Author Archives: DeannaColleano

Reality Is Bearing Down on Paul Ryan

by DeannaColleano Posted on March 31, 2016

Mother Jones

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Lisa Mascaro reports that the honeymoon may be over for Paul Ryan. He only lasted five months:

As Congress is careening toward another budget crisis and the Republican Party is ripping itself apart over Donald Trump’s rise, the man best known as the architect of the GOP’s austere spending blueprint is likely to miss an April 15 deadline to approve a new funding plan for 2017.

He’s been unable to overcome the same resistance from the conservative House Freedom Caucus that doomed his predecessor, and is so far similarly unwilling to use the power of the speaker’s office to force stragglers to fall into line.

….To some, Ryan’s repeated calls for Republicans to “raise our gaze” and his frequent attempts to position himself as the GOP’s deep thinker are starting to give off an air of ivory tower insignificance. Conservatives wonder if he’s still a “young gun” trying to shake up the party. At a Trump rally in Ryan’s Wisconsin hometown of Janesville last week, the crowd booed the mention of his name.

….In many ways, the speaker’s problems are of his own making, the result of a leadership strategy he helped forge to recruit the most conservative candidates to run for office and then, after Republicans won the House majority in the 2010 midterm election, reject almost all of Obama’s initiatives.

Well, it’s still early days. Maybe Ryan is just working slowly and steadily to gain some kind of consensus. More likely, though, the tea partiers aren’t any more willing to compromise under Ryan than they were under Boehner—and that leaves Ryan high and dry. If he can’t convince them to be flexible even during an election year, he obviously doesn’t have much conservative credibility left. Hard to believe.

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Reality Is Bearing Down on Paul Ryan

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Americans Are Gorging Themselves on Cheap Meat

by DeannaColleano Posted on March 30, 2016

Mother Jones

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While the Dutch and other nations are advising consumers to cut down on red meat, it’s estimated that Americans will eat more beef this year than we have in the last decade.

The Netherlands Nutrition Centre’s new dietary guidelines suggest eating no more than 500 grams (just over one pound) of meat per week, including no more than 300 grams (0.7 pounds) of red meat, which it describes as “high carbon.” The agency wants the Dutch to scale back red meat for health reasons and sustainability. After all, the meat industry produces 14.5 percent of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and land for grazing takes up a quarter of the Earth’s non-ice surface. The Dutch agency’s new guidelines also decrease the recommended fish consumption from twice to once per week, and they encourage protein from sources such as unsalted nuts and legumes.

In the United States, on the other hand, diners are piling more meat onto their plates. The USDA has predicted that 2016 will be the biggest year in a decade in Americans’ consumption of beef. We’ll eat an estimated 53.4 pounds, nearly half a pound more per person than last year.

Bloomberg Business compares US chicken and beef consumption since the 1970’s. Source: Bloomberg

According to Bloomberg, the increase could be due to cheaper prices on red meat and the popularity of protein-heavy diets like the paleo diet. Also, there are more cows. Droughts that plagued the Southwest in 2014 meant fewer cows and higher beef prices. However, cattle counts from earlier this year show there are nearly 3.5 million more cows than two years ago.

The Dutch aren’t the only sustainability conscious eaters. Sweden altered its dietary guidelines in 2009, and in 2012 Brazil called for cultivating and eating foods that had “environmental integrity.” Last week, the United Kingdom released its EatWell Guide, which advised Brits to eat less red meat.

It’s unclear whether the USDA will change its guidelines to reflect sustainability any time soon. When “My Plate,” the Obama administration’s food group

The USDA’s “My Plate” guidelines were released in January. The guidelines advised more vegetables, fruits and lean meats, and less sugar. Source: ChooseMyPlate.gov

recommendations, came out earlier this year the government played it safe and only mentioned eating leaner meats. The guidelines instead came down hard on limiting sugar intake.

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Americans Are Gorging Themselves on Cheap Meat

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Finally Some Good News About Clean Energy Investment

by DeannaColleano Posted on January 9, 2015

Mother Jones

Clean energy investment around the world is rebounding after a three-year decline, according to new figures released today by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Globally, the total amount of clean energy investment jumped 16 percent in 2014, to $310 billion. That number is just shy of the record amount of investment set in 2011.

BNEF produces quarterly reports that track how much money governments and the private sector are pouring into wind, solar, biofuels and other green energy projects. In 2014, the United States enjoyed its biggest investments since 2012, but it was China that once again drove the numbers. China’s clean energy spending shot up 32 percent to a record $89.5 billion, cementing its place as the world’s top market for green investment. (You can get a sense of just how impressive Chinese investment is by peaking inside the the world’s biggest solar manufacturing factory, which is run by Chinese company Yingli.)

Solar is getting the lion’s share of investment around the world, according to the figures. Almost half the money spent on clean energy this year—just shy of $150 billion—was in the solar industry. Wind investment also reached record levels—$19.4 billion globally—thanks in part to offshore projects in Europe.

There was one darker patch in the numbers: Australia, where the government is trying to slash the country’s Renewable Energy Target, a policy that creates mandates for the amount of clean energy in the electricity mix. Bucking the global trend, investments there fell by 35 percent.

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Finally Some Good News About Clean Energy Investment

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The New Farm Bill: Yet Again, Not Ready for Climate Change

by DeannaColleano Posted on January 31, 2014

Mother Jones

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Imagine you’re a policy maker in a large country in an era of increasing climate instability—more floods and droughts, driven by steadily increasing average temperatures. And say the policy you make largely dictated the way your country’s farmers grow their crops. Wouldn’t you push for a robust, climate change-ready agriculture—one that stores carbon in the soil, helping stabilize the climate while also making farms more resilient to weather extremes?

There’s no real mystery about how to achieve these goals. I profiled a farmer last year named David Brandt who’s doing just that with a few highly imitable techniques (spoiler: crop rotation and cover crops), right in the middle of Big Corn country. This peer-reviewed 2012 Iowa State University study tells a similar tale. The question is, how to turn farmers like Brandt from outliers into to trendsetters—from the exception to the rule. The obvious lever would be the farm bill, that twice-a-decade omnibus legislation that shapes the decisions of millions of farmers nationwide, while also funding our major food-aid program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which used to be called food stamps.

Well, after more than a year of heated debate, Congress has finally cobbled together a new farm bill, one likely to be signed into law soon by President Obama. Unfortunately, the great bulk of that debate didn’t focus how to steer the country’s agriculture through the trying times ahead. Instead, it concerned how much to cut food aid for poor people. The Democrats wanted relatively minor cuts; the Republicans, animated by the tea party wing, wanted draconian ones. The (relatively) good news: the new bill will cut SNAP by $9 billion over the next decade, vs. the $40 billion demanded by austerity-obsessed GOP backbenchers. My colleague Erika Eichelberger has more on this sad business of pinching food aid at a time of record poverty.

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The New Farm Bill: Yet Again, Not Ready for Climate Change

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