Inbox

Pay-as-you-throw has become a noteworthy issue in the forthcoming Toronto mayoral election. The Toronto Sun reports that Jane Pitfield, one of two candidates challenging incumbent David Miller, has vowed to install a pay-as-you-throw garbage system in Toronto if she is elected.

Pitfield´s approach sounds pretty reasonable, once you get past the article´s lead sentence, which reads almost like something that might have been spun by a press agent from Miller´s camp.

Changing Climes: The Washington Post predicted in an editorial yesterday that the coming election will produce a Congress that is much more apt than the current one to take strong action on global warming.

This could result in a tough battle with the Bush administration, which in its first three quarters has been reluctant to make any big moves in regard to climate change.

But the election, if it goes the way most experts are forecasting, would also offer an opportunity for the Bush administration to take a leadership role in effecting big changes in U.S. climate change policy -- and global climate change policy, for that matter.

Along similar lines, the New York Times published a long report yesterday lamenting the declining amount of spending in both the public and private sectors for research into new energy technologies.

In the U.S., annual federal spending for energy research and development is currently about $3 billion a year, down from an inflation-adjusted peak of $7.7 billion in 1979. The Times reports that President Bush is seeking to increase that to $4.2 billion for 2007, "but that would still be a small fraction of what most climate and energy experts say would be needed."

Unfortunately, the article concludes, history suggests that it may take a catastrophe before we address the problem with the seriousness it requires:

"Ultimately, a big increase in government spending on basic energy research will happen only if scientists can persuade the public and politicians that it is an essential hedge against potential calamity. That may be the biggest hurdle of all, given the unfamiliar nature of the slowly building problem -- the antithesis of epochal events like Pearl Harbor, Sputnik and 9/11 that triggered sweeping enterprises.

" ´We´re good at rushing in with white hats,´ said Bobi Garrett, associate director of planning and technology management at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. ´This is not a problem where you can do that.´ "

Pete Fehrenbach is assistant managing editor of Waste News. Past installments of this column are collected in the Inbox archive.