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A little media criticism

Unlike my blogospheric brethren, I rarely indulge in media criticism. Poking around for flaws and bias in mainstream news reporting is a rather masturbatory undertaking -- everybody who looks will find exactly what they're looking for, and the entire exercise will do nothing but decrease the prestige and authority of the press, which I happen to think is a bad thing on balance.

But. That's not to say reporters don't have their annoying habits, and just this once I'll indulge in a little rant about them.

50 minutes of wonky goodness

Below the fold is a 50-minute video of an interview Al Gore did with The Guardian.

No month is complete without it

For those of you who missed a remarkable discovery earlier this summer: a snake of a different color.

"The discovery of the 'chameleon' snake exposes one of nature's best kept secrets deep in the heart of Borneo," WWF's Stuart Chapman said in a press release. "Its ability to change color has kept it hidden from science until now. I guess it just picked the wrong color that day."

Indeed. I have hopes that its habitat does not one day become a biofuel farm.

As predicted, producers of palm oil are already running out of land.

"There's just not enough land to plant in Malaysia ... At the end of the day, there's no other way but to expand overseas."

Here’s how

The following is a guest essay by Jan Lundberg, who, in search of depaving opportunities, lives in San Francisco with no car. He founded Culturechange.org and organizes Petrocollapse Conferences. He can be reached emailE=('jan@' + 'culturechange.org') document.write('' + 'via email' + '') . The essay may find its way into his forthcoming book.

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As a petroleum industry analyst who gave up material security for a career as an activist against petroleum industry expansion, I've developed a unique understanding of the global peak in oil extraction. Questioning society's energy needs has always been my tendency. But I gained further understanding of our culture by giving up affluence and many conveniences. This was an attempt to get closer to nature and live by my wits with the support of activists and my growing community of friends far and wide.

In 2004 I hit the road (the rails, usually) to spread the word about the plastic plague, petrocollapse, and the positive future that culture change will present. It was fitting that the nonprofit organization I founded in 1988, Fossil Fuels Policy Action, eventually became known as Culture Change. I was delighted to learn last year that geologist M. King Hubbert, who discovered peak oil, identified the fact that we do not have an energy crisis but a culture crisis:

Terry Troth

California campaigner spreading carbon-cap gospel to other states Terry Tamminen is restyling himself as the “Johnny Appleseed” of carbon caps. Formerly environmental adviser and cabinet secretary for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), he’s now working to spread California’s climate policy to other states, and eventually, he hopes, to the country as a whole. First he’ll focus […]

Johnson Resists Lobbying of Special-Interest “Science” Groups

EPA chief spurns scientific advice, rejects stricter particulate controls Yesterday, U.S. EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson — rejecting the near-unanimous recommendation of his agency’s own scientific advisory council, as well as the pleas of health and environmental advocates — failed to strengthen the Clean Air Act’s standards for maximum annual soot-particle levels. Johnson did strengthen the […]

Sigh

Here's the Big Dog, talking to Jon Stewart about his Global Initiative:

The Al Gore way

It's called moral leadership. Maybe you remember it from last century.

Sir Richard said his new commitment grew out of a visit to his London home a few months ago by former Vice President Al Gore ...

"You are in a position maybe to make a difference," Sir Richard said Mr. Gore told him. "If you can make a giant step forward other people will follow."

Update [2006-9-22 9:59:46 by David Roberts]: ThinkProgress has footage of Gore and Branson discussing the issue on ABC.

Scientists unearth 3.3-million-year-old toddler

Meant to get this one up yesterday but failed. Anyhoo, scientists are hailing the recent unearthing of a fossilized human-like child in Ethiopia.

The child, estimated to have been about three years old at the time of her death about 3.3 million years ago, is from the Australopithecus afarensis species. This important human ancestor is the same species as "Lucy," the adult skeleton found in the same region in 1974.

New report on aquaculture

"Nearly half the fish consumed as food worldwide are raised on fish farms rather than caught in the wild," according to a new FAO report. The State of World Aquaculture 2006 report, presented at a meeting of the the FAO Sub-Committee on Aquaculture held in New Delhi earlier this month, stated that fish consumed by human beings originating from aquaculture, just 9% in 1980, today constitutes 43%.

The hard numbers are 45.5 million tonnes of farmed fish, worth US$63 billion, eaten per year, versus 95 million tonnes from capture fisheries, of which 60 million tonnes goes to human consumption.

Those are bigger numbers than I would have thought.