Excerpted from a thought-provoking piece by David Owen in The New Yorker (it’s short; I recommend reading the whole thing):

The world’s principal source of man-made greenhouse gases has always been prosperity. The recession makes that relationship easy to see: shuttered factories don’t spew carbon dioxide; the unemployed drive fewer miles and turn down their furnaces, air-conditioners, and swimming-pool heaters; struggling corporations and families cut back on air travel; even affluent people buy less throwaway junk. Gasoline consumption in the United States fell almost six per cent in 2008. That was the result not of a sudden greening of the American consciousness but of the rapid rise in the price of oil during the first half of the year, followed by the full efflorescence of the current economic mess. […]

The environmental benefits of economic decline, though real, are fragile, because they are vulnerable to intervention by governments, which, understandably, want to put people back to work and get them buying non-necessities again—through programs intended to revive ordinary consumer spending (which has a big carbon footprint), and through public-investment projects to build new roads and airports (ditto). Our best intentions regarding conservation and carbon reduction inevitably run up against the realities of foreclosure and bankruptcy and unemployment. How do we persuade people to drive less—an environmental necessity—while also encouraging them to revive our staggering economy by buying new cars?

During the Bush administration, environmentalists wandered in the wilderness. Now that Washington has suddenly become the promised land, many are leaving their groups and heading to jobs in policy.

I feel like I know half the people cited in the blog post (Van Jones, Cathy Zoi, Jonathan Pershing) — they’re always sending me emails! ;)

Information about the flow of stimulus money (aka “Energy efficiency and conservation block grant program”) from the Dept. of Energy, via Green, Inc.

I don’t like the pay-for-play undertones, but this is good news, on balance:

Move over, Big Oil. There’s a new VIP guest in the White House: Silicon Valley.

Employees from some of the nation’s biggest high-tech companies bet heavily last year that famously tech-savvy Barack Obama would be good news for their bottom lines.

And it seems their wager paid off. Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus bill includes $4.5 billion in funding for the so-called Smart Grid, an ambitious plan to modernize the country’s electric grid that many Obama contributors are helping to shape.

Among the companies with significant stakes in the Smart Grid are technology giants Google, Microsoft and IBM, whose employees were top donors — and, in some cases, advisers — to Obama’s campaign last year.

From President Obama’s address to the nation last night:

It begins with energy.

We know the country that harnesses the power of clean, renewable energy will lead the 21st century.  And yet, it is China that has launched the largest effort in history to make their economy energy efficient.  We invented solar technology, but we’ve fallen behind countries like Germany and Japan in producing it.  New plug-in hybrids roll off our assembly lines, but they will run on batteries made in Korea.

Well I do not accept a future where the jobs and industries of tomorrow take root beyond our borders – and I know you don’t either.  It is time for America to lead again.

Thanks to our recovery plan, we will double this nation’s supply of renewable energy in the next three years.  We have also made the largest investment in basic research funding in American history – an investment that will spur not only new discoveries in energy, but breakthroughs in medicine, science, and technology.

We will soon lay down thousands of miles of power lines that can carry new energy to cities and towns across this country.  And we will put Americans to work making our homes and buildings more efficient so that we can save billions of dollars on our energy bills.

The flippancy of Senator Reid’s language is jarring, but this is encouraging news…

WASHINGTON — Saying it’s time to “take a whack” at climate change, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he plans to push for Senate action on global warming by the end of summer.

The Nevada Democrat in an interview with The Associated Press said the Senate will take up energy legislation in a couple of weeks “and then later this year, hopefully late this summer do the global warming part of it.” […]

Next week, Reid will participate in a “clean energy” forum being convened by the Center for American Progress. Others participating will include former President Bill Clinton, possibly former Vice President Al Gore,and senior Obama administration officials.

Jan Adams writes:

One of the numerous advocacy outfits I support, the Rails to Trails Conservancy (RTC), has just let me know that Republicans worked hard to keep any funding at all for walking and cycling out of the stimulus bill. Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina offered an amendment (defeated) to prohibit such funding. Senator John Ensign of Nevada chimed in:

This is not a time to build [bike paths]. If we are going to invest in infrastructure, invest in infrastructure that actually makes the economy more efficient, such as roads that are needed.

Guess he doesn’t want to encourage people to move more and drive less by providing safe and attractive trails, leading to healthier people and a healthier planet….

This is of special concern to me — I run an internship program that puts CUNY students in building efficiency projects around NYC.  Next year, I’d love for them to be a part of the President’s nationwide push for efficiency.

In a press conference yesterday, Obama said:

This is another concern that I’ve had in some of the arguments that I’m hearing. When people suggest that, “What a waste of money to make federal buildings more energy-efficient.” Why would that be a waste of money?

We’re creating jobs immediately by retrofitting these buildings or weatherizing 2 million Americans’ homes, as was called for in the package, so that right there creates economic stimulus.

And we are saving taxpayers when it comes to federal buildings potentially $2 billion. In the case of homeowners, they will see more money in their pockets. And we’re reducing our dependence on foreign oil in the Middle East. Why wouldn’t we want to make that kind of investment?