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Endangered Rep. tones down committee website

It seems Richard Pombo has decided that using the House Resources Committee website as a dumping ground for anti-environmental talking points may be something of a liability. Or maybe he just thought the new techno design was nifty. You can still read about ANWR and the future of American energy, but some of the more propaganda-ish pages have come down.

I don't know if endangered species can truly "adapt" when their habitats are threatened, but they may try to shed skin.

Worldwatch releases a hopeful plan for saving the world’s fish.

There's no shortage of reasons it would really suck if present trends continued and the world's oceans stopped supporting a robust fish population.

For one, it would deal a devastating blow to human nutrition and cuisine. The sea provides us with high-quality protein and many other valuable nutrients. Poof? Gone? (Don't be smug, vegans. Fish emulsion -- ground-up fish -- is a common and valuable input for organic vegetable farming.)

As for cuisine, can anyone really bear to contemplate Southeast Asian food without fish? Then there's Italian. No spaghetti alle vongole (clams)? Or that immortal Sicilian dish, pasta con sarde (sardines)? What, the southern French won't get to make bouillabaisse, the Basques will be robbed of their cod, the coastal Mexicans can no longer do hauchinango al mojo de ajo (garlic-crusted red snapper)? What will become of Vera Cruz? Of New Orleans?

No. This is wholly unacceptable. It won't do. Such a world does not interest me. Present trends must not continue; they must end immediately.

So says a dumb article

I used this picture in an earlier article -- forgive me. It is just so appropriate to this topic. Anyway, that particular Homo sapiens hugging the dolphin carries my genes into the future.

Speaking of genes, researchers have caught a dolphin with residual back legs. I chose this particular article over the others because it is, well, asinine. I am not particularly empathetic with the excesses of the animals rights movement, but this article makes abso-fricken-lutely no sense. The author lost me immediately when she suggested that these fins will somehow "prove mammals know more than animal rights activists about the Animal Kingdom." Correct me if I am wrong, but animal rights activists also give birth to live young and then nourish them with breast milk. If you send her an email, please, be nice. Don't reinforce her warped image with aggressive and rude diatribes (like this one). God help her, she obviously just isn't that bright.

‘Global warming stopped in 1998’–Only if you flagrantly cherry pick

(Part of the How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic guide)

Objection: Global temperatures have been trending down since 1998. Global warming is over.

Answer: At the time, 1998 was a record high year in both the CRU and the NASA GISS analyses. In fact, it blew away the previous record by .2 degrees C. (That previous record went all the way back to 1997, by the way!)

According to NASA, it was elevated far above the trend line because 1998 was the year of the strongest El Nino of the century. Choosing that year as a starting point is a classic cherry pick and demonstrates why it is necessary to remove chaotic year-to year-variability (aka: weather) by smoothing out the data. Looking at CRU's graph below, you can see the result of that smoothing in black.

Looks like she might make it

It looks like Jennifer "alternative fuels" Granholm is going to pull it out in Michigan.

Just may be going down

Larry J. Sabato's crystal ball:

November 6, 2006 Update:

Jerry McNerney (D) will unseat Rep. Richard Pombo (R). Our sources on the ground tell us that momentum is firmly in McNerney's court and that late campaign help from Bill Clinton and scores of environmental groups is giving Resources Committee Chair Pombo a run for his money. Schwarzenegger's get-out-the-vote operation may yet save Pombo, but we will go out on a limb and tap McNerney to win in an upset.

Not green

Virginia's George Allen, better known for other offenses, also has Senate's worst lifetime voting record (PDF) on green affairs, as measured by the League of Conservation Voters. Watch out for that tree.

Am I the only one …

... stressed out to the point of physical illness about tomorrow?

In other news, remember that big kerfuffle over the Sierra Club endorsing Republican Lincoln Chafee? Well, it looks like Chafee's going to win by a narrow margin -- but according to at least one report, he may not be a Republican for long ...

Cliff’s Notes on saving corals and mangroves

Yo-ho-ho mateys! Me hopes ye've not yet thrown ye-selves to Davey Jones' locker over the depressing fishy news of late. Begad, buckos, I could cry enough tears to fill me empty noggin o' rum twice over ... not that I did, mind ye ... it's just the ol' patch makes me eye water a bit. Arrr ...

But in the interest of putting a positive spin on things, I point you to the climate survival guides recently published by two major conservation groups. One focuses on coral reefs -- the "tropical rainforests of the ocean" -- and the other on mangroves -- actual forests near the oceans (confused yet?). And both offer strategies that could protect these fragile ecosystems in the wake of climate change -- even if we can't reverse climate change itself. Think of the reports as wonkier versions of the Worst Case Scenario Handbook.

Eric Ritz, youth-activism promoter, answers Grist’s questions

What work do you do? I’m the founder and executive director of Global Inheritance. What does your organization do? We reinvent activism for today’s young generation. Our initiatives focus on the power of creativity to communicate and push for progressive social change while rejecting conflict. Global Inheritance targets various subcultures, developing campaigns that cater specifically […]