Fruit from The Vine

The Vine is The New Republic's group blog on energy and environmental issues and policy. I thought I'd pass along some links to posts that connect either to cycling or to larger issues of which cycling is, potentially, a part.

In these excerpts from an interview with Joe Klein, Barack Obama demonstrates his grasp of the interconnectedness of issues--for example, how present methods of food production affect, obviously, not only food quality but also energy policy and health care issues.

Here is a brief discussion of how the credit crisis and recently-falling oil prices are affecting alt-energy projects.

This post examines the fact that highway projects have an easier time of receiving approval--and funding--in this country than do mass transit projects. The result: a backlog of transit projects awaiting approval while highway projects get the green light, as it were.

And finally, this post notes that over the past 30 years, California's efficiency regulations have created almost 1.5 million jobs while causing the loss of only 25,000 jobs, and this amazing tidbit:

[E]fficiency measures are far and away the quickest, cheapest way to make massive emissions cuts and curb energy use. In theory, if every state adopted the efficiency measures that California has on the books, we could cut electricity consumption by 40 percent and would never need to build a single new polluting power plant again—all without hiking energy bills. And, while some entities lose money (the electric power industry, say, or developers who have to spend more upfront on green buildings), everyone else ends up better off.

This is informed, thoughtful--and optimistic yet pragmatic--writing about best, smartest practices in environmental and energy policy. Go have a look.