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An interview

An interesting interview with James Lovelock, though his defense of nuclear power is maddeningly sketchy. I'd like to see the original transcript.

Advocate for eating horse needs to go

In a sane universe, if someone singlehandedly tried selling off America's national parks -- our collective inheritance -- they would be arrested.

In this world, we have to settle for voting them out of office.

So, if you were planning on getting involved in helping defeat Richard Pombo, chair of the House Resources Committee, big jerk, anti-ESA zealot, and single largest advocate of eating more horse and whale meat*, now would be a good time.

Not only is time growing short, but if you act now you can listen to a song and get a free CD, too.

* Short list.

Can we stabilize atmospheric CO2 at safe levels?

As you probably know by now, the cover story of The Economist is on global warming, unimaginatively titled "The heat is on."

I commend you to the extraordinarily good op-ed that kicks off the package:

Republican candidate will be forced to testify in environmental lawsuit

As a native of the great not-too-bad state of Tennessee, I'm somewhat ambivalent about the Senate race there, which is enormously important to both parties and, at least at the moment, a dead heat.

The Dem, Harold Ford, is something of an empty suit, considerably more interested in his own greater glory than in policy or governance. His R opponent, Bob Corker, is by all accounts a moderate technocrat who's been extremely effective as mayor of Chattanooga, a city that has transformed itself over the last few decades from an industrial backwater to a thriving, liveable urban center with one of the nation's best affordable-housing programs and nicest waterfront parks. (See Q&A with Chattanooga urban planner Karen Hundt here.)

Behavioral science shows that demanding short-term change activates the brain’s fear centers

Taking a cue from my boss, I just finished this article on behavioral economics -- a growing field that explores how, and why, flesh-and-blood humans don't behave like the "rational" profit-maximizers that underpin most economic models. It seems to me there are some lessons here for the theory and practice of social change.

In a nutshell: calling for immediate action to address a long-term problem may prompt resistance from the emotional and fearful sides of our brains; but calling for delayed action may put emotional reactions on hold, and allow for a more sober (and potentially more favorable) response to the issue.

Goshute in the Foot

Interior Department blocks interim nuke-waste site in Utah The Interior Department has blocked an interim nuclear-waste storage plant on a Native reservation in appropriately named Skull Valley, Utah. The department denied a lease and transportation plan for the site, which was to hold 44,000 tons of nuclear waste in above-ground casks about an hour’s drive […]

I Found My Thrill on News-Bury Hill

EPA proposes easing air-pollution rules for oil refineries and other plants The Bush administration EPA has had some trouble with the whole protecting-the-environment thing, but it has mastered one important skill: burying news. Latest exhibit: On Friday, just before a weekend that everyone knew would be saturated with 9/11 remembrances, the EPA proposed easing air-pollution […]

Nothing to Fear But Air Itself

Government fails to tend to the many left sick by the 9/11 attacks The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, left behind a grim legacy. No, we’re not talking about the violent imperial fantasies and paranoia that have gripped much of the nation, but the lingering ill health of those who worked in lower Manhattan to […]

A prescient speech

Kevin Drum reprints an extraordinary speech from Al Gore in 2002 that makes, among many others, the point I tried to make here.

He says:

Food can comfort and heal us in times of grief and despair

"Enjoy every sandwich." -- Warren Zevon

As is true for so many people, 9/11 is on my mind this week. I'm thinking of the people who perished on that day in the towers: those I knew from college and high school, friends, coworkers, and of course all the strangers whose families' lives are forever altered.

I'll always remember the breathtaking beauty of that day -- an impossibly blue sky -- and how all my calls to editors in NYC suddenly stopped going through. "All the circuits to New York are busy." It was only when a friend called late in the morning that I learned about what had happened. It seemed as though everything around me was disappearing, as if I might disappear myself.

Once I had gotten through to friends and family in New York, I turned on the TV. The footage of the towers coming down over and over again made me numb, but two things caught my eye.

The first was how quickly people were able to print up and post signs asking after the fate of their loved ones. They must have been carrying pictures in their wallets.

The other was how many of the pictures were of family celebrations around food.