Latest Articles

The subjects of PETA and vegetarianism …

… have clearly driven you people insane.

Rates of black lung disease double in a decade

Rates of black lung disease have doubled in the last decade, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The disease, which is caused by inhaling coal dust, now occurs in almost 10 percent of coal miners who work 25 or more years underground, as opposed to about 4 percent a decade ago. […]

A must-read article from Science on the underestimation of climate change impacts

The new issue of Science has a terrific article that underscores many of the points I have been making here. Its central argument is that the scientific consensus most likely underestimates future climate change impacts, especially in the crucial area of sea-level rise and carbon-cycle feedbacks.

The authors are highly credible, led by Princeton's Michael Oppenheimer, one of the most widely published climate experts. I will excerpt the article here at length ($ub. req'd):

Me, at Discover Brilliant

From Mon. – Wed. next week, I’m going to the Discover Brilliant conference in Seattle. It will be attended by a who’s-who of smart folks working to green the utility, transportation, and technology worlds. Green geek heaven! Here’s a list of speakers. Anybody in particular you Gristies want me to chat with?

U.S. EPA falls short of fiscal-year goals for Superfund cleanup

The U.S. EPA had aimed to clean up 40 Superfund sites in the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30, but only got around to 24 of them. The Bush administration will now average 39 finished cleanups a year; just for comparison’s sake, the Clinton administration gussied up an average of 76 sites annually. More than […]

From Models to Mates

Televisionary From a solar-panel canopy to locally grown catering goods, the stars walking the recycled red carpet on Sunday will be “green with Emmy.” And speaking of modeling eco-behavior, Tyra’s banking on green as the fashion color of the season. Photo: the CW Network Everybody’s surfin’ now More than 80 surfers recently got on board […]

This week in ocean news

• the U.S. Geological Survey announced that the polar bear population could plummet to one-third of its current level by mid-century because Arctic ice is receding faster than predicted ...

• a new 350-foot super-ferry designed to go 40 mph between Hawaiian islands concerned scientists, who thought it would collide with whales and dolphins despite new cetacean-avoiding technology ...

• new DNA studies suggested that the historic population levels of Pacific gray whales far exceeded the 22,000 estimated, with researchers putting the number closer to 100,000 ...

• a six-week survey of the Yangtze River failed to turn up a single baiji, one of few dolphins species to adapt to a freshwater habitat. A survey in the 1990s turned up 13 of the dolphins ...

• an Alaskan man taped himself provoking a monk seal and her pup while vacationing in Hawaii. After he posted the video to MySpace, the man found himself under federal investigation and could receive a $25,000 fine ...

• a lake in Alaska boiled violently with methane ...

A chat with actor Morgan Freeman

It’s 6 p.m. and I’m sitting by the phone in a midtown Manhattan cubicle, waiting for Morgan Freeman to finish a round of golf in Chicago. Freeman is in the Windy City at the invitation of BMW, playing in the car company’s golf tournament and talking sustainability and hydrogen technology with Tom Purves, chair and […]

Ladies and gentlemen, Bush’s ‘scientific enquiry’ is still a sham

Every few months, if you pay close enough attention, you'll discover new and exciting ways the Bush administration is gumming up the machines of scientific inquiry. This will happen basically every time the likely results of a particular line of inquiry will be at odds with public policy as determined by the Bush administration. It's an elegant system.

And as a result, there's a quick and dirty way to find examples of meddling. For instance, while you're unlikely to find meddling in biotechnological research (non-stem cell), most government-funded environmental research will eventually be sabotaged in some way. That's the basic pattern.

The latest example comes to us from the good people at The New York Times:

An effort by the Bush administration to improve federal climate research has answered some questions but lacks a focus on impacts of changing conditions and informing those who would be most affected, a panel of experts has found ...

[T]he report cited more problems than successes in the government's research program. Of the $1.7 billion spent by the [Climate Change Science Program] on climate research each year, only about $25 million to $30 million has gone to studies of how climate change will affect human affairs, for better or worse, the report said ...

Only two of the program's 21 planned overarching reports on specific climate issues have been published in final form; only three more are in the final draft stage. And not enough effort has gone to translating advances in climate science into information that is useful to local elected officials, farmers, water managers and others who may potentially be affected by climate shifts, whatever their cause, the panel found ...

A major hindrance to progress, the panel's report said, is that the climate program's director and subordinates lack the authority to determine how money is spent.

And so on. And so on. And so on.

U.S. Transportation Secretary blames bikes for decay of roads and bridges

When one rides a bicycle, one is able to transport oneself from place to place — thus, one might call a bicycle “transportation.” But not if one is U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters. Despite the fact that 10 percent of all U.S. trips to work, school, and store happen on bike or foot, Peters said […]