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These Are the Times That Try Pens’ Souls

Daily Grist takes a break for Memorial Day Whether your Memorial Day holiday involves firing up the grill with friends or quietly reflecting on our soldiers’ sacrifices, we tip our cap to you. As for us, we’ll be doing a little of both, in a manner befitting our … eh, who are we kidding, we […]

Nice Berk If You Can Get It

Berkeley, Calif., goes all crazy with the green ideas Six months ago, voters in Berkeley, Calif., overwhelmingly approved a measure to reduce the city’s emissions 80 percent by 2050. Now proposals have been laid out to accomplish that goal, including requiring builders to use green materials, making landlords provide free bus passes to tenants, informing […]

Not to Mention It’s Wildly Inhumane

Critics say U.S.-Mexico border fence could threaten wildlife, cause flooding The U.S. government is moving forward with plans to build 700 miles of fencing along the Mexican border, but opposition is swelling faster than the Rio Grande after a rainstorm. This week, the International Boundary and Water Commission said the fence could not only cause […]

Goals Gone Wild

GE’s green division makes money, makes plans General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt gushed about his company’s green successes at a second-anniversary celebration for the “ecomagination” unit yesterday, noting that it had sales of $12 billion last year, has back orders for $50 billion more, and will “blow away” the original goal of $20 billion by […]

Use the Enforce, Kook

Environmental enforcement has declined under Bush, says new report Well, knock us over with a feather: since the Bush administration began running the joint, industries committing environmental violations have been investigated less, penalized less, and sued less, says a new report from watchdog group Environmental Integrity Project. The Department of Justice has filed fewer than […]

A guest essay

The following is a guest essay from Roger S. Gottlieb, Professor of philosophy at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. His books include A Greener Faith: Religious Environmentalism and our Planet’s Future and This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment. —– If you’re not depressed, a friend of mine has been saying, it’s only because you haven’t been reading […]

BP pulls out of its one actual carbon sequestration project

Everyone seems to agree that carbon sequestration is going to save us from global warming. That’s why the Scottish government announced it would have a competition, awarding the creation of an actual carbon sequestration facility with a big fat financial reward. BP spent $50 million just preparing to build such a facility. But then the […]

The media continues to prove his new book right

As I mentioned the other day, there’s a certain irony to the fact that Al Gore is out touring behind a book about the decline of reasoned public dialogue, since his emergence on the public scene inevitably elicits paroxysms of the shallowest, bitchiest, most vacuous commentary of which our punditariat is capable — and that’s […]

He ain’t fer it

So darn shrill: A leading goal of US foreign policy has long been to create a global order in which US corporations have free access to markets, resources and investment opportunities. The objective is commonly called “free trade,” a posture that collapses quickly on examination. It’s not unlike what Britain, a predecessor in world domination, […]

On moving to New Orleans, a city defined by water

Wayne Curtis is a freelance writer who’s written for The New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, American Scholar, Preservation, and American Heritage, and is the author of And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails. He recently traded Maine winters for New Orleans summers. Thursday, 24 May 2007 NEW ORLEANS, […]