Happy Earth Day!

I'm not against Earth Day, but it is just another one of those holidays that celebrates doing something on one day that you should be doing every day, like loving your spouse... or Jesus... or presents. Of course, you know what they say-- "Every day is Earth Day...blah blah blah..."

Anywho, Slate has this Q&A with Newt Gingrich (yay Georgia connection!) who apparently now thinks that the conservatives are not doing enough to stop global warming. Slate seems to take him at face value-- he honestly believes in anthropogenic global warming and wants the US to do more the curb our carbon emissions. However, I smell a wolf in sheep's clothing. Key phrases like,

"I prefer incentives to punishments because they work faster and with less distortion of the economy. For instance, I favor tax credits for dramatically reducing carbon emissions. I favor a tax credit for trading in old cars that are the most polluting. I favor a tax credit for nuclear power, solar, and wind."

Of course, an economic incentive is the EXACT SAME as a punishment, a tax break on the good guy is the same thing as a tax on the bad guy-- either way, parties pay more to pollute. At the end of the day, the government just gets less money with tax "breaks" over tax "penalties." Ahhhhh-- that's the trick. Less money for the government = smaller government = no resources to catch the polluters. Oh, Newt, when will you just GO AWAY.

On another note I can't remember if I've posted this before, but here's The Daily Green's "How Green Are You?" Quiz. Personally I think it's a little flawed-- like isn't someone actually greener if they keep their old car instead of buying new hybrid? I think so. That and I don't buy things, I don't eat meat, I compost my kitchen waste, I don't drive. Well, this is where I fall, although I don't necessarily agree:


I'm feeling very negative today and I think it's solely because on the way to work this morning I passed by Starbucks, which had a sandwich board outside proclaiming that they were donating 5 cents for every drink to Conservation International, which I guess is better than donating nothing but I really hate Starbucks for being the epitome of corporate greenwashing. See here.