The Wall Street Journal is Bad for Business

One of my favorite blogs over the last year-and-a-half has been the Wall Street Journal's Environmental Capital, which covers issues at the intersection of business and the environment: energy prices, sustainable business practices, new technologies, science, politics, etc.  While I didn't always agree with the blog's analysis, its even-handedness and objectivity is a breath of fresh air on a publication given to writing outright falsehoods in its editorial page.  And as a 24-year-old with long-term career ambitions in the clean energy business, it is a daily must-read, as one of the best sources of sustainable business news and analysis on the internet.

So I was a bit shocked to visit the site today and find myself greeted by a headline announcing its cancellation: So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.

Now, I know the Wall Street Journal's editorial page is a right-wing pigpen of nonsense, but this seems like this is a bad move for the WSJ from a BUSINESS standpoint - and you'd think that business concerns would ultimately trump ideology.  

Granted, Environmental Capital probably doesn't generate a positive ROI in the PRESENT.  But as a top source of news for those working in the clean energy and sustainability space, it would seem poised to grow its readership as the clean tech space takes off.  Indeed, given that this is the fastest growing sector of the global economy, it seems like particularly strange timing to punt on the issue.  Just look at US venture capital funding for clean tech over the last few years:

True, VC funding of clean tech fell by 34% from 2008-09, but TOTAL VC funding fell by a much greater 55%, and the deal volume barely changed.  Since 2003, clean tech's share of VC funding has risen from just 3% to 25%.

Looking forward, the evidence is even more compelling that clean technologies will be the next great industry.  A Deloitte survey found that clean technologies are the only category in which a majority of VC firms plan to increase their investments across the next three years - nearly twice as many as the next highest category (medical devices and equipment).  Only 6% plan to decrease investments:

So it's absolutely flabbergasting that the WSJ is canceling its well-regarded blog on the subject.  In doing so, the WSJ is abandoning its opportunity to grow with the clean economy.  Moreover, they're virtually ensuring they'll lose their share of readers in the 18-35 demographic, a growing percentage of which will find themselves employed in clean technologies over the coming years.

The only explanation for the WSJ's decision is ideology: the editors concluded that Environmental Capital was a little too friendly to the environment, and decided an ideological purge was necessary.  From now on, it's likely that all WSJ publications will toe the party line of "clean energy bad, global warming fake," or risk crackdown and expulsion.

This too seems like bad business.  The paper must figure that no matter the politics of its business audience, they will still be captive customers to the country's top source of business news; a right-wing ideology only broadens its appeal beyond the business community by establishing itself as the leading paper for political conservatives.  But this is excessively short-term.  Young businesspersons are increasingly liberal on issues of science and climate change, and will increasingly distrust a paper that chooses to ignore the facts in favor of ideology.

It's a sad trend for a paper that was once--and still considers itself to be--the paper of repute for people of business.  The creep of right-wing orthodoxy seems to be reaching its tentacles into all aspects of the paper's coverage, even supposedly objective sections.  How can you trust the paper on business issues and investment advice when it bails on the fastest growing sector of the economy, when its coverage is driven more by ideology than business sense?

The blog's authors don't leave without a parting shot, which I think is further evidence that this was an ideological decision.  As Joe Romm points out, the title "So long, and thanks for all the fish" comes from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

The phrase also carries a profoundly ironic underlying meaning given the context and the subject area of the blog.  Wikipedia’s entry on the not-bad film version explains:

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Stephen Fry) narrates that the dolphins, the second most-intelligent creatures on Earth, attempted to warn mankind about the planet’s impending destruction, but humans interpreted the dolphins’ communications as tricks. The dolphins left the planet, leaving their final message to humans as “So long, and thanks for all the fish.”

Was this intentional by Johnson?  You decide.

And the blog's second-to-final post was entitled, Who's Afraid of a Clean Energy Future?  I guess now we know who.

Smart businessmen know it's better to love the future than fear it.

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Haiti

The world has a cruel sense of justice.  Why does Nature reserve her harshest furies for the poorest people who are least able to cope with them?  Why do calamities seem to pile up on those who are already suffering the most?

This, to me, is what makes the earthquake in Haiti feel so different from other disasters to those observing it, psychologically and emotionally.  It’s not just the present suffering under the piles of rubble and cracked earth for which we feel, but for every past injustice thrust upon the Haitian people felt all at once—as if the collective weight of the sequence of miseries suffered by the poorest North Americans, wave upon wave, were revealed to us at once, crystallized in this moment of calamity.  We empathize not just for the current victims, but for the whole history of un-asked-for misfortunes which have repeatedly crushed the promise of whatever nascent hope this tragic nation has ever managed to cultivate.  “Poor Haiti… What could possibly happen to these people next?”

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, a result of colonial exploitation, rotten government, and repeated natural disasters.  Just in 2008, the country was hit with four consecutive hurricanes that killed 800 and left millions homeless.

Recently though, observers had been feeling a cautious hope for political stability—and eventually, maybe, some semblance of prosperity—in Haiti.  Just two months ago, the Economist noted:

FIVE years after the United Nations set out to build a nation in the poorest territory in the Americas, and after three years of relative political stability under President René Préval, outsiders have begun to express modest optimism about Haiti. Bill Clinton, a former American president and now a UN special envoy for the country, last month took a large group of foreign businessman to Haiti and told them that political risk there was “lower than it has ever been in my lifetime”.

But it was actually a story chronicling the growing chance that political instability could return; its title was “Rebuilding Haiti: A step backward.”  Indeed, in the wake of the earthquake, one commentator writes with tragic sympathy:

Haiti just can’t catch a break.  For nearly five years, the small island nation has made slow but steady progress toward economic development and political stability. But it seems that just as the country is poised to turn a corner, an act of God, like yesterday’s devastating earthquake, sends Haiti reeling back…

For every step in the right direction, Haiti has been dealt an equal and opposite blow. In April 2008 there were widespread riots to protest the rising cost of food. Similar riots occurred elsewhere in the developing world, but in Haiti, it resulted in the death of a peacekeeper and the ouster of the prime minister. The World Bank offered Haiti an emergency bailout to help mitigate the food emergency, but even as that crisis was settling, Haiti was hit again—and again, and again, and again. In the span of 30 days in the fall of 2008, Haiti was hit by four hurricanes and tropical storms. Flooding and mudslides killed an estimated 800 people and devastated crop harvests. The port city of Gonaives was virtually destroyed. Millions were internally displaced…

This is Haiti’s tragedy: Just as the trend lines shift in the right direction, calamity strikes.

61 hours at Dulles Airport (or how I started my Christmas vacation)

Well, it’s been about three weeks since I’ve posted anything, but I’m finally back at it.  I figured I’d start off the new decade with a story of how I missed my flight home for Chistmas and got stuck in the worst snowstorm in the history of Washington DC for three days at Dulles International Airport, from December 19-21, 2009.  It may be the best example of Murphy’s Law you will ever read—and some typically terrible airline service.

* * *

Friday morning, December 18.  I jerked awake and sat straight up in bed, staring at the alarm clock in mortified disbelief.  7:30 AM.  My flight to Tulsa for the holidays was at 7:00.  Getting out of bed faster than I ever have in my life, and unleashing a string of profanities, I leapt to the alarm clock to see what was the matter with it.  Or rather, what was the matter with me: I’d set it for 4:30 PM instead of 4:30 AM.

As the reality of my idiocy sank in, I thought of a plan, and I thought of it fast.  “Wait,” I thought, “Flights usually spend the first 20-30 minute after the official takeoff time taxiing.  If it’s been delayed at all, maybe if I can throw all my things into a duffel bag, jump in a cab, and make it to Reagan National Airport (what I call Obama National Airport) in time to sprint through security and out onto the tarmac and stash myself up in with the landing gear.”  But no, that plan wouldn’t be realistic—the Northern Virginia traffic would prevent me from getting to the airport in time to put it into action.  Plus if I wasn’t crushed by the landing gear, I’d freeze to death in the air.  Clearly, much more realistic measures were in order.

Step #1: call the airline to see if they can put me on a new flight.  Or Mistake #1, depending on how you look at it.  After 45 minutes on hold, I finally got a customer service rep.  “I can put you on a flight out tomorrow,” she told me.  “With the new fare and the change fee, that comes out to… $900.”

“What?” I gasped.  “$900?  My original ticket was $280!  What about stand-by?”

“Well sure, but you have to be there within two hours of your flight leaving to do it without charge.”

I looked at my watch.  8:25.  I’d have to get there by 9:00 if I wanted to change my ticket for free.

Not only had she tried to see me a $900 plane ticket before telling me the stand-by rules, she’d waited to tell me there was a ticking clock until 35 minutes before the ticking clock was up.  My decision was clear: “OkIlltrystandbythanksbye.”  Click.

As fast as I could scroll through my phone’s memory, I called Envirocab, where you can clean the air for the same fare, and within seconds had a Toyota Prius taxi speeding toward my apartment.  8:27.

Figuring I had ten minutes before the cab arrived, I grabbed the first clothes I could off the hangers and stuffed them into a duffel bag.  I flung open my drawers—no clean underwear or socks.  “That’s fine—I’ll wash them at home.”  Clawing the top layer of clothes out of my dirty clothes hamper, I stashed the disheveled mess of cotton into the duffel bag as well.

The phone rang.  8:35.  The cab was here.  Crap, I still had to pack my laptop, cell phone charger, toiletries, and gifts.  Well, he was just going to have to wait three more minutes while I got the last of my things packed.  Heck, I even remembered the Italian Store cheese I’d bought for my dad.  Truly, panic is the mother of remembrance.

It was 8:40 when I got in the cab—20 minutes before the ticking clock on my ticket ran out and I’d be forced to pay potentially $900 for a new one.  But with Reagan National only 4.3 miles away, that should be plenty of time.

Then we hit the GW Parkway, and traffic ground to a halt.  Foiled—the Northern Virginia traffic!  It took ten minutes to go the first half mile.  Luckily, traffic thinned out after that, and we pulled into the terminal at 8:57.

No cash.  Envirocab takes credit card, but this one apparently had problems.  Because the cabbie had to run it three times before it went through.  Finally he printed the receipt—I signed it, grabbed my bags, and rushed inside.

9:01.

Airlines are not ones to make exceptions.  The only other flight I’ve missed was at Boston Logan, where you have to arrive 30 minutes in advance to get on the plane (I’d arrived 29 minutes in advance and they wouldn’t let me on).  But although I approached the airline rep with apprehension, I was pleasantly surprised to find that he was quite helpful, and did not seem to care that I’d missed the cutoff.

But that didn’t mean I’d be able to get on a stand-by flight.  There aren’t exactly a lot of flights to Tulsa to begin with, and the next one he’d potentially be able to get me on had 14 people in front of me on the stand-by list.  “Flights are all full,” he told me, “since there have been people switching to earlier flights all morning to get out of town in front of the snowstorm.”

Snowstorm?  What snowstorm?  I hadn’t heard of any snowstorm.

“Yep,” he said.  “Supposed to get 15-24 inches.”

15-24 inches?  What about global warming?

“Well actually,” he explained, “global warming increases evaporation, which increases the moisture content of the air, and hence the chances of extreme precipitation events.  So big snowstorms are exactly what you’d expect with global warming—they’ll happen less frequently, but when they do happen, watch out.”

Ok, he didn’t really say that last part—I read it on this blog.  So file a Freedom of Information Act request against me.

But the Continental rep did put me on a flight for 8:30 the next morning—which hopefully would take off before the snowstorm got really bad.  This flight was out of Dulles International Airport, which unlike Reagan, is about 23 miles outside Arlington.  Unless you want to park there for a week, you’ve got to take a cab or a bus.  And in any case I don’t have a car.

So I went back to my apartment, feeling like I hadn’t messed up too badly—I’d only be getting home for the holidays a day later than I’d planned.

At home, I read this Paul Krugman post a friend had sent me, which I should have taken as an omen of things to come:

That said, Washington in the snow is a sight to behold. The city doesn’t have the equipment to handle it; and beyond that, people have no idea whatsoever how to deal with it, especially how to drive in it.

There is, for example, the apparent belief that if your car is stuck, you respond by spinning your wheels until you grind down to pavement …

Good points.  Washington drivers have a tough enough time with light rain—in snow, I think they’re worse than Tulsa drivers.  I thought to myself, I’d better call the cab companies to make sure I can make it to the airport early the next day.

Sure enough, all cab service to Dulles was being cancelled at midnight.  So I would have to get in a cab Friday night and sleep at the airport if I was to have any hope of making my morning flight.  And that’s exactly what I did.

Only problem was, with the snow just starting, all of the switchboards were either busy or out of order.  I called every cab service in the city, and got a busy signal for every one.  To get to the airport, I would have to go out and trek through the already-accumulating snow to hail down a cab (not as easy in Arlington as New York City).

It’s at this point I’ll mention that the telescoping handle had broken off my duffel bag earlier that day.  But I still had to take that duffel bag, as it was my only bag big enough to carry both my clothes and Christmas gifts.  So to find a cab, I had to drag this giant duffel bag around on its wheels by clutching onto a flap of fabric close to where the handle had once been attached, like some wretched dogsledder whose team had absconded with the ropes by which to pull the sled.  

But I found a cab—what may have been the last cab running in Arlington—at about midnight.

It was a harrowing ride.  The snow was just starting to come down in earnest, and with even an inch, the roads were already treacherous—something about this snow’s quality made it especially slippery, and I don’t think the most steeled Boston or Minneapolis driver could have handled it any better than my cabbie did.  Even going 15 MPH the whole way to Dulles, we managed to do a full 360 spin in the middle of the turnpike on the way to Dulles (which inexplicable had not been plowed)—almost becoming one of the countless cars already marooned on the sides of the road, dark and driverless like some white-ash-covered landscape from a post-apocalyptic world.

After about 90 minutes of this, we finally got to Dulles.  Unsure of how the driver would make it back to his family, I handed him $100.  I stepped out of the cab, then turned back and gave him another $20, seriously worried that he would end up stranded on the side of the road.

At about 1:30 AM, just thirty minutes after walking into the airport, my phone rang.  It was my brother.  They’d cancelled my flight.

With cab service cancelled, I had no choice but to camp out in line at the Continental counter, on the cold floor, and hope that when employees arrived at 4:30 AM, I’d be able to rebook—and that the flight I rebooked to would not be cancelled as well.  The next three hours were spent with me and both my parents on three separate phones, on hold, trying in vain to get through to the airline to rebook over the phone.

We were still on hold when employees showed up at the counter.  I was tired and cold, but at least I was first in line.  I handed the Continental rep my boarding pass and asked as cheerfully as I could if there were any available flights for later in the day.

That’s when she informed me, “This is a Continental flight operated by United.  You need to be in the United line.”

I’d waited 3 hours on the floor to be the first person in the wrong line.  United’s counter was on the exact opposite side of the airport.

Miserably clutching my duffel bag’s fabric flap, I dragged it and myself over to the United line—which looked to be about two hours long.  To add insult to injury, while United had just two employees courageously helping this long line of tired COACH travelers, they had four employees dedicated to checking in the first-class passengers.  THERE WERE NO FIRST CLASS PASSENGERS.  I walked over and politely asked if I could check in there.

“Do you have a first class ticket?  Then no.”

Can a couple of you come over to this side to help out with this long line?  After all, there are no first-class passengers in line, and you’ve got two other employees to spare.

“No.  We have to be here, just in case a first-class passenger shows up.”  (Well I guess, just in case FOUR first class passengers show up AT THE SAME TIME.)

Government inefficacy gets all the criticism, but I think corporate bureaucracy and rigid protocols are seriously overlooked.

“It” beats dealing with the airlines

After waiting 30 more minutes in the coach line and seeing no first class passengers show up, I’d had enough.  The girl in front of me and I went back to the first-class line, and eventually persuaded the United rep to help us out.  Once that bridge had been crossed, the United rep was actually quite helpful.  Not only did she book me on a flight to Tulsa for Saturday evening, she also booked me on one to Dallas for Monday morning (where my family would be by that point), in case the Saturday evening flight were cancelled—which we all knew it almost inevitably would be.

Exhausted, boarding passes in hand, I retired to a corner of the airport, curled up on the floor, covered myself in my pea coat, and passed soundly out.

Three hours later, I woke up shivering, teeth chattering.  Apparently it’s not enough to cover up on top—the cold marble floor beneath me conducted all the heat straight out of my body.  Getting up, I could think of only one thing.

Must find Starbucks.

And find Starbucks I did.  Merciful Starbucks.  Blessed, sacred Starbucks.  Despite the impassable roads outside, the Dulles Starbucks was fully-staffed and booming with business.  In fact, I think that the baristas, unable to drive home, had simply worked through the night, serving much-needed coffee to weary travelers.

THIS IS WHY STARBUCKS IS A GREAT COMPANY AND THE AIRLINES ARE NOT!

I blessed the baristas, “thank God you’re here” (and those behind me in line shouted approval to the wonderful workers), and gratefully took my venti Christmas blend in hand.  There was even an empty table at which to sit.  As I sipped the warming coffee and read my Economist, I thought to myself, “this is the greatest cup of coffee I have ever drunk.”

Embiggened by the caffeine, I even told myself, “you know, this may even be a good thing being stranded here: I’ll get some reading done.”  I walked over to the bookstore and bought Cormac McCarthy’s harrowing The Road (which, in reading its tale of a father and son struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic nightmare, made me feel not so bad about being stuck at the airport).  Figuring I ought to enjoy the snow but having no one to throw snowballs at, I went outside and practiced my aim on some of the street signs.

That embiggened feeling lasted right up until they cancelled my second flight that day.  Barring a Sunday miracle, I’d be stuck there for another two days.  With Metrobuses and cabs cancelled, there was no way to make it back to my apartment.  It would be a hotel night.

The only hotel with reliable shuttle service was the Crowne Plaza, making my choice easy enough.  In fact, despite the two feet of snow, their shuttles were running twice an hour, 24-hours a day. 

Of course, like every event of that weekend, the ride was not without incident.  Just one block from the hotel, we came to a semi truck which had parked in the middle of the hotel’s entrance road.  But while trying to get around the truck, our shuttle slid into a 4 foot snow bank.  And true to Paul Krugman’s prediction, the driver spun his wheels and only dug the shuttle in deeper.  I got out to help him dig the shuttle out of its predicament, and entreated the other passengers to join us.  They, however, preferred to stay in the warmth of the van and look on as we labored in vain with snow-frozen hands to dig the van free.  Ultimately, we had to walk the last block.

For $80 a night, the hotel was a steal, and I had plenty of time to watch the Cowboys-Saints game at the hotel bar/restaurant.  A bubbly Southwest Airlines flight crew invited me to take my Sam Winter Lager and dinner at their table.  Apparently, everyone at Southwest loves the company—despite being paid the same or less than competitors.  (Other airlines take note: whatever Southwest does to manage its talent, it’s doing something right.)  So despite being stranded in a suburban Virginia hotel when I should have been with my family, the night turned out to be a decent enough time.  The Cowboys even won, overcoming a missed Nick Folk chip shot and furious Saints drive in the final three minutes.

My plan was to sleep, then go to the airport around 10 AM the next day (Sunday) to try to fly stand-by.  But when I got to the airport Sunday, the line for United stretched literally from one side of Dulles to the other and out the door.  It had to have been at least six hours long.  So it was back to the hotel.

But I didn’t sleep there that night.  Having seen that six-hour line, there was no way I was going to risk getting stuck in one like that Monday morning and miss my 8:30 flight.  I made the call to sleep on the airport floor that night to guarantee I made my flight.  So I checked out, slept on a couch in the hotel lobby for a while, and left for the airport around 10pm.

Even at that hour, there was a two-hour line to check in.  And when I did check in, I was informed that I would have to return at 4:30 AM to check my bags (you can’t check bags until four hours before takeoff).  So I did the only sensible thing: slept on the floor in line.  At that point, another four hours on the cold floor didn’t seem like that much more.

Finally, 4:30 rolled around, and I wearily dragged my bag to the counter to check in.

“Boarding pass and government ID, please.”

I handed the two documents to the United rep.  Only after releasing them did I realize my error: I had placed my driver’s license underneath the much larger boarding pass, so the United rep could not tell I had handed him both.  My brain tried to signal my mouth to tell him.  Too late.  He dropped my driver’s license, and it slid into the 2-milimeter crack between the baggage scale and the counter.

What could possibly happen next?  Would I be accused of being a terrorist for having lost my ID?  Without an ID, there was no way I could get on the plane.  Would I have to spend $150 on round-trip cab fare (cabs had resumed Monday morning) to pick up my passport at my apartment?  I just stood there staring.

To get my driver’s license out, they had to call a mechanic to come take the baggage scale apart, reach in, and extract the vital document.  I was overjoyed—after 50 hours at airports and airport hotels, simply not losing a driver’s license seemed a small miracle.

I checked my baggage, made it through security without a hitch, and arrived at my gate.  In three hours, the flight should be taking off.  Despite my exhaustion, I resolved not to fall asleep and risk not waking up for this precious flight.  So with the help of another venti Starbucks coffee, I fought off sleep for three more hours, until finally 8:00 rolled around.  The announcer came on over the intercom—30 minutes before takeoff, I anticipated, he should be announcing boarding.

“Ladies and gentlemen, your flight to Dallas has no crew.  Your new departure time is 12:30 PM.”

Delayed another four hours, just as I thought I was escaping, because the flight crew was stuck in Atlanta.  Oh fates!

Mercifully, the flight did, indeed, take off at 12:30, so that four hour delay was the last.  From the time I’d left Arlington in the cab at midnight to the time I actually took off, I’d been in some form of transit—airport, airport hotel, airport hotel shuttle—for 60 hours and 30 minutes.  Hopefully I’ve got some good karma on the way.

Snowed in

Two feet of snow have cost me two days of my Christmas vacation, and possibly three. After 24 hours and three cancelled flights at Dulles airport, here I am, sitting in a hotel room, waiting to go back to the airport tomorrow to see if I can get on standby.

I've lived in the DC area for a little over two years, and haven't seen more than an inch of slush, much less snow, in my time here.  Everyone I talk to says this is the most snow they've seen in 20 years.

And of course, the irony of the whole thing is that President Obama is flying back from the Copenhagen summit on global warming.

So the question is, how unusual is the snowfall?

Well, according to the New York Times:

Officials in Washington said the storm was likely to produce the area’s heaviest snow since February 2003, when about 16 inches fell on the region.

2003 was also the sixth warmest year on record.  2009 is tied for the second warmest.  The moral of the story is, heavy snowfall can occur even in the presence of global warming.  Don't let the weather fool you.

30 million Nickelback albums and the decade from hell

The two-week-long climate summit in Copenhagen is escalating to a frantic climax - and a possible deal on CO2 emissions. With the world's fate for maybe the next 10,000 years hanging in the balance, each headline out of the Danish capital carries world-shaking importance.

And yet this headline tops them all. It's the most disturbing news I've read in QUITE a while:

Billboard names Nickelback top band of decade

No, that's not a typo. In the 60s (and all time) we had the Beatles. Led Zeppelin ruled the 70s. Even the desert of the 80s produced U2 and several cult favorites like the Pixies (I'm excluding MJ because he wasn't a "band"). The 90s gave us Nirvana and Radiohead. And in the 2000s... Nickelback? Here's the scoop:

Nickelback is the top group of the decade, according to Billboard magazine.
Rapper Eminem has been named the top artist of the decade, and 'N Sync garnered the title album of the decade for its bestselling No Strings Attached (2000).

Nickelback was the highest-ranking band of the decade, only finishing behind solo artists Eminem, 50 Cent, Alicia Keys, Beyonce, Nelly and Usher, for overall impact and importance.

Despite a distinct lack of critical acclaim, the rock band formed in Hanna, Alta., has sold more than 30 million albums worldwide. In the last decade, it released The State (2001), Silver Side Up (2001), The Long Road (2003), All the Right Reasons (2005) and Dark Horse (2008), which has garnered them a 2010 Grammy nomination for best hard-rock performance for the track Burn It To The Ground.

"We've just accepted that we're never going to be the critics' darlings, and we're OK with that," frontman Chad Kroeger told Billboard in 2007.

Yes, Joe Lieberman is pulling the plug on the public option, Republicans are stalling climate legislation and threatening the fate of the next 20 generations to walk the planet, but Nickelback has sold 30 million albums??? That's what I'm most worried about.

Nickelback is like diarrhea of the ears - when the music starts, you know it's not gonna be good, and they just keep drawing it out. They don't so much play their guitars as bang on them repeatedly - Kurt Cobain's grunge was musical, even melodic, but Nickelback just grunges through each painful song as if drawing a jagged blade out of a wound. There's no creativity in lyrics or melody - it's like a 5th grader wrote all their songs. In short, Nickelback is terrible.

At least I'm not the only person whose sanity remains. The story continues:

But it's not only music reporters who disagree with Billboard magazine's assertion.

Readers of the U.K.'s Word Magazine recently voted Nickelback the worst band in the world, with Kroeger and company locking down an impressive 20 per cent of the vote. Looks like not everyone is a fan of greasy, bleached hair and enlightening, philosophical song titles such as Something in Your Mouth and S.E.X.

Sample lyrics: "Maybe in the parking lot / Better bring your friend along / Better rock together / Than just one at a time / S is for the simple need / E is for the ecstasy / X is just to mark the spot / 'Cause that's the one you really want."

From top group of the decade to worst band in the world — only Nickelback could be so polarizing.

A recent Time Magazine cover story labeled the 2000s "The Decade from Hell," and it wasn't kidding. Over the past ten years, we were shocked by 9/11, lost George Harrison to cancer, became mired in two wars, continued emitting CO2 unabated, finished off eight years of wage and employment stagnation with the worst economic collapse in 70 years... and bought 30 million Nickelback records.

In many ways, the last decade culminated America's century-long march toward vapid consumerism: an America in which quantity and price trump truth and beauty, in which the driving force behind all life seems to be the goal of squeezing the maximum number of units out of the smallest set of resources. In the victories of both Bush and Obama, the last decade also encapsulated the tension between New and Old Americas, between educated elites who take pride in sophistication, and "everyman"-types who eschew artful (one might say "snooty") tastes.

Nickelback seems to embody these mass ideals pretty well, having managed to squeeze 30 million albums worth of product out of their limited musical capital. Fitting that the worst band in the world would be the top band of the decade.

Of course, just because music has mass appeal doesn't mean it's bad. The sign of a TRUE artist is one who can create sophisticated art that still appeals to the Everyman (if you have to take a class to appreciate a work of art, it's not great art). If you'd like REAL music, read my post about the anniversary of John Lennon's assassination. Or go download some Arcade Fire at Lala. In fact, do that right now.

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Global cooling at Sarah Palin's house

The latest NOAA global temperature data is up.  According to the National Climatic Data Center, "The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for November 2009 was 0.60°C (1.08°F) above the 20^th century average of 12.9°C (55.2°F). This is the fourth warmest such value on record."

So much for global cooling.

But besides confirming the continuing march of global warming, I think the data helps  explains Sarah Palin's confused op-ed in the Washington Post last week, in which she used her years of scientific training to eviscerate the science of global warming.  Check it out:

Also note, this is the first post-Climategate NOAA data, so with all the scrutiny, presumably any "fraud" would have had to have been corrected.  Surprise: it still shows warming.

UPDATE: Apparently NASA uses a different dataset, and its data shows this November to be the WARMEST November on record.

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I'm about to become an Exxon Mobil shareholder...

... and that's a good thing.  I think.

Yesterday's big energy news was Exxon Mobil's $31 billion acquisition of natural gas producer XTO Energy.  In the New York Times:

In the biggest energy deal in years, Exxon Mobil said Monday that it agreed to buy XTO Energy, a domestic producer of natural gas, in an all-stock deal valued at $31 billion to increase its holdings in unconventional resources in the United States.

The deal includes the assumption of $10 billion in debt.

The purchase allows Exxon, the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, to expand in shale gas, an area that has seen tremendous growth in the last few years. It will give Exxon the equivalent of about 45 trillion cubic feet of natural gas throughout the United States.

“XTO is a leading U.S. unconventional natural gas producer, with an outstanding resource base, strong technical expertise and highly skilled employees,” Rex W. Tillerson, Exxon’s chief executive, said in a statement.

“XTO’s strengths, together with Exxon Mobil’s advanced R.&D. and operational capabilities, global scale and financial capacity, should enable development of additional supplies of unconventional oil and gas resources, benefiting consumers both here in the United States and around the world.”

In recent years, energy companies have discovered large reserves of natural gas tightly trapped in shale rocks in Texas, Colorado, and Wisconsin, as well as in the Northeast. The discoveries have led to a gas drilling boom that has greatly expanded domestic resources, while also raising some environmental concerns.

As a *small* shareholder in XTO, I'll get about 0.7 shares of Exxon Mobil (XOM) for every share of XTO when the deal closes in Q2 of next year.  But as someone who cares deeply about climate change, how should I feel about having a financial stake in the success of a company so reviled by environmentalists?

On the one hand, Exxon spearheaded much of the faux science that is behind many of the climate denial myths that persist to this day.  Simply put, without Exxon's efforts in the 90s to cast doubt on climate science, we would probably already have passed climate legislation.

On the other hand, my stock in XTO jumped 15% yesterday, and the bullish news for natural gas boosted my stock in Chesapeake Energy (CHK) by 6% .  And hey, Exxon's going to go about its business regardless of whether I take a stand by not purchasing shares in it, so might as well profit from Exxon's success, right?  At the very least, now no one can say that financial concerns are driving my beliefs about climate change (although full disclosure, the other 90% of my stocks are related to clean energy).

And actually, I have less cynical reasons for being enthused by Exxon Mobil's $31 billion bet on American shale gas.  Because ultimately, I think it signals that Exxon Mobil is finally getting on board with America's clean energy future.

The important point is that generating electricity from natural gas emits half the CO2 as burning coal. Putting a price on carbon (through cap-and-trade) would make it comparatively more expensive for utilities to continue burning coal, and many would switch to natural gas.  Demand for gas would surge, lifting currently-depressed gas prices - as well as profits for gas producers.

I'd originally bought Chesapeake and XTO earlier this year after reading a series of ClimateProgress articles arguing that shale gas would prove a "game changer" in the climate debate, bridging America's dirty energy present with its clean energy future - at a cost much lower than current economic models predict. Now Exxon Mobil agrees with me. 

How does this affect cap-and-trade's chances of passage?  All you have to do is check out where these unconventional shale gas reserves are located:

Most of that pink and purple is over Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio - big coal states with key swing votes on the climate and clean energy bill.  The prospect for natural gas development in their states should dampen these Senators' concerns about hurting the coal industry.  Same goes for Arkansas and Louisiana, where there are also big shale gas plays.  Exxon clearly believes there's a future for these huge gas reserves.

And this isn't the first investment in clean energy Exxon has made - back in July, the company announced a plan to invest $600 million in a venture to produce fuel from bio-engineered algae.

This of course doesn't make up for Exxon Mobil's past misdeeds.  While I'm holding on to my XOM stock, I won't start buying gasoline at Exxon Mobil gas stations any time soon.  Still, any investment in cleaner technologies is welcome.

Random note to close out the post: many Wall Street analysts seem to think Exxon overpaid for XTO - mainly because natural gas prices are still abysmal.  Last time I checked, buying low was a good thing.  Yet more evidence that few people on Wall Street understand business beyond the next quarter's earnings report.

Bottom line: if you think cap-and-trade will pass, time to start stocking up on gas stocks.