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Gulf oil spill: A timeline of the estimates

The image says it all, I think: As has been remarked elsewhere, if the latest low-end estimate is accurate — that the leak is spewing approximately 2.5 million gallons per day — then the rupture is emitting as much oil about every 4 days as the Exxon Valdez did in total. Here’s the timeline: April 20: […]

Judge who ruled against offshore drilling moratorium invests in oil industry

The federal judge who overturned Barack Obama’s offshore drilling moratorium appears to own stock in numerous companies involved in the offshore oil industry — including Transocean, which leased the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig to BP prior to its April 20 explosion in the Gulf of Mexico — according to 2008 financial disclosure reports. So Yahoo […]

Dispatch from the U.S. Social Forum

SocialForumists taking to the streets of Detroit. (Tom Philpott) DETROIT, MICH. — As the economy falters, another war lurches into chaos, and our nation’s gravest environmental calamity plays out in slow motion at the rate of at least one Exxon Valdez spill per week in the Gulf, a kind of sour despair has taken root […]

Big Pork squeals over unicorn-meat marketing. Yes, unicorn meat.

We’ll have a rainbow roast, please!(ThinkGeek.com)One has to feel sorry for Big Pork. First there was that nasty swine flu that put everyone off pork chops, even though the industry managed to get the name changed to H1N1. Profits are down for producers like Smithfield. Despite America’s love affair with all things bacon, pork consumption […]

What Obama Did Not Say: BP Gulf Disaster Is Biggest Cut In A Bleeding Earth

The morning after President Barack Obama called for a “national mission” in pursuit of a clean energy economy the BP blowout gushes oil into the Gulf at the new estimated rate of 60,000 barrels a day. And though the president said “we can’t afford not to change how we produce and use energy -– because […]

California’s climate law in peril, Governator pissed

California’s pioneering climate law, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, is officially under threat in this November’s election. The ballot initiative known as the California Jobs Initiative, which “would halt enforcement of the Global Warming Solutions Act until the state’s unemployment rate falls to 5.5 percent or less,” on Tuesday received the necessary qualifications […]

Tricked-out cargo bikes give SUVs a run for their money

It’s been a hard few months for us fossil-fuel-addicted societies: calamity in the Gulf of Mexico; coal mining disasters in China, West Virginia, and Russia; still-frustrated attempts to win climate and clean-energy policies in Salem, Ore., Olympia, Wash., and Washington, D.C. Perhaps we’re hitting bottom? If so, catching glimpses of a life cured of addiction […]

Must-sea TV on the oil spill from Comedy Central

Staying up-to-date on the oil spill sucks a little bit less thanks to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert (and Grist!). Here are the latest offerings from Day 62 of “The Strife Aquatic.” Worth watching! [vodpod id=Video.3883267&w=425&h=350&fv=] [vodpod id=Video.16088478&w=425&h=350&fv=]

WTFood: Friendly’s Grilled Cheese Burger Melt

Since KFC introduced the Double Down earlier this year, fast food chains are tripping over themselves to slap together as many of their limited menu items as possible. In the process they’re churning out some pretty disturbing food-like substances. You can add the Grilled Cheese Burger Melt from the Friendly’s restaurant chain to the growing […]

Four BP-style extreme energy nightmares to come

The Gulf nightmare.Photo: Department of EnergyThis essay was originally published on TomDispatch and is republished here with Tom’s kind permission. On June 15, in their testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the chief executives of America’s leading oil companies argued that BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico was an aberration […]