Latest Articles
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Report says EPA not doing enough to protect Mississippi River
The longest river in the United States has been abandoned by the very agency that should be protecting it, says a new report from the National Research Council. A 13-member panel assessed the Mississippi River’s health and evaluated efforts to implement the federal Clean Water Act along the waterway’s 2,300 miles. Conclusion? The U.S. EPA […]
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2007: A record-setting U.S. drought year
The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) just issued its September report -- and the West and Southeast continue to scorch:
About 43 percent of the contiguous U.S. fell in the moderate to extreme drought categories (based on the Palmer Drought Index) at the end of September.
Here is the U.S. Drought Monitor (darker = drier):
Here are some of the drought records being set around the country:
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How the nation’s breadbasket is poisoning its own water supply
In late September, the corn and soybean fields of the lower Missouri River floodplain are a lovely dull brown, nearly ready for harvest. The row crops sprawl as far as the eye can see, their regimental march broken only by levees, gravel roads, the occasional band of cottonwoods, and the endless tracks of the Burlington […]
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Right wing commentators react to Gore’s Nobel
The assault on reason Gore Photo: Eric Neitzel/WireImage. Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize was met with howls of outrage and resentment from the right, which never met anything other than war that it couldn’t drum up some howls of outrage and resentment about. The smear of choice was to mention Gore’s name in the same […]
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Nobel Prize award and Clinton highlight importance of climate science
This post is by ClimateProgress guest blogger Bill Becker, executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project.
It has been a good month so far for climate science, and a bad month for climate cynics. It has been an especially bad month for those on the Irrational Right who, for whatever reason, cannot stand the thought that Al Gore has emerged so gloriously from the grave in which they thought they had buried him forever.
"So now 'Algore' will join Yasir Arafat among the list of noble Nobel peace laureates," Rush Limbaugh lamented. By awarding Gore the prize, Limbaugh said, the Nobel committee has "rendered themselves a pure, 100 percent joke."A week earlier, Hillary Clinton issued her "Agenda to Reclaim Scientific Innovation." As president, Sen. Clinton says, she would ban political appointees from "unduly interfering with scientific conclusions and publications," tell agency heads to resist political pressure that threatens scientific integrity, and protect whistleblowers who tattle on ideologues who mess with science.
Thus, the Bush Administration suffered two loud and public slaps in the face for its suppression of science at a time when the world needs it like never before.
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States considering “toxic toy” bans
Lawmakers in nine states are working on legislation that would ban toys and child-care products that contain phthalates, toxic chemicals used as plastic softeners. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) is talking about pushing a similar bill on a national level. They’re all following the lead of legislators in California, where Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) signed a […]
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A scary pro-coal op-ed
It's said that when John Paul Jones' ship the Bonhomme Richard was in tatters, and captain of the British ship Serapis demanded his surrender, Jones cried out, "I have not yet begun to fight!" Upon which a petty officer said to himself, "There's always some dumb bastard who doesn't get the word."
Both phrases live on in the Navy, the second one probably more relevant today. They both popped into my head when I read this scary coal-boosting op-ed piece from "up Nort'" in Minnesota.
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Donald Brown on the ethical dimensions of climate change
Here’s a great 10-minute video on the ethical dimensions of climate change, by Donald Brown of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. Transcript here. (Thanks Calvin!)
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E.O. Wilson, John Updike, and others on climate change
So we've seen much of the so-called intelligentsia ignore the global warming issue when asked by the Atlantic Monthly to consider the greatest challenges to the American idea. But not all of those asked were so short-sighted.You would expect the one environmentalist they asked, Edward O. Wilson (essay below) to get it right. But what about a Harvard constitutional law professor and his policy analyst/linguist wife?
Lawrence H. Tribe and Carolyn K. Tribe: "Our greatest national challenge is to reverse the profoundly misguided course the last two presidential elections have set, while doing three things ... Third, cooperating with the international community before it is too late to restore the degraded health of our fragile planet and to protect the well-being of all its inhabitants."
Who else got it right, or partially right? John Updike, Anna Deavere Smith, and even Stephen Breyer:
John Updike: "The American idea, as I understand it, is to trust people to know their own minds and to act in their own enlightened self-interest, with a necessary respect for others ... The challenges ahead? A fury against liberal civilization by the world's poor, who have nothing to lose; a ruinous further depletion of the world's natural assets; a global warming that will change world climate and with it world geopolitics. The American idea, promulgated in a land of plenty, must prepare to sustain itself in a world of scarcity."
My point exactly!
