Latest Articles

Umbra on pearl production

Dear Umbra, I’m nearly drowning in jewelry ideas for my valentine, but wary of mined gemstones. Do you know anything about the ecological impact of cultured pearls, or the faux “shell pearls”? Swimming to the Surface Slowly Portland, Ore. Dearest SSS, I apologize for missing your Valentine’s window, but you may have seen my wee […]

The Mustache on David Letterman

David Letterman is a national treasure. And, not for the first time, I ask you to marvel at the ability of Tom Friedman to generate a memorable aphorism for literally any point he’s trying to make. He’s like a savant or something: [vodpod id=Video.999116&w=425&h=350&fv=] (thanks LL!)

Why the USDA wants to stop local food

This is one of those "in case you missed it" kind of posts. In yesterday's New York Times, Minnesota farmer Jack Hedin wrote an op-ed that shows very clearly how the federal deck is stacked against small, sustainable, local farms and in favor of Earl Butz's "get-big-or-get-out" mentality.

The commodity farm program effectively forbids farmers who usually grow corn or the other four federally subsidized commodity crops (soybeans, rice, wheat and cotton) from trying fruit and vegetables. Because my watermelons and tomatoes had been planted on "corn base" acres, the Farm Service said, my landlords were out of compliance with the commodity program.

I never ceased to be amazed at the all-encompassing power of the Golden Rule (The One Who Has the Gold Makes the Rules).

U.K. activists will hold big protest at coal plant this summer

Activists in the U.K. have announced that an annual weeklong climate camp, held last year to protest expansion of London’s Heathrow Airport, will this summer be held at the site of a proposed coal-fired power plant in Kent. Which is not to say, of course, that they’re not still pissed about Heathrow.

The core progressive issue in the fight over climate legislation

The following post was originally published on The Nation’s guest blog, Passing Through, where I was in residence throughout February. It is a rudimentary introduction to cap-and-trade and the question of allocating permits, an argument (or three) in favor of auctioning permits, and a review of the political state of play around the question. The […]

Coal gets emBiggered

Righteous anger from author Jeff Biggers about the notion of "clean coal" — or as I call it, "clean enemy of the human race." He’s watching some of America’s oldest mountains get blown up, landscapes scarred, communities immiserated … and it doesn’t look clean to him. We’ve noted here many times that new coal is […]

A (sort of) cold January doesn’t mean climate stopped warming

I fully understand why spreaders of climate disinformation have hyped up a (sort-of) cold January as if it somehow provided scientific evidence to support their campaign to undermine the well-established scientific understanding of human-caused climate change. That's their job (literally, in many cases).

But I can't understand why the media keep treating such disinformers as if they were a genuine part of the scientific process who deserve free publicity, rather than dangerous serial misleaders who don't believe in either science and real-world observations (but who repeatedly misuse one or the other to confuse to the general public).

Our deep understanding of the climate is, as I've noted, based on hundreds of peer-reviewed studies that themselves are based on countless real-world observations over decades (and paleoclimate data extending back hundreds of thousands of years). It can't be undercut by a few weeks of cool weather -- and the really annoying thing, you may be surprised to learn, is they haven't even been remarkably cool!

So I don't understand why the usually thoughtful Andrew Revkin would enable the disinformers write an NYT article titled "Climate Skeptics Seize on Cold Spell," or the usually thoughtful WSJ blog would write a similarly misguided piece, "Little Ice Age? Cold Snap Sparks Cooling Debate." Seriously. Who cares what non-climate-related factoid or piece of pseudo-science so-called "Climate Skeptics" seize on? And the only "debate" that has been sparked is one created by the disinformers and the media.

[I will come back to the media critique at the end. In Part II I'll discuss, one more time, why they do not deserve the label "skeptics," and why I'm finally persuaded "deniers" isn't a great term. Let's call them "disinformers," for now, though a good case could be made for "would-be climate destroyers."]

Appeals court rules against Navy in sonar case

A federal appeals court on Friday upheld many restrictions on the Navy’s use of mid-frequency sonar off the coast of Southern California, reinforcing a lower court ruling from last month. President Bush had tried to exempt the Navy from the relevant environmental laws in January, but the appeals court agreed with an earlier ruling that […]

Check out Oregon PeaceWorks’ ‘5% solution to the climate crisis’

Oregon PeaceWorks, a venerable peace and social justice organization based in Salem, Oregon, has adopted a program of action to intended to help head off the next resource war(s).

It's called the "5% Solution to the Climate Crisis," and it makes explicit the link between a chaotic climate and the natural follow-on consequences, which can be summarized as "All four horsemen of the Apocalypse."

Propaganda soft-pedals sonar impacts on marine mammals

The following is a guest post from a friend of mine, Michael Stocker, director of Ocean Conservation Research. —– When it comes to national security interests, I can accept a little obfuscation by our military. But with the recent U.S. Navy press activities on the effects of active sonar on marine life, they are puttin’ […]