Roger Pielke Jr.'s Blog: Retreating to a Comfort Zone

With prospects for U.S. cap and trade legislation now completely extinguished, it is interesting to see some of the most vocal supporters of cap and trade silent on the implications of its failure and what should be done next on climate policy. Instead, Thomas Friedman and his favorite climate expert have decided to fall back onto debating the science and increasing emphasis on warring with the "deniers."

From Werner Kraus at Die Klimazwiebel (the post seems to have been deleted, but it's still available in my RSS reader):

Friedman has an easy job opening his argument; he just has to portray the childish behavior of the skeptics in the Washington winter and elsewhere. These are indeed people who are not to be taken seriously. They play him into his hands with their snowmen and boyish Al Gore bashing - he will never convince them, but he makes clear that this is kindergarten. Some skeptics may have good arguments (as shown here in klimazwiebel), but their lobby is a disaster. (Most of their loudspeakers are correctly identified with the right-wing tea-party movement or the oil-industry or some dubious think tank; at least, this is my guess).
Of course, you can rant for hours against Friedman and Romm; many comments will be predictable here on klimazwiebel and elsewhere. That's the problem. Love it or hate it - better consider it as a fact that Friedman is influential. My colleagues at university read him and discuss his arguments in classes, on facebook and elsewhere.

General Motors to push for more E85 pumps | freep.com | Detroit Free Press

ORLANDO -- General Motors is spending $100 million each year to build vehicles flexible enough to run on E85 fuel -- yet most drivers don’t live near a gas station that sells the ethanol-gasoline blend, a top company executive said Monday.

June '09: Ethanol thirst evaporating | StarTribune.com

In May, about 1.5 million gallons of E85 were sold -- almost 1 million gallons less than in May 2008.