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New mine safety official not so good on the whole mine safety thing

I have a sneaking suspicion that sometimes when I link to stuff, y'all don't herd over en masse to read it. WTF?

With that in mind, I hope the excellent Justin Rood will forgive me for just poaching this entire post from TPMmuckraker:

Haven’t bashed the guy in a while

What with Inhofe capturing all the earth-fu**ing-lunatic attention on Gristmill of late, it's been way too long since we pointed out the earth-fu**ing-lunacy of Rep. Richard "Dick" Pombo (R-Calif.). Let's look around for some Pombo bashing, shall we?

Oh, look! Here's some in the NYT:

In a little-noticed provision of the much-reviled Deep Ocean Energy Resources Act -- which the House passed in June and the Senate will take up when Congress returns -- Mr. Pombo lowered the royalty rate for oil shale from 12.5 percent to 1 percent. Should the day arrive when the price of shale oil becomes competitive, this could turn out to be an extraordinary giveaway of federal revenue (most oil shale lies under federal land) and a huge incentive to wreak environmental damage.

And here's some more in Rolling Stone, which ranks Pombo the seventh worst Congressman (only seventh?):

Not going so well

The political pundits haven't noticed, probably because they habitually put the health of the planet at the bottom of their list of concerns, but this week on national television, David Letterman pointed out that the Current Occupant of the White House is trying to present himself as an Environmental President.

It's a struggle, as you can see:

What’s the best balance of green and cheap?

So, I find myself in a bona fide environmental quandary. (Perhaps I should write a letter to Umbra!) My wife and I just bought a house -- we'll be moving in in a couple of weeks. A few days ago we ripped up the (tattered, cat-pee-stinking) carpet, to discover that there are not, marketing claims to the contrary, "hardwoods throughout." Most of the floor, in fact, looks like some kind of particle board.

Long story short: we need new floors throughout the house.

Unbalanced mercury report has green groups in an uproar

Conservation groups are fired up about "Seafood Choices: Balancing Benefits and Risks," a new report released on Tuesday, by the Institute of Medicine. The report attempts to undermine government advice by downplaying the risks of mercury in seafood, especially with regard to children and America's number one most heavily consumed fish: tuna. On a completely unrelated note, the panel that wrote the report has multiple ties to the food industry, including the tuna industry ...

>>Read the report (if you don't mind paying $55)

>>Check out Oceana's response

The Hole Truth and Nothing But the Truth

Ozone hole biggest, deepest on record This year’s ozone hole is bigger and deeper than any other on record, NASA scientists said yesterday. From Sept. 21 to Sept. 30, the ozone hole sprawled to an average of 10.6 million square miles. That’s pretty big, alright: approximately the surface area of North America plus Argentina. In […]

When the Blights Go Down in the City

List ranks top ten most polluted spots on earth Looking for that perfect vacation getaway, where you and that special someone can recapture the magic by going into acute respiratory distress together? Look no further: The Blacksmith Institute has released a list of the 10 most polluted spots on earth. Chernobyl in Ukraine is the […]

You Can Call Them Algae

Marine “dead zones” on the rise around the world There are now at least 200 oxygen-starved “dead zones” in the world’s seas and oceans, a rise of more than a third over the past two years, the United Nations Environment Program announced yesterday. The algae blooms that suck up oxygen and cause dead zones — […]

Big stuff could be happening

It isn't a big deal yet, but if this has a measurable effect on the coming elections, it will be seen in retrospect as a big, big deal:

Democratic strategists are joining forces with conservative evangelicals to promote a faith-based campaign on global warming, in an improbable alliance that could boost Democratic hopes of taking control of Congress.

At a news conference today, the president of the Christian Coalition and a board member of the National Assn. of Evangelicals -- both groups closely tied to the religious right -- will announce Call to Action, an effort to make global warming a front-and-center issue over the next three weeks for Christians in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Tennessee, North Carolina, Colorado and several other states with pitched election campaigns.

Fun

Arnold Creek Productions has a whole series of short films -- mainly clips of smart people talking -- about sustainability and related matters. Lots of good stuff.

For instance, you can watch Michael Shellenberger & Ted Nordhaus say reasonably valid things in a tone of insufferable smugness.

Or, if you're less cranky, you can watch pastor Jim Wallis talk about why global warming is a religious issue.

A note to Arnold Creek (and this goes to all the folks out there making online videos): Quicktime won't work on some browsers, and works poorly in others. Same for Real and Windows Media. Start using Flash, like YouTube. And make it easy to embed your videos on other web pages. There's no excuse not to any more.

Unsolicited tech advice: part of the Gristmill value add.