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Roughnecks have it really rough

It's harder to view oil and gas workers as disposable when their stories are told. And that's what Ray Ring does in the latest issue of High Country News. In a special report, Ring painstakingly documents the stories of oil and gas boom workers who have lost their lives and limbs in the past six years, all in the service of cheap energy. I won't quote much here, since the story simply must be read, but here's an small excerpt:

Workers get crushed by rig collapses, they fall off the steel ledges and the maze of catwalks and ladders and walkways, they get caught in spinning chains, winches and cables. Sometimes they get strangled by their own fall-protection harnesses. On or off the rigs, they handle flammables, and sometimes they get fireballed. They succumb to poisonous hydrogen sulfide, which occurs in natural gas before it's processed; one whiff is fatal. They get slammed by valves and pipes that explode under high pressure. They get hit by lightning, freeze to death and die of heat stroke, because the work takes place outside, and it goes on 24/7, 365 days a year, pretty much no matter what.

Grinding to a Halt

Changes in USDA policy could hit organic coffee hard Hold onto your latte: News is seeping out about a change at the U.S. Department of Agriculture that could affect the cost and availability of organic products from developing countries, including bananas, spices, sugar, and coffee. Normally, a farm must undergo an annual inspection to get […]

Heart of Glass

Wracked with plastic-bottle worries, parents turn to an old standby Anxious parents are snatching up glass baby bottles after a February report showed that plastic bottles can contain bisphenol A, a chemical that mimics estrogen. One website saw about a tenfold increase in glass-bottle sales before running out; a company in Ohio got 300 glassy-eyed […]

Do They Even Have Roads There?

Vermont court hears landmark vehicle-emissions case This week, the U.S. state with the fewest registered cars will take the driver’s seat in the race to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions. A Vermont court will hear a landmark case on whether the state’s adoption of a stringent California emissions law is legal. Under the Clean Air Act, states […]

Our prez nearly made a slip of the plug

The funniest news lede I've read in a long time:

Credit Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally with saving the leader of the free world from self-immolation.

Apparently, our befuddled prez was about to stick an electrical plug into the hydrogen tank of a Ford hydrogen-electric plug-in hybrid. This act, if completed, would have generated Hindenburg-esque bad publicity and probably made Cheney our next president. (Eep!)

To make the save, Mulally apparently "violated all the protocols," grabbing the president's arm and steering him away from the plug.

Maybe that's exactly what Bush needs: someone who's not afraid to step in to steer him away from stuff that's eventually going to blow up in his -- and our -- face.

Wonder if Mulally would accept a pay cut ...

How many washed-up reality stars does it take to screw the environment?

According to Ecorazzi, Kelly Osbourne became a mite confused last Thursday night en route to a party for Dita von Teese. Said party was being held at the same venue as Elle magazine's "Green Bash," and the Spawn O' Ozzy ended up on the wrong red carpet.

Her reaction when she realized her mistake? "Screw the environment."

Get in line, Kelly. Get in line.

Learning is fun

Check out this great article in the Washington Post. It explains many of the pitfalls and unintended consequences that have occurred under the EU's system and some of the challenges the US will likely face.

Philpott talks ethanol

My face may be made for radio, but I don’t especially like the way my voice sounds. Even so, I accepted an invitation to talk ethanol on today’s Sunday Salon show on Berkeley’s KPFA radio station. I’m glad I did. The host, Sandra Lupien, was very well-prepared and asked great questions. The other guests were […]

Oil diplomat or man of the people?

On the defensive after George Bush and Lula da Silva of Brazil started getting friendly over ethanol, Hugo Chavez has now backed away from plans for building a massive array of 29 ethanol plants.

His rationale tears a page from the nascent biofuel backlash movement, saying that land should be used to feed people, not to fill "rich people's cars." As with most things Chavez, this is probably largely about politics and somewhat about people: he doesn't want to be outflanked by Bush's new foothold in the region. But it's a stand that will win him points in many quarters, and he's expected to make it again later this month at a South American energy summit.

The innerworkings of it all

Those opposed to action on climate change are compelled to attack the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its reports. Not doing so would cede the scientific high-ground of the argument and essentially doom their preferred do-nothing policy approach.

One way to attack the IPCC is to describe it as a nameless bureaucracy pursuing its own political agenda, and entirely disconnected from the scientific community. For example, a report from the Fraser Institute makes this argument explicitly:

[A] compelling problem is that the Summary for Policymakers, attached to the IPCC Report, is produced, not by the scientific writers and reviewers, but by a process of negotiation among unnamed bureaucratic delegates from sponsoring governments. Their selection of material need not and may not reflect the priorities and intentions of the scientific community itself.

This argument is transparently false on several counts. First, the authors are not nameless, but are listed prominently on the first page of the Summary. In addition, they are not bureaucrats, but all have scientific credentials in the arena of climate change.