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Bingaman rebukes Lieberman’s oil disaster excuse that ‘accidents happen’

Cross-posted from the Wonk Room. Last week, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) defended the inclusion of expanded offshore drilling in the climate bill he will unveil tomorrow, brushing off the deadly Gulf disaster by saying that “accidents happen:” There were good reasons for us to put in offshore drilling, and this terrible accident is very rare […]

Disaster contingency plans are ‘fantasy documents’ when it comes to big oil spills

Lee Clarke.Am I the only one mystified — and, OK, horrified — by British Petroleum’s apparent failure to have a contingency plan in place for just the kind of worst-case scenario that happened in the Gulf on April 20? Thankfully not. “Fantasy documents” is how author and sociologist Lee Clarke describes most corporate contingency plans […]

A three-way blame game at oil-spill hearing

Here’s your 30-second wrap of the first congressional hearing on the BP Gulf oil disaster: The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hauled in executives from BP America, which leased the Deepwater Horizon rig; Transocean, which owned the rig; and America’s favorite, Halliburton, which laid cement for the rig. Executives from the three companies — […]

How to make cities more foot-friendly

Walking in heelsPhoto courtesy loungerie via FlickrOf all the commuting options available, perhaps the most overlooked is also the cleanest, healthiest, most affordable, and given to us by our mamas — feet. In a weekend column for The Washington Post, architect Roger K. Lewis outlined various steps that cities can take to make their streets […]

For the agrichemical industry, organic cotton is a pest

Like the food you eat, the clothes on your back come from somewhere. If you wear cotton, that “somewhere” is ultimately a farm (with detours at a textile mill, a clothes factory, etc). Growing vast monocrops of cotton, it turns out, is a dirty business. Globally, cotton occupies 2.4 percent of cropland — and burns […]

White flight and the urban-suburban switcheroo

Suburban ChicagoCourtesy Scorpians and Centaurs via FlickrThe idea of racially diverse American cities ringed by mostly white suburbs is essentially flip-flopping, according to the Brookings Institution’s big new demographic report, “The State of Metropolitan America.” The report draws on 2002-2008 census data to find that young, educated whites are moving into cities in record numbers. […]

The Yes Men send an intern to the Bolivia Climate Summit

Yes Man Andy Bichlbaum was in no shape for a trip to Bolivia, so a new guy made the trip.ScreengrabPrankster duo the The Yes Men sent an intern to the “people’s” climate summit in Bolivia last month, and he made a pretty entertaining video. The alternative conference, led by Bolivian President Evo Morales, skewed toward […]

The farmstead creamery advisor is IN

Gianaclis Caldwell makes aged cheese from the milk of her Nigerian Dwarf goats.  She lives in Oregon, on a 23-acre, off-the-grid farm. She has critically acclaimed cheeses, a whole lot to say about the business of making and selling your own cheese, and a new book called The Farmstead Creamery Advisor. And there’s never been […]

Political fallout from the Gulf oil spill: Hill hearings, climate-bill questions, MMS reorg

Now it’s really starting to get ugly.  Not in the Gulf of Mexico — that’s already borderline hideous — but in Washington.  The top execs of the three partners in the toppled, leaking oil rig — BP, Transocean, and Halliburton — made their first public appearances before Congress today, and while they haven’t reached screaming-cats-in-a-bag […]

Finding evidence of climate change in the caves of the American Southwest

Julia Cole finds evidence of the climate record in some fascinating places. Cole is a geologist at the University of Arizona. Most recently, her research has led her deep inside a limestone cave 50 miles southeast of Tucson. Preserved there, within stalagmites that have formed on the floor of the dark, perpetually humid cave, is […]