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Amanda Lumry, children’s book author, answers questions

Amanda Lumry. What work do you do? I am an author and photographer for the Adventures of Riley children’s book series, which educates children about the environment and entertains them at the same time. I am also the cofounder of Eaglemont Press, based in Bellevue, Wash. How does it relate to the environment? The Adventures […]

Fang, Fang, Fang on the Door, Baby

Judge orders feds to restore Northeastern gray wolves The U.S. government must intensify efforts to restore gray wolves to the Northeast, a federal court ruled on Friday. U.S. District Court Judge J. Garvan Murtha said the Bush administration’s decision to lump the sparse gray wolf population of the Northeast in with healthier populations in the […]

Light, Fruity, With a Hint of Smog

Winemakers in San Joaquin Valley will soon have to curb emissions The 109 wineries in California’s San Joaquin Valley — home to the worst smog in the U.S. — emit 788 tons of ethanol and other smog-forming gases a year, according to regulators. Plans are in the works to implement new air-quality rules by the […]

All The Ooze That’s Fit to Print

The Gray Lady discovers peak oil The peak-oil phenomenon made a mainstream-media splash this weekend in an extensive New York Times Magazine cover story. Devotees of this once-obscure issue won’t find much that’s new, but the article effectively summarizes the grim state of affairs. Output at many of the world’s biggest oil fields has been […]

The NY Times does peak oil

Peak oil made what might be described as its MSM debut today, and in dramatic fashion, as the cover story in the New York Times Magazine. Weighing in at just about 9,000 words, the article by Peter Maass qualifies as a quick read just about as much as it qualifies as uplifting.

After describing some of the effects of peak oil on life as we know it, Maass then asks: "But will such a situation really come to pass?" (Collective sigh.)

Like it or not, Maass says, Saudi Arabia is the key to the if and when of peak oil. It's difficult to read the article and not be, among other things, a little miffed about the practices of Saudi Arabia and the rest of OPEC, between the vague numbers about output and reserves and the outright refusal to be audited. Matt Simmons, the peak oil "Cassandra" of the article, is frustrated as well -- if the Saudis issued the necessary data, he says:

It would then take anybody less than a week to say, "Gosh, Matt is totally wrong," or "Matt actually might be too optimistic."

For better or worse, Maass presents both sides of the story throughout the article, leading off the final section with, "So whom to believe?" After citing a US DOE report [PDF] that claims peak oil will be "abrupt and revolutionary," the article states (in the very next sentence) that "most experts do not share Simmons's concerns about the imminence of peak oil." Maass does, however, conclude by saying:

When a crisis comes -- whether in a year or 2 or 10 -- it will be all the more painful because we will have done little or nothing to prepare for it.

For more on "PO," check out Dave's post handicapping the Hamilton v. Kaufmann, free-market v. intervention discussion.

Mooney and Pielke

The internet has been described as a conversation. I have never seen a better example.

Featuring Chris Mooney and Robert Pielke Jr., with cameo appearances from Jamais Cascio and Jonathan H. Adler.

Gentlemen, start your laptops. The prompt is: "Science = Liberalism?" ... go!

Makower on Marketplace

Joel Makower, author of the blog Two Steps Forward, makes an appearance (so to speak) on tonight's edition of NPR's Marketplace. The topic? Green energy as the next big thing for investors -- and not because it helps out the photogenic megafauna. Check it out.

[editor's note, by Dave Roberts] Special blog-only breaking news/sneak preview! Makower fans -- and who among us doesn't fit that description? -- will be excited to hear that the man himself will soon take up residence as a regular Grist columnist. Ssssshhhh ... don't tell the non-blog-readers.

Creeping medievalism

Oh good grief.

Sigh

Here's the only sentence you need to read from Jonah Goldberg's NRO column on the Cape Cod wind farm controversy:

But why get distracted by the merits of the issue when the real fun is to take a Nestea Plunge into the swirling waters of limousine liberalism.

Putin cracks down on environmental orgs

Russian President Vladimir Putin is taking an increasingly dim view of environmental NGO activity, whether from within Russia or from neighboring Baltic or Nordic neighbors. In rhetoric eerily similar to what we hear in this country, Putin rails against ecological objections holding up development projects. Going a step further, Putin's government is criminalizing more and more environmental data-gathering and harassing Russian NGO activists. Putin's latest warning "against the financing of political activity by any channel" is cited in an August 2 Agence France Presse story. AFP says "the warning came amid a hardening official stance in Moscow toward non-governmental organisations -- a policy, analysts say, that reflects Kremlin worry about the influence of foreign-funded organisations in the peaceful revolutions that shook Georgia in 2003 and Ukraine last year."

If you are interested in a good news-clipping listserv on Russian environmental issues, subscribe to the Russian Environmental Digest Files through the Transboundary Environmental Information Agency, which focuses on the Baltics and Russia.