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Sometimes I try to bury my head and turn my mind off. The Red Sox help except this past week when they melted as much and as fast as the arctic ice. And despite all my efforts, the real world wouldn’t go away.
It’s been more than a week since my last post. Thankfully Josh Beckett and Big Papi prevailed and there is renewed hope.

There’s a lot of green news. From clotheslines to green supermarkets to WalMart’s compact fluorescent bulbs to green taxis.

Let’s take them one at a time.

Photo - Shune Pottier

The Wall Street Journal profiles a fight between an ecologically-minded housewife with a clothesline versus homeowners in a development in Bend, Oregon. An epic battle. You’d think with a healthcare crisis, a real war in Iraq, the falling American dollar, and the recent slump of the Red Sox that people wouldn’t have the time or energy for this, but then again, isn’t what the Founding Fathers fought so hard for?

To Susan Taylor, it was a perfect time to hang her laundry out to dry. The 55-year-old mother and part-time nurse strung a clothesline to a tree in her backyard, pinned up some freshly washed flannel sheets — and, with that, became a renegade.

The regulations of the subdivision in which Ms. Taylor lives effectively prohibit outdoor clotheslines. In a move that has torn apart this otherwise tranquil community, the development’s managers have threatened legal action. To the developer and many residents, clotheslines evoke the urban blight they sought to avoid by settling in the Oregon mountains.

“This bombards the senses,” interior designer Joan Grundeman says of her neighbor’s clothesline. “It can’t possibly increase property values and make people think this is a nice neighborhood.”

In Augusta, Maine:

Hannaford Bros. Co.’s plan calls for a supermarket so green that plants will be grown on part of its roof to add insulation and control stormwater. The store is to be built on a former high-school site in the capital of a state that prides itself on environmental leadership.

Photo - Hyungwon Kang/REUTERS

On to WalMart:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said on Thursday that it has launched its own private label of compact fluorescent lightbulbs and is now selling the “Great Value” energy efficient bulbs in more than 3,000 stores.

“The introduction of our Great Value bulbs make CFLs a more accessible option for our shoppers as we strive to sell 100 million CFLs by the end of 2007,” said Wal-Mart General Merchandise Manager Andy Barron in a statement.

Meanwhile, close to our nation’s capitol, people who don’t want to take public transportation will have a green option. Eco-friendly taxis are coming to Arlington.

The Arlington County Board this week authorized a new taxi company to operate with an all-hybrid fleet of 50 vehicles and gave rival companies permission to add 35 hybrids …
The green taxi expansion is part of a county campaign known as Fresh AIRE, or Arlington Initiative to Reduce Emissions, which aims to cut production of greenhouse gases from county buildings and vehicles by 10 percent by 2012 …
Arlington recently added eight heavy-duty buses that run on natural gas and are equipped with bike racks …
Many taxi drivers criticized the board’s decision, saying that although they too want to promote good environmental stewardship, adding more cabs to the streets will make it harder for drivers to earn an adequate living. Former taxi driver Lou Gatti displayed photographs showing that cabs clog many Arlington streets.

Even if we’re not so smart, Mercedes is hoping we’ll buy the Smart Car:

The 1,800-pound “micro-car” — more than 3 feet shorter than fellow European pipsqueak the Mini Cooper — is likely to be the smallest thing on four wheels when it hits the U.S. car market in early 2008. Produced in France by the Mercedes Car Group, the “Fortwo” model has been on a 50-city U.S. tour this summer, including Detroit, Smart USA’s corporate headquarters.

Its base price is $12,000, and it’s hard to beat the fuel efficiency of about 40 miles per gallon. If any car can squeeze into Manhattan parking spots, this is it. And Smart is hip: The Museum of Modern Art has displayed it as an innovative, stylish solution to two practical problems: urban crowding and diminishing energy.

So what to do with all this good news and the Red Sox revivial. Well I’ll tell you what not to do! DO NOT READ THOMAS FRIEDMAN’S COLUMN “DOHA AND DALIAN.” What was it they said in the 1960s? Bummer! Like in major bummer! Because if Tom Friedman is right, we’re going to need a lot more than clotheslines, an eco-friendly supermarket or two or three, and a flock of green taxis. I, of course, haven’t made it to Doha or Dalian, so I’ll have to take his word on this. So here goes:

Doha is the capital of Qatar, a tiny state east of Saudi Arabia. Dalian is in northeast China and is one of China’s Silicon Valleys because of its proliferation of software parks and its dynamic, techie mayor, Xia Deren. What was stunning is that I hadn’t been to either city for more than three years, and I barely recognized either one …

Construction Doha - Photo: Paul Cowan

In Doha, since I was last there, a skyline that looks like a mini-Manhattan has sprouted from the desert. Whatever construction cranes are not in China must be in Doha today. This once sleepy harbor now has a profile of skyscrapers, thanks to a huge injection of oil and gas revenues. Dalian, with six million people, already had a mini-Manhattan when I was last here. It seems to have grown two more since — including a gleaming new convention complex built on a man-made peninsula …

If you want to know why I remain a climate skeptic — not a skeptic about climate change, but a skeptic that we’re going to be able to mitigate it — it’s partly because of Doha and Dalian. Can you imagine how much energy all these new skyscrapers in just two cities you’ve never heard of are going to consume and how much CO2 they are going to emit? …

Yes, “Americans” are popping up all over now — people who once lived low-energy lifestyles but by dint of oil wealth or hard work are now moving into U.S.-style apartments, cars and appliances.

Our planet cannot tolerate so many “Americans,” unless we take the lead and change what it means to be an American in energy terms. Attention Kmart shoppers: the world consumed about 66.6 million barrels a day of oil in 1990. We’re now consuming 83 million barrels a day

“Demand for oil has grown 22 percent in the U.S. since 1990. China’s oil demand has grown nearly 200 percent in this same period,” Margo Oge, director of the Environmental Protection Agency’s office of transportation and air quality, told the Tianjin China Green Car conference that I attended. “By 2030, the global thirst for oil is forecast to increase by another 40 percent if we maintain business as usual.” Such an appetite would devour every incremental green initiative we make.

So on the one hand the environment movement has made such a big deal about individual responsibility. Me and you and even Big Papi has to recycle, change our lightbulbs, shop green, eat green, be green, but all the while bigger entities - the Department of Defence, massive corporations, Doha, Dalian are spitting out energy so much faster than we can save it. What’s up with that?

Tom Friedman spells it out:

Hey, I’m really glad you switched to long-lasting compact fluorescent light bulbs in your house. But the growth in Doha and Dalian ate all your energy savings for breakfast. I’m glad you bought a hybrid car. But Doha and Dalian devoured that before noon. I am glad that the U.S. Congress is debating whether to bring U.S. auto mileage requirements up to European levels by 2020. Doha and Dalian will have those gains for lunch — maybe just the first course. I’m glad that solar and wind power are “soaring” toward 2 percent of U.S. energy generation, but Doha and Dalian will devour all those gains for dinner. I am thrilled that you are now doing the “20 green things” suggested by your favorite American magazine. Doha and Dalian will snack on them all, like popcorn before bedtime.

But, as I said, this is not just about “them.” It is still very much about us. Peter Bakker is the chief executive of TNT, the biggest express delivery company in Europe. The Dow Jones Sustainability Index 2007 just listed TNT as the No. 1 company in terms of energy and environmental practices. Mr. Bakker, whom I met in China, told me this story:

“We operate 35,000 trucks and 48 aircraft in Europe. We just bought two Boeing 747s, which, when fully operational, will do nine round trips every week between our home base in Liège [Belgium] and Shanghai. They leave Liège only partly full and every day fly back to Europe as full as you can stuff them with iPods and computers. By our calculations, just these two 747s will use as much fuel each week as our 48 other aircraft combined and emit as much CO2.”

That’s why we’re fooling ourselves. There is no green revolution, or, if there is, the counter-revolution is trumping it at every turn. Without a transformational technological breakthrough in the energy space, all of the incremental gains we’re making will be devoured by the exponential growth of all the new and old “Americans.”

So just maybe while the Red Sox are doing their best to win the American League East division, our environmental leaders can come up with something better than change your lightbulbs.

Catch you later.

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