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Polar bear ventures far inland, shot to death

Having boldly gone where no polar bear has gone before, a 3-year-old female polar bear was shot dead 250 miles inland in Fort Yukon, Alaska, last week. Hunters who thought they were tracking a grizzly bear shot the polar bear in what they say was self-defense; the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is investigating the […]

Crude substitute: The folly of liquid coal

I’m moving this back to the top — the link was broken before, but now it works. This is a must-watch. A stellar new 10-minute video from NRDC:

Three Makah tribe members plead guilty in whale hunt

Photo: bbum Three members of the Washington state Makah tribe who were charged with killing a gray whale in the fall have pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of violating the Marine Mammal Protection Act. In return, prosecutors will recommend probation instead of jail time. The men had originally declined the plea deal because it […]

Listing polar bears as endangered species could … harm polar bears?

Via an email from The National Center for Public Policy Research:

The ad is being released in conjunction with a National Center for Public Policy Research policy paper, "Listing the Polar Bear Under the Endangered Species Act Because of Projected Future Global Warming Could Harm Bears and Humans Alike," by Peyton Knight and Amy Ridenour.

The paper questions the wisdom of listing the polar bear as threatened based on environmentalist organizations' projections of future global warming because:

• Listing the polar bear could have adverse affects on bear conservation efforts.

Now that we know irony is dead, let's check parody's vital signs:

Responding to a wrongheaded assault on Slow Food

The March, 2008 issue of Metropolis focuses on the overarching idea of localism and its relationship to sustainability. It is as always a beautiful and well-written issue, but in it one particular columnist, Bruce Sterling, has taken Slow Food to task -- accusing us once again of that old canard, elitism.

It is not true, nor is it always such a bad thing anyway. Bear in mind that most of the great social movements throughout history were begun by the so-called "elite" (witness abolition and suffrage, not to mention that Ghandi was a well-to-do attorney). But the places Mr. Sterling gets it wrong are so manifold it's hard to know where to start.

Let's try here:

The Cornish Pilchard. The Chilean Blue Egg Hen. The Cypriot Tsamarella and Bosnian Sack Cheese. You haven't seen these foods at McDonald's because they are strictly local rarities championed by Slow Food, the social movement founded to combat the proliferation of fast food. McDonald's is a multinational corporation: it retails identical food products on the scale of billions, repeatedly, predictably, worldwide. Slow Food, the self-appointed anti-McDonald's, is a "revolution" whose aim is a "new culture of food and life."

Actually you haven't seen these foods at McDonald's because McDonald's sells hamburgers. Here Mr. Sterling has blundered by believing that who/what Slow Food is is somehow stagnant and monolithic. If such things were true then the US would still be a few puritan slave owners dotted up and down the east coast. Or the Chicago Cubs would have been the National League power for the last century. He goes on ...

Slow Food began as a jolly clique of leftist academics, entertainers, wine snobs, and pop stars, all friends of Italian journalist and radio personality Carlo Petrini.

I've often wondered what it is about food and wine that makes those who appreciate it automatically labeled "snobs." Wine is just fermented grape juice, actually one of the simplest foods known to man. For some reason the person who appreciates the inner workings of an internal combustion engine is not a snob, but someone who likes a well-made buerre blanc is.

Obama, regulation, and electricity markets

I missed this part in Obama’s big economic speech when he first gave it, but it’s worth highlighting: Let me be clear: the American economy does not stand still, and neither should the rules that govern it. The evolution of industries often warrants regulatory reform — to foster competition, lower prices, or replace outdated oversight […]

What we lose if Bloomberg’s plan goes down

It's High Noon for congestion pricing in New York City.

If by week's end the City Council and State Legislature haven't enacted a fee to drive into Manhattan's central business district, the city will forfeit a substantial federal mass-transit grant and congestion pricing will probably be a dead issue for the remainder of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's second and final term.

Coincidentally, this month also brings a deadline of sorts for the Cape Wind project off Cape Cod. The federal Minerals Management Service is accepting comments on its Draft Environmental Impact Statement on Cape Wind through April 21.

What do a wind farm for Nantucket Sound and congestion pricing for Manhattan have in common, and why are both so significant for the environmental cause?

Both would directly reduce the burning of fossil fuel -- in oil-fired generating plants and gasoline-burning tailpipes, respectively -- thus cutting greenhouse gas emissions. And both have been on the table for a good half-dozen years, if not more, which shows you just how hard it is to take away entitlements cherished by powerful minorities. The entitlements in question are a kind of unpurchased, appropriated ownership of the Nantucket Sound "viewshed" enjoyed by wealthy Cape Cod landowners and an equally groundless right to drive for free enjoyed primarily by relatively well-off New York commuters.

Both proposals demand of citizens that they make connections which are not obvious yet are quite real: that windmills keep fossil fuels elsewhere in the ground, and that congestion pricing is the only sure way for drivers to compensate for the harms they inflict on the city.

Impromptu food court musical

They promise that they’re not wasting trees …

Notable quotable

“I’ll retract the rape complaint from the wombat, because he’s pulled out. Apart from speaking Australian now, I’m pretty all right you know. I didn’t hurt my bum at all.” — New Zealander Arthur Cradock, who was subsequently charged with “using a phone for a fictitious purpose”

Earth Google

Google is celebrating Earth Hour. More here. Don’t forget to turn your lights off for an hour tonight at 8pm.