Yet Another Climate Report--And More Denials

The latest report from the National Research Council should add some urgency to the debate over how to limit heat-trapping gases. But the responses are predictable, particularly from the global-warming-, climate-change-denying crowd.

The conclusions drawn are clear, if not the specific policy preferences: it is strongly suggested that probably the best way to reign in carbon emissions is to put an overall price on carbon, which has the effect of steering investments into low-carbon, energy-efficient technologies and processes.

The report's authors come from inside and outside the scientific establishment, encompassing business, industry, politics, and representing different ideological stripes.

Still, the broad-based call to arms is falling on deaf ears, even among Democrats who would rather focus on keeping the economy from stalling.

One can only wonder when it will be safe to go outside again and advocate an aggressive, comprehensive national energy policy of carbon mitigation.

The Fastest Passenger Train

The world's "fastest" passenger train service, measured by average trip speed, is currently the CRH Wuhan-Guangzhou High-Speed Railway. The train averages about 200 miles an hour, but reaches top speeds of between 210 and 220 miles an hour. The thing really rips.

I recently took a ride, paying about 70 dollars to get from central China to the coast in a little more than three hours. I taped some of the ride, posted on the right, so you can see and feel the bullet train as it barrels through rural Hunan province.

Compare China's high-speed rail to our fastest train, the Acela, and it's sobering to see how we're being left behind in the development of rail infrastructure. The Acela can go 150 m.p.h., but averages 100 or less between Washington and Boston.

Critics say China's HSR is a boondoggle, a massively expensive showpiece project that squanders energy and saddles the government with costly debt service. Ticket prices cannot be raised high enough--ridership is too low as it is.

Still, this is how China invested its stimulus money and I think the bet on HSR will eventually pay off.