have an over-leveraged economy that now is going through the painful process of de-leveraging. The sad reality is, there’s very little the government can do to fix that, to lessen that pain. It takes time to come down to earth in terms of the amount of leverage that individuals and corporations and governments can carry. So that’s where the anger comes from.

Over time, one of two things will happen to cause the reemergence of a bloc of conservatives that say, we’re into solutions. One is, the economy improves and the anger subsides. Or two, we have our fill of the anger and we just realize at some point that it’s not getting us anywhere.

Q. So you think the main thing driving the current conservative attitude toward climate science is economic anger?

A. I think that’s where the explanation starts. Yesterday, in my class [Inglis is a Visiting Energy Fellow at the Nicolas School of the Environment at Duke University], I assigned J.M. Bernstein’s great piece “The Very Angry Tea Party.” It starts with economic dislocation, but his point is, at a very deep emotional level, it shows that our self-concept as autonomous beings is inconsistent with our reality of interdependence, and to some extent dependence, on a social network of support from Medicare, Social Security, and other ways that we have formed community.

The thing where I’m obviously out of step is, I think it’s possible to be a conservative who wants to build community. That it is consistent with the ethical teachings of Jesus — to be a communitarian, to care for the sick. But right now what we have is anger and rejectionism. On energy and climate, there’s an element that just rejects action, rejects the science, rejects anything and anybody with a PhD.

I think you should respect people who have given their lives to learning about climate systems and listen to them carefully. They know a lot more than I do. But this is not where we are right now.

If you look at the history of this country, there was something called the Boston Commons. Savannah, Ga., was a planned city and has beautiful parks; Charleston has some beautiful public spaces. The idea being, we can build a community here. We’re going to care for one another. Now, there’s a big difference of opinion about how far that goes in terms of the role of the state. But you start with the notion that we’re going to build community.

Another reason for rejectionism has to do with an assumption of technological progress, that they, whoever they is, will come up with something. It’s not a strategy as far as I’m concerned. The unnamed they will come up with something faster if we set the economics right.

And some of the rejectionism is based on a sort of recoiling from the apocalyptic vision of some advocates of action on climate change. That apocalyptic vision actually hurts us because it drives the sense that, well, we’re all toast anyway. We may as well eat, drink, and be merry. If I believe that I’ve got some control over my destiny, I might rise up and exercise responsibility. But if I think it’s all predetermined and I’ve got no hope, denial is a pretty good coping mechanism.

If I accept the science, and that leads to the conclusion that something’s up, and I’m a responsible moral actor, I should change my behavior. But if I’m not willing to change my behavior, it’s better for me, not to admit that I’m selfish, but to attack the science. Attacking the science is an easier way to dispense with the question.

Q. How many name conservatives do you have involved in this project? How big of a bloc can you build?

A. We have to convince conservatives that this won’t cut you off from a community that you find relevant. In a way, I’m the worst commercial for that!

My view is, there are a lot of Republicans in foxholes on this hill, ducking as the fire gets intense. At some point, some are going to get up out of the foxholes and start running up the hill. Some will fall on the hill, but this is what we count on people doing in places like Afghanistan right now. If all they’re going to shoot at you is words, most of them will bounce off. You might lose a job. But are you really going to stay in that foxhole?

We’re trying to sound the call. They’re starting to come up. We’ve seen some op-eds written on this point of view. The first validator we put on the scene was Art Laffer, at an event on February the 23rd at Vanderbilt business school. We chose it because it’s a Southern zip code; the center of gravity of the Republican Party is South. I speak Southern. And Art Laffer is an unassailable conservative from the Reagan years. He’s agnostic as to climate change, but he said in Nashville, “I don’t need to know. All I need to know is, you’re taxing something you want more of, which is income, and you’re not taxing something you arguably want less of, which is CO2. Change what you tax.”

Q. Any elected officials willing to stick their head up yet?

A. Uh, no. Our assumption is that it’s too early to ask them to lift their heads out of the foxhole because they’ll be targeted. Their heads will be blown off! You might have some earlier movement by governors because they’re in a different spot.

Our focus is not so much direct persuasion of House and Senate members. We can’t do that because we’re a 501(c)(3) anyway. Mostly it’s an effort to build support in the districts. It’s important to build a constituency, to go into districts to help find the college Republicans, the young evangelicals, the Federalist Society members who will think fresh on these things, and who might just start a parade that elected officials could lead … when they start coming up out of the foxholes.

Q. Have you found people on the money side of conservatism who are with you on this issue?

A. There are financial supporters also in the foxholes. I see them as maybe the first ones up out. They have some security — better helmets. Politicians don’t have much of a helmet; they really have to rely on public opinion. But the Republican entrepreneurs in those foxholes, they’re doing the numbers. They know that if you internalize all fuel costs, you could make a profit selling alternatives. They have some financial stability; a lot of members of Congress don’t have that. If they lose a job it’s a big dislocation for their families and for their self-concept. Entrepreneurs are used to taking that kind of risk.

I hear from some [entrepreneurs] who say we can do it without any policy change — the costs are coming down on solar so fast that we’re going to get there before any policy gets done. I hope so. But it sure would help if you could set this playing field level.

Q. In the short term, the visible effect of your plan will be energy prices rising. How do you address that?

A. Here’s what I say: We already pay all those costs. We just don’t pay at the pump or at the meter. The challenge is convincing folks that there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. Somebody’s gotta pay. I am currently paying, you are currently paying, the full cost of coal-fired electricity. We pay it in higher health insurance premiums, we pay it in the costs at hospitals, we pay it in Medicare and Medicaid.

We’re paying for the protection of the petroleum supply line through general taxation. This should drive economic conservatives crazy. If I paid the full cost at the meter and at the pump, I’d have a desperate need for innovation. That would drive investors to meet my need. They’d make money by serving me, and I’d have a fix to my problem.

The challenge is that when your economic boat has only a little bit of freeboard, you don’t want anybody standing up, rocking the boat. We’re used to it. I just paid $3.33 a gallon for gasoline. The real price is way higher than that, but hey, don’t go messing with my budget.

Q. Visible prices are a lot more politically charged than invisible prices.

A. Right. That’s why we’re hoping that Federalist Societies, economics clubs, and college Republicans who are hoping to get an A in Econ 101 will serve as sneezers in a viral marketing campaign.

Q. Do you think climate played a big role in your 2010 loss?

A. It was my most enduring heresy. I committed various heresies against the current orthodoxy: I voted for TARP to try to save us from a depression; I agreed with President Bush about a comprehensive immigration solution; I disagreed with the president on the troop surge (that was heresy back then, I’m not sure it’d be one any more; things change quickly in politics).

But the most enduring heresy I committed was saying that climate change was real and let’s do something about it, even though I voted against cap-and-trade. I don’t like that solution; I think it’s too complicated, it decimates American manufacturing, there’s just real problems with it. So I had the foolish political instinct to propose an alternative, a bill we introduced that got precisely two cosponsors — two very brave people, Jeff Flake [R-Ariz.] and Dan Lipinski [D-Ill.]. It’s called the Raise Wages, Cut Carbon bill. It is a tax shift, off of payroll, on to carbon dioxide — a 15-page alternative to the 1,200-page cap-and-trade bill. It was a border-adjustable tax, removed on export, imposed on import.

Q. Do you think the Tea Party wave has crested?

A. The wave was high in 2010. It dipped a little bit during the debt-ceiling brinkmanship. I think it will rise to an even higher point as this horse race develops between the president and Mitt Romney. But then I think it subsides, when market pressure forces us all to be educated about the problem. Because that’s the thing that I’m counting on as a conservative: that we’re going to have real accountability, real discipline, not a politician bloviating about how we can have accountability, but real dollars and cents and interest rates. The invisible hand is a strong hand.

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By Sarah Henry

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HBO has a history of tackling important American healthcare crises. In recent years, the cable network has taken on addiction and Alzheimer’s to much critical acclaim. And now the network has turned its attention to another huge health problem: Obesity and its enormous economic, emotional, social, and health cost on individuals, families, communities, and the country at large.

As Americans have gained weight in recent years, rates of diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and other obesity-related health problems have also skyrocketed. Type 2 diabetes (once known as “adult-onset diabetes”) rates are soaring among kids. And this is a generation that may well die at a younger age than their parents, largely because of medical concerns associated with excess weight.

These facts have become commonplace, to those of us who have been paying attention. Still, The Weight of the Nation: Confronting America’s Obesity Epidemic  serves as a clarion call to the country to take action – and fast – to combat this pernicious, complex problem that has myriad root causes.

Despite the familiar territory, this viewer gives the filmmakers points for framing this issue in a fresh, visually compelling way through astute story selection. The first episode recounts The Bogalusa Heart Study in Louisiana – a landmark investigation which found that cardiovascular disease can begin in childhood. And in the final installment we meet a Nashville mayor trying to help his city get healthy and a Latino community in Santa Ana, Calif., whose members spend years advocating for a play space for their children.

Bigger than individuals

Some critics (including those who have yet to watch the series) worry that The Weight of the Nation only fans fear, stereotypes fat folk, and doesn’t go after the real villain in the war against weight: the food and beverage industry. But from this critic’s perspective, the program doesn’t lay shame and blame at the feet of the overweight and obese people it features. On the contrary, it presents their struggles in a sympathetic and non-judgmental light, revealing how hard the body fights weight loss despite good intentions, and how current social, economic, and government systems sabotage Americans’ attempts to stay healthy.

Yes, there is the question of personal responsibility, and the films address physical inactivity and poor diet as key contributors to this problem. But there’s also healthy discussion of factors outside an individual’s control – including genetic makeup and evolutionary biology (we’re programmed for scarcity in a time of abundance), workplace changes, fast food marketing strategies, federal farm subsidies, changes in American food culture, and the ready availability of low-cost, high-calorie food.

The series also points a finger at the global corporations that are responsible for peddling the unhealthy, highly processed foods at the crux of the problem. It’s hard to imagine commercial television, hugely dependent on advertising by the makers of such food, taking on this topic in the first place.

To produce The Weight of the Nation, HBO teamed up with some major government agencies battling this spreading epidemic — the Institute of Medicine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health — as well as the child-focused philanthropy Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, and healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente.

The series doesn’t sugar coat matters, but makes it clear that obesity-related health problems will become an unprecedented, massive crisis with dire consequences if left unchecked. It’s also incredibly expensive: At the current rate of increase, obesity-related healthcare costs are projected to exceed $300 billion by 2018.

In conjunction with the series, HBO also launched a massive social media campaign to spread the word about what can be done about these health problems and reached out to more than 40,000 community-based organizations across the country.

Take that obesity epidemic. And yet, as John Hoffman, executive producer of the series, noted in a discussion after a recent screening in Oakland: One of the first steps that might put a serious dent in this problem would be addressing government subsidies for commodity crops, which have made ingredients like high fructose corn syrup cheap, accessible, and ubiquitous. He suggested changing the date of the Iowa caucus – a step that would give this farm state considerably less political power. (Such creative thinking didn’t make it into the series. But it’s food for thought – as is the hormonal defect hypothesis, detailed in a Newsweek story last week, which argues that refined sugars and grains are the major players in a problem that no amount of dieting and exercise could correct.)

For kids’ sake

People can argue whether the root problem is corporations and their lobbyists, unfair government subsidies that benefit Big Ag, or cultural forces that keep many of us eating low-nutrient, high-calorie food. But most folks can agree on this much: It’s time to help kids get healthier.

One whole hour of the four-part series is focused on children. School lunch takes a hit, as does a food and beverage industry that preys on America’s most vulnerable population. As Kelly Brownell of the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity, notes in one episode, food marketing to children is “powerful, it’s pernicious, and it’s predatory.”

One highlight in the HBO effort is a half-hour film titled “The Great Cafeteria Takeover,” which runs on Wednesday. It chronicles the actions of a group of pre-teen reformers in New Orleans, known as the Rethinkers, who set about to improve lunch at their schools. Two other half-hour programs in the children’s’ series will debut in the fall.

Given the severity of obesity-related health problems and their rapid rise among kids, it looks like HBO won’t be the only broadcaster taking on a topic that has caught the attention of everyone from Michelle Obama to Ellen DeGeneres. The Hollywood Reporter recently announced that Laurie David, author of The Family Dinner and the producer behind An Inconvenient Truth, has teamed up with Katie Couric for a feature-length film about childhood obesity titled The Big Picture, which also promises to examine the impact of the food industry and government subsidizes on children’s health. Stay tuned.

Part one “Consequences” and part two “Choices” air on HBO on Monday, May 14. Part three “Children in Crisis” and part four “Challenges” air Tuesday, May 15.

Filed under: Corn, Factory Farms, Farm Bill, Food

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By Matt Bevilacqua

Cross-posted from Next American City.

Mike Lydon is a board member of Congress for the New Urbanism in New York and founder of the Miami- and New York City-based planning firm, The Street Plans Collaborative. In 2009 he coauthored, with Andres Duany and Jeff Speck, The Smart Growth Manual, the quintessential textbook for building sustainable projects. Here Lydon talks zoning codes, cycling infrastructure, and why streets should accommodate all forms of transportation, not pit one against the other.

Q. It’s been over two years since The Smart Growth Manual was published. What are some of the more promising developments in urban planning you’ve seen since then?

A. The passing of a citywide form-based code in Miami, Fla., as well as Denver, Colo., are two very exciting things that happened just after that book came out. Smart Growth talks about different scales of development, from the windowpane all the way up to the region. But really, the nuts and bolts of what’s allowed, and how things get built over time via a zoning code, are very important to codifying smart growth. A lot of the time, you’ll find cities that have policies in the direction of walkability, smart growth, infill, density, and all these good buzzwords in the planning field, but their regulations don’t support it. In fact, in a lot of cases, those regulations make it illegal. So it’s very exciting to see cities changing out their zoning codes wholesale to ones that [are] more appropriate for the 21st century.

Another exciting trend is the rise of cycling and the livable streets movement. This is playing out in a number of different forms and in a number of different places across the country. You’re seeing increased demand for cycling and walking infrastructure. High-visibility advances like bike sharing [are] becoming very popular, and cities are striving to achieve more and more options with transportation.

Q. As a cycling advocate, what do you think is the most important step that still needs to be made so that non-cyclists can begin to see bikes as a serious means of transit?

A. It’s not just one step. It’s a series of concurrent steps that need to happen. One of the overarching things is education and improving the general sense of the law — what’s legal and how do I get around? — both from a driving perspective and a cycling perspective. When the infrastructure is designed well — and it’s designed to meet the needs of people who would like to be cycling, but are not because they’re afraid for their safety — then you begin to see big upticks in cycling.

Things like traffic enforcement, education, and outreach, and encouraging initiatives like open streets, bike sharing, bicycle events — all of these things add up to make places more bike-friendly. But if there’s not an attractive facility for people to use, one that will actually get them where they want to go, it’s hard to get a surge in cycling. Cities that are advancing the most are those that have built the most attractive infrastructure. Places like Seattle, Portland, New York City, and Boston now are seeing big, big upticks in urban cycling.

Q. Even in cities that have made huge advancements in bike infrastructure, cyclists sometimes still have a problem with authorities taking them seriously. In New York, for instance, police have busted cyclists for doing perfectly legal things, while drivers who actually strike cyclists often don’t face appropriate consequences. How do we change the conversation?

A. This is a very difficult challenge. Surveys show that the majority of New Yorkers support cycling and want more cycling infrastructure. The rolling out of the bike-share system is certainly a vote of confidence on that level. But we have a major enforcement problem. And I think there’s this false dichotomy that we have to target one versus the other: That it’s the cyclists that are making all the illegal maneuvers and being dangerous, or the motor vehicles that are doing it.

What we’re talking about are safer streets for everybody, and how that’s accomplished is by making the changes that make cycling easier. What that really means is not necessarily just accommodating doing things on a bike, but narrowing the number of lanes overall, widening sidewalks, shortening pedestrian crossing times, making cyclists and pedestrians more visible — all these things add up to a safer street, not just for cyclists but for people driving. Too often the point is missed that we’re really trying to make a safer city for everybody — no matter how you get around — and we start to segment these things into different modes [of transportation] that we prefer. That’s a losing proposition from the beginning. It’s got to be for all modes, not just for one.

Q. Let’s say you had unlimited resources to reconstruct a streetscape however you wanted. What would it look like?

A. It would probably have three-to-five-story buildings, maybe mixed use, pretty much built up to the edge of the sidewalk. It would have a nice, wide sidewalk with trees, benches, cafe seating. And then towards the middle, a protected bike lane facility that meets the needs of the majority — simple bike lanes don’t go quite far enough for a large population of people.

Narrow travel lanes. In Europe you’ve got buses that travel on nine-foot lanes. Here we have standards of 11-12 [feet]. Parallel parking is usually a good thing for streets, one that can create friction and slow down motorists. It also creates a barrier between people biking and people walking, not just from a comfort perspective but also from a pollution perspective: Having that buffer means you’re less close to the exhaust from passing vehicles.

Having very visible, clear crosswalks at every intersection, every corner. It sounds ridiculous that I have to say that, but you go to so many cities and that’s not the case. I’d like to see people of all ages on the street as well — a really dynamic atmosphere where you feel comfortable doing any number of different activities.

Q. What suggestions would you have for cities that are a little newer and were built to accommodate automobiles rather than walking? What are the next steps that cities like Phoenix can take?

A. You’ve got to show people the possibilities. It’s so hard to imagine what a typical street in Phoenix could become for anyone who lives there. It’s built for cars, you travel through it in a car, and it’s very hard to reach out of that bubble. But there are ways to do it, and it’s not just showing [residents] a fancy rendering or a nice photoshopped drawing. We’re finding out that this doesn’t sell the vision as much as it does to actually make a change on the street in a very short period of time. So if you can show someone the aspects or characteristics of what a block looks like after adding those bike lanes temporarily, show what a street looks like when it has parallel parking, bring more activity to the edge of a sidewalk … it gives people an experience that they can’t get from a rendering or an image. We’re finding, as we incorporate more of those techniques into our implementation plans, that [they have] a huge positive effect on building support and interest, continuing the conversation, and chipping away at the large-scale problem.

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By Twilight Greenaway

I’m a big fan of what I like to call “the third option” in the kitchen. Case in point: You know you should eat brown rice but you don’t always find it very delicious, so you either 1) cook it occasionally and suffer through it, 2) cook white rice solely, and feel vaguely guilty about it. The third option might sound obvious, but I’m surprised by how few people have tried it: Go halfsies.

In addition to being higher in fiber and many vitamins, brown rice is also a much greener option (white rice requires about twice as much land, water, and nutrients to grow since around half the weight of the grain is lost in the processing).  I was raised on brown rice (duh! Have you seen my name?), and I probably enjoy it more than most people — but I’ll be honest; I don’t always feel motivated to make it.

So a few years back, I started experimenting with cooking half brown, half white. The technique is straightforward. It’s a great approach when you’re feeding brown rice-haters. And it works for a variety of grains other than rice (my favorite these days is actually the quinoa/rice blend* pictured in a photo on the right).  Here’s a super basic recipe:

Ingredients

1 cup long grain brown rice (or substitute Bhutanese red rice if you’re feeling fancy)
1 cup basmati or Jasmine white rice
3 cups of water
1 teaspoon of salt
Optional: a slice of fresh ginger for flavor and a half teaspoon of turmeric for color

Preparation

1. Combine the water, salt and brown rice in a non-reactive pot. Bring rice to a boil, lower heat and let simmer on low for 15 minutes (this is where a close relationship between you and your kitchen timer can come in very handy).

2. When timer goes off, add the white rice and set the kitchen timer for 20 more minutes. When it goes off a second time check your rice for tenderness and your water level, and add a quarter cup of water if necessary. If the rice is close to being done to your liking but you can still see a little water near the surface, try turning the heat off, leaving the lid on, and letting the rice steam in residual heat for an extra 10-15 minutes.

3. Serve with your favorite combination of vegetables and/or protein.  (I always make at least a serving or two extra since cooked grains can last in the fridge for as long as a week.)

* This blend is especially easy because quinoa requires the same exact cook time that most long grain white rice does.

Filed under: Article, Food

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by Dana Gunders.

Have you ever considered what that rotten food in your refrigerator
costs? The average American family of four throws out an estimated
$130-175 per month in spoiled and discarded food. That’s real money going
straight into the garbage or compost bin instead of paying off your
credit card bills.

Don’t get me wrong—I love compost. It’s just not the best use of the staggering amount of resources that are needed to grow all the food that never even gets eaten,
including the money you spent to buy it. If you don’t eat half of that
$10 fish, that’s $5 you’re throwing away.  

Collectively, we consumers are responsible for more wasted food than
farmers, grocery stores, or any other part of the food supply chain.
We’re also wasting far more food than ever before, as the average
American today wastes 50 percent more food than 40 years ago. The truth is the implications of our wasteful
habits with food are just not on most of our radars.

However, our
British friends across the pond have demonstrated that with some basic
public awareness, we can make big strides in food waste reduction. A
public awareness campaign in the United Kingdom has been stunningly
successful in reducing household food waste by 18 percent [PDF] in just five years. Doing the same here would mean hundreds of dollars in savings for the average family.

There are many steps we can take to turn this food waste trend around, but one of the first is to understand just what we’re wasting. 

Using USDA data, a recent report by Clean Metrics [PDF] provides estimates of the retail value of all the food we Americans
waste, broken down by categories of meat, dairy, and fresh produce. Note
that these numbers summarize the retail value of avoidable wasted food—that is, they do not include bones, peels, and fat that burns off during cooking.

The
winner? Vegetables by a long shot. In 2009, U.S. consumers spent a
whopping $32 billion on vegetables they bought, never ate, and ended up
throwing away. By volume, tomatoes and potatoes are the most common
culprits, but that’s partially because they’re also the most commonly eaten
vegetables in the U.S. If we look by percentage, greens, onions, peppers, and pumpkins (Halloween?) are tossed at the highest rates. 

You know your own food habits best, but here’s a peek into the average American kitchen garbage bin:

(If you’re like me and want to totally geek out on the percentage of eggnog and hazelnuts that go to waste, see this recent USDA report [PDF].)

Take a moment to think about the products on this list that most
often go bad in your household. When you go to the store, are you
realistic about how much you actually cook and eat? Do you know the
best way to store food items, or how to tell when they’re actually bad?
(Hint: It’s not necessarily  the expiration date. See my previous blog here.) Do you take the time to freeze food you won’t eat in time?

The Love Food Hate Waste site has excellent advice for how to store many different foods and fun recipe tools to help use up specific foods. They also have a portion planner to help you cook just the right amount. NRDC’s new food waste fact sheet [PDF] has tips on what to think about when buying and storing food. And
there’s a wealth of knowledge out there in the form of friends, family,
and cookbooks. I like The Use-It-Up Cookbook or The Frugal Foodie. 

Awareness is the first step, so you’re already well on your way. Now
it’s time to take action. Observe your habits, educate yourself, try a
new recipe or freeze something you haven’t frozen before, and get on
the journey to reducing your food waste, food bills, and food print all
at the same time.

A version of this post originally appeared on Switchboard, the blog of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

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by Kaid Benfield.

Cross-posted from the National Resources Defense Council.

I may as well start with the caveat that any attempt to measure,
score, or rank places with respect to almost anything will be incomplete
at best and can be wildly misleading at worst. First, rating systems
tend to assign numerical grades to things that are partially or entirely
subjective. Which city has the “best” transit service is not just a
matter of coverage and service frequency, for example, but also of
passenger comfort, convenience for riders’ destinations (which vary from
one to another), and whether the door-to-door experience feels safe,
among other things. 

Second, even measurements based on quantitative data are
complicated. A rating of a city as “highly walkable” because of a large
number of conveniences available within a short distance to a large
number of people may mask that its sidewalks are actually in poor repair
and poorly lit. So
does one need to calculate measures (or proxy measures) of such
factors? And then there’s the whole matter of definition, since a
“city” defined by an antiquated municipal boundary won’t be the same as a city defined by actual patterns of settlement and employment (see image of Atlanta, left). And so on.

That said, such ratings and rankings are fun, because they start
conversations about what is important. And they can be useful,
especially if the authors spend some time describing the particular
characteristics that cause a place to be evaluated favorably or
unfavorably.

Overall evaluations

So, with that out of the way, let’s get to the findings of a new study of 27 large American and Canadian cities by the Economist Intelligence Unit, conducted for the global corporate
giant Siemens. By the Unit’s evaluation, the top cities in their “Green
City Index” were:

San Francisco
Vancouver
New York City
Seattle
Denver

The least green, starting with the lowest rated, were these:

Detroit
St. Louis
Cleveland
Phoenix
Pittsburgh

The top four certainly offer no surprises; few people would quibble
with finding them in a top 10, certainly, in some order or other. I
suppose one could quarrel with Denver at No. 5, but it isn’t
shocking to see it there. The bottom five already make me wonder about
the criteria, though, since four of them are Rust Belt cities that,
though economically distressed, may include populations whose living
habits produce relatively small environmental footprints compared with
those of, say, sprawling Charlotte or Dallas.

(In the interest of disclosure, I should note that I am an advisory board member and a longtime content contributor to the Sustainable Cities Collective,
which is supported by Siemens. In addition, two of my very good
personal and professional friends served on the expert advisory panel
for this report. And National Resources Defense Council hosts our own evaluation of best city practices on our Smarter Cities website. All that said, I learned about this study and report only through the media.)

Most of the largest cities in the two countries were part of the
study but some big names were not: Baltimore, Milwaukee, Salt Lake
City, San Diego, Austin, Cincinnati, Kansas City, and New Orleans, for
example.

The overall ratings are based on composite numerical scores derived
from ratings for the separate categories of carbon dioxide, energy, land
use, buildings, transport, water, waste, air, and environmental
governance. While Siemens deserves credit for taking on the issue of
urban sustainability and studying some very important factors, one can
already see some issues: Couldn’t
one say that CO2, energy, and buildings all look at the same thing, more
or less? Where are health and fitness? Don’t parks deserve their own
category (instead of being lumped into land use)? Looking at a report
where Charlotte ranks in the top 10 for land use while Pittsburgh is 19th, for example, makes one question the criteria.

Speaking of which, I’ll devote the rest of today’s post to the
study’s findings with respect to land use and transportation, categories
of particular interest to many readers.

Land use

Here are your top five for land use:

New York City
Minneapolis
Ottawa
Boston
Vancouver

Bottom five, starting with the worst:

Cleveland
Detroit
Atlanta
St. Louis
Dallas

Charlotte, Calgary, and Miami significantly outranked Seattle,
Chicago, and Toronto for land use. Even Houston ranked in the top
half. Really?

As
it turns out, the scoring of each city was based on four equally
weighted factors, two of which were calculated from reported data (percentage of protected green space as a portion of total land area,
and population density)—and two of which were scored according
to expert judgment (green land-use policies such as tree planting, and
policies for containment of sprawl). I suspect that the Rust Belt
cities, which have lost inner-city population, may have been
disadvantaged in the population density measurement if the researchers
looked only within the municipal limits of the central city. That’s
unfortunate.  

In any event, there’s a bigger point to be made, though it is
relegated to the fine print of the report: “The average density for
[the cities studied] is 8,100 people per square mile, which is about 2.5
times less than for Asian cities, at 21,100 people per square mile, and
is also less than in Latin America (11,700) and in Europe (10,100).”

According to the report, Minneapolis earned its high ranking by
having a very high portion of protected space within its city limits (I
wonder how they counted the lakes), and by being evaluated highly in the
two subjective measures. Its density actually falls below the median. Charlotte made the top 10 primarily because of the strong expert
evaluation given to its policies for green space and revitalization. Among the four factors, I would have given more weight to density. 

Cleveland
scored poorly because only 6 percent of its land area is given to
protected green space (the median was 12 percent) and because its
inner-city population density is low. I am shocked that Toronto was
apparently downgraded for its failure to address sprawl, given that Ontario’s plan for the “Greater Golden Horseshoe” region around the city is one of the
best that I have seen anywhere. Any measure of sprawl containment
efforts that looks only within central city limits misses the point, if
you ask me.

I wish that the study had examined the mix of land uses (perhaps
using a measure similar to Walk Score) and, with respect to parks, had
measured access (percentage of population living within a certain
distance of a park) rather than gross acreage.  

Transport

Top five:

New York City
Vancouver
San Francisco
Montreal
Ottawa

Bottom five, starting with the worst:

Detroit
Phoenix
Charlotte
Los Angeles
St. Louis

For this category, there are five equally weighted factors. Three
are quantitative: share of workers traveling to work by transit,
bicycle, or walking; public transport supply, measured by miles of
transit network per square mile of area; and average commute time (and
this is considered “green” because … ?). Two
were qualitatively evaluated by the experts: how extensively the city
promotes public transportation and low-carbon travel, and assessment of a
city’s efforts to reduce congestion. Assuming the report is referring
to motor vehicle congestion, I fail to see what that has to do with the
environment (other than contributing somewhat to air pollution, which
has its own category separate from transport). I would replace one of
those two questionable categories with street connectivity (measured by
intersections per square mile), which we know from research is closely associated with rates of walking and vehicle use. And
where are vehicle miles traveled per capita, perhaps the most important
transportation measure of all?

Charlotte and L.A. were severely undermined by poor performance on the
quantitative measures, as one might expect. Personally, though, I might
grade them both highly with respect to qualitative policy aspirations,
given Charlotte’s superb street-design guidance and its efforts to
leverage its light rail system for transit-oriented development, and
given L.A.‘s aggressive efforts to increase transit supply (which does get
a mention). The study also rightly praises Denver’s ambitious program
of transit planning and construction, along with Montreal’s bike-sharing
program and New York’s new midtown pedestrian zones.

I am very surprised that Washington, D.C. (13th) was not ranked higher for
transportation, given that we have the second-busiest rail transit
system in the country, a streetcar system in the works, the second
highest percentage of commuters walking to work, and an aggressive
program to support bicycling (including a great bikeshare program). We were apparently downgraded by a long average commute time, which is dubious as a measure of environmental performance.

At any rate, more interesting than the individual city scoring and
ranking were some larger findings: The Canadian cities studied, for
example, have almost nine times more public transit network per square mile than the U.S. cities (6.2 miles per square mile versus 0.7 mi/sq mi). Wow. In addition, 74 percent of
Canadians in the study drive to work, as compared to 90 percent in the
U.S. cities. (Both numbers are poor compared to Europe, where the
comparable portion is 43 percent.) Unsurprisingly, the higher-density
U.S. and Canadian cities as a group outperformed the study’s average with
respect to transit usage.

The commitment of Siemens to these issues is laudable. But, as I
said at the top of the post, there are going to be problems with almost
any methodology. It appears that there are some significant ones with
respect to these particular categories. Much more valuable is that they
get us talking about what’s really important.

Next, I will look at the rest of the study. Check out the full report [PDF], and extras like the press conference announcing the findings, a slide show, and a video.

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by David Roberts.

A while back, somebody, I can’t remember who, sent me a paper by two military officials, Capt. Wayne Porter (Navy) and Col. Mark Mykleby (Marines), called “A National Strategic Narrative” (PDF). It’s not an official military document, just these guys’ thoughts, but they are high-placed advisors to Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, so it’s safe to say it represents cutting edge thinking in at least some significant military circles. I kept meaning to write about it, but it looks like the NYT stole my thunder.

The paper is a big-picture attempt to tell a new story about America’s place in the 21st century world, and to break once and for all from strategies and habits of thought that belonged in the 20th.

I really recommend reading the whole thing—it’s not that long. But here are the main shifts the authors describe (as described by Anne-Marie Slaughter in her intro):

From control in a closed system to credible influence in an open system.
From containment to sustainment.
From deterrence and defense to civilian engagement and competition.
From zero sum to positive sum global politics/economics.
From national security to national prosperity and security.

The key point is that in an open, non-linear system, attempts to achieve security through control are futile. “Dominance, like fossil fuel, is not
a sustainable source of energy,” as the authors put it. In a more multipolar world, where the U.S. is no longer the unquestioned hegemon, the focus should be on soft power and credible influence. The U.S. gains such influence by strengthening itself, by investing in its people and infrastructure, by maintaining mutually beneficial cooperation with other countries, and by becoming an inspirational example. Not by, say, spending half its money on a gigantic, bloated military.

Aside from the fact that I get a little thrill up my leg from thinking that folks in the upper echelon of the military are thinking like this, a couple of specific things jumped out at me.

First, this sets sustainability where it belongs: at the heart of geopolitical strategy. It’s not something environmentalists do, not some act of altruism to be indulged when times are good, not some costly add-on to industrial civilization. It is a necessary precondition for achieving prosperity,  influence, and real security. “Perhaps the most important first step
we can take, as part of a National Strategy,” the authors say, “is to identify which of [America’s] resources are renewable
and sustainable, and which are finite and diminishing.” Among the renewable resources they include human capital (the energy of youth, the inventiveness of entrepreneurs) and natural capital (sun, wind, forests). This is a way of thinking that cuts across traditional boundaries, reframing things in terms of what can sustain us over the long-term and what can’t. It sets energy in the same context as other strategic assets. Smart.

Second, I’m struck that the thinking and strategies suited to the 21st century, as described by these military guys, are … what’s the word? … liberal. I don’t just mean ideologically, I mean that the personality traits associated with liberalism are the ones that will be necessary to prosper in the 21st century. Here’s a summary of partisan personality differences:

The most comprehensive review of personality and political orientation to date is a 2003 meta-analysis of 88 prior studies involving 22,000 participants. The researchers—John Jost of NYU, Arie Kruglanski of the University of Maryland, and Jack Glaser and Frank Sulloway of Berkeley—found that conservatives have a greater desire to reach a decision quickly and stick to it, and are higher on conscientiousness, which includes neatness, orderliness, duty, and rule-following. Liberals are higher on openness, which includes intellectual curiosity, excitement-seeking, novelty, creativity for its own sake, and a craving for stimulation like travel, color, art, music, and literature.

The study’s authors also concluded that conservatives have less tolerance for ambiguity, a trait they say is exemplified when George Bush says things like, “Look, my job isn’t to try to nuance. My job is to tell people what I think,” and “I’m the decider.” Those who think the world is highly dangerous and those with the greatest fear of death are the most likely to be conservative.

Liberals, on the other hand, are “more likely to see gray areas and reconcile seemingly conflicting information,” says Jost. As a result, liberals like John Kerry, who see many sides to every issue, are portrayed as flip-floppers. “Whatever the cause, Bush and Kerry exemplify the cognitive styles we see in the research,” says Jack Glaser, one of the study’s authors, “Bush in appearing more rigid in his thinking and intolerant of uncertainty and ambiguity, and Kerry in appearing more open to ambiguity and to considering alternative positions.”

The 21st century world will be ambiguous and uncertain, with unpredictably shifting circumstances and alliances. It will require ingenuity, creativity, flexibility, and openness to cooperation. It will require a sense of social solidarity, with the investments in infrastructure, innovation, and social insurance that implies.

The Manicheanism, preoccupation with hierarchy and control, zero-sum thinking, and reliance on military force that characterize the modern right are bad for America today and will be worse for America tomorrow. Just ask the military.

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