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It’s All Ova

U.N. lifts year-old ban on Caspian Sea beluga caviar exports The world’s got a fever, and the only prescription is more caviar. In a two-part move, the U.N. has lifted a year-old ban on the delicacy, allowing Caspian Sea countries to profit despite concern about declining sturgeon populations. Yesterday, the U.N. Convention on International Trade […]

You Go, Hugo

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez mouths off about conservation The campaign to fight climate change and reduce global oil use seems to have an unlikely new champion: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. In a country where car salesfolk do a healthy business and gasoline is subsidized to 12 cents a gallon — that’s about $3 to fill […]

It just ain’t sexy

Matthew C. Nisbet tells the depressing story of how the IPCC report was released on Friday to thunderous … silence, failing to break through "the juggernaut narratives of Iraq, the 2008 election, and the weekend’s SuperBowl." One thing Nisbet doesn’t stress enough is that there were numerous extremely good pieces in print media. The report […]

Alpha Females

You know climate concern has gone mainstream when sororities get on board Yeah, yeah, the vast majority of the world’s climate scientists believe immediate action is required to stem climate change — but Bill McKibben is more excited about the action suggested by a sorority in Texas. And who wouldn’t be? The Alpha Phi sisters […]

Sweet, Now They Can Clean the Bathrooms

Bush 2008 budget proposal contains big bucks for national parks With the National Park Service centennial looming in 2016, President Bush has proposed a 2008 budget boost that’s making park advocates swoon. It would add $230 million to the 2007 park funding request and $100 million more each year for 10 years, making an additional […]

Be afraid

According to the IPCC's Fourth Assessment (PDF), "discernible human influences now extend to other aspects of climate, including ocean warming, continental-average temperatures, temperature extremes and wind patterns."

The increases in oceanic temperature are particularly worrisome: "Observations since 1961 show that the average temperature of the global ocean has increased to depths of at least 3000 m and that the ocean has been absorbing more than 80% of the heat added to the climate system."

Also, ew

Denise Caruso, author of Intervention: Confronting the Real Risks of Genetic Engineering and Life on a Biotech Planet, has an excellent op-ed that explains the deep concerns about animal cloning. If you have doubts about this issue, or want to be better informed, this piece is a good place to start.

A nice newsweekly cover story on ethanol

Well tickle my toes and call me Elmo! If it isn’t a big story — a cover story, no less — in a major American newsweekly that resists the siren song of ethanol. Kudos to Marianne Lavelle and Bret Schulte, whose U.S. News & World Report piece systematically deconstructs the ethanol craze, from twisted economics […]

Electric bikes enhance performance

Took the rig out in the rain Saturday to run errands. The trip was mostly along the bike trail. At one point I caught up with a guy riding a nice racer, and as usual, rather than let some goofball pulling a trailer pass, he sprinted to put some distance between us, and as usual, exhausted himself trying. To add insult to injury, I was chatting on my blue tooth headphone the whole time he tried to shake me.

FY 2008 request out today

Bush’s proposed 2008 budget was released today, coming in at $2.9 trillian trillin trillion. It will surely be picked apart by plenty of people with intelligence and patience I lack. But some key parts: $4.4 billion for research programs including: Coal Research Initiative — A request of $385 million, part of a plan to spend […]