Latest Articles
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Craigslist founder teaches us a lesson
What if everyone in America thought like Craig?
The founder of craigslist, the free social networking and classifieds Web site, said on Thursday he is not interested in selling out, a few hours after social networking site MySpace was valued at $15 billion.
"Who needs the money? We don't really care," Craig Newmark said in an interview at the Picnic '06 Cross Media Week conference here.
"If you're living comfortably, what's the point of having more?" Newmark said. -
A former fisherman responds to David Benton’s Q&A
Following Grist's Q&A with David Benton of the Marine Conservation Alliance, George Pletnikoff -- a former fisherman who now works with Greenpeace -- wrote to respond to some of Benton's points, arguing that the Alaskan fisheries are not quite the model of sustainability.
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I read with interest the article about David Benton of the Marine Conservation Alliance. The board and funders of the Marine Conservation Alliance are a veritable who's who of the industrial fisheries (mostly draggers and factory trawlers), and they have a right to their perspective. But being an Aleut from the Pribilof Islands, I have a different worldview and understanding of what is happening in Alaskan waters. I would like to respond to Benton's brave statement that Alaskan fisheries are healthy and that there are no examples of any overfishing practices. To the contrary, the examples abound.
The North Pacific Fishery Management Council manages the lucrative pollock fishery -- lucrative for the moment, that is, for one or two fishing communities and for the Seattle owners. Under the "precautionary" catch limits set by the NPFMC, three of the region's main pollock fisheries have been closed or severely limited due to overfishing: two in the Bering Sea (the Aleutian Island and Bogoslov fisheries) and one in the Gulf of Alaska (the Shelikof Strait roe fishery). Despite use of "strict guidelines," these fisheries have been decimated by the same catch formulas still in use to determine the total allowable catch for pollock in the Bering Sea.
Today, the vast majority of the fishing pressure is on the spawning aggregation in the eastern Bering Sea, home to the last pollock stock capable of supporting a sizable commercial fishery. Yet, there are no marine reserves set up to protect spawning fish. And what does the NPFMC say about this? "We use the best available science to determine total allowable catch limits."
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Battles it out with recalcitrant CNN anchor
Check out the video of Sen. James Inhofe appearing on the cable news show of Miles O'Brien, the very CNN anchor that slammed his wackadoo speech from a few weeks ago.
It's ... tense. Inhofe is courteous in that blank-eyed, sociopathic way that makes you think he'd just as soon strangle O'Brien as talk to him. "Keep smiling ..." he said at the end. Shiver.
The whole segment is a dense exchange of dueling quotes from scientific studies. At one point, Inhofe even says, "well, you have your scientific study, I have mine." As if this is just a he-said she-said thing, don't you know.
Of course O'Brien was in the right, and kudos to him for having the right studies on hand to rebut Inhofe's distortions. But more than anything this clip shows how deeply unsuited cable television is for educating viewers on these things. The barrage of science becomes white noise, and that's just what Inhofe wants.
I wish O'Brien had asked a simple question: "The overwhelming majority of climate scientists take one position. A tiny minority, many funded by fossil fuel industries, take another. Why have you, in your capacity as a U.S. Senator, chosen to champion this tiny minority so vocally?"
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Good news on ivory bills, bad news on border fence, and more
Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: Anyone Got an Extra PFD? Bluster’s Last Stand The Amazing Technicolor Dream Cote Bird Mentality Tender Loving Caribou Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: Branson With the Stars Majora League The Revolution Will Be Criticized A Bern Talking-To Engine Block
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Bush’s approval rating loooow in California
FWIW:
Bush's approval rating in California dropped to 29 percent in last week's Field Poll - even one in four Republicans says he's doing a poor job.
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Perilous state of Yellowstone’s grizzlies highlights need for solid science in policy-makin
The perilous state of Yellowstone's grizzly-bear population highlights the need for solid science in policy-making, argues Doug Honnold in this guest essay. Honnold, managing attorney of the Earthjustice Northern Rockies office, has been litigating public-interest environmental cases for more than 20 years. Some of his successful cases have led federal courts to reinstate the Clinton roadless rule, overturn the Farm Bureau's efforts to have Yellowstone wolves killed, and reject the government's grizzly bear recovery plan because of its lack of habitat standards.
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Our ability to protect and preserve wild places like Yellowstone -- indeed, our ability to protect our civilization -- turns in large part on our ability to understand the amazingly complex biological and scientific dynamics at play. We can't fight global warming or beat back avian flu or protect our families from air pollution unless we understand the science behind these issues and put it to use.
But as we've seen again and again through the annals of history, powerful political forces use corrupted science to support desired political results.
Witness the Bush administration's proposal to remove the Yellowstone grizzly bear population from the list of species protected under the Endangered Species Act. By the basic standards of fundamental ecology, that should be a non-starter because of the relatively small population size and the substantial threats the bear faces.
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There goes the neighborhood
Buried in Robert Novak's latest column is this gem:
George W. Bush moved a step closer to Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman's re-election bid in Connecticut as an independent candidate when Tom Kuhn, the president's college roommate and close friend, co-sponsored a Lieberman fund-raising luncheon Thursday in downtown Washington.
Kuhn, president of the Edison Electric Institute, raised more than $100,000 for Bush in the 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns. Also among the Lieberman event's sponsors was Rick Shelby, a longtime Republican operative who currently is executive vice president of the American Gas Association.
The luncheon's sponsors pressed fellow Republican lobbyists to pay a minimum of $1,000 a ticket. Lieberman has announced he will stay in the Democratic caucus if re-elected. But Republicans backing him against antiwar candidate Ned Lamont, the Democratic nominee, hope for a change of heart by Lieberman.Have a look at this information about the Edison Electric Institute's lobbying.
Lieberman's making his bed. Do Connecticut voters think he won't sleep in it after the election?
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Big renewable energy purchase
The headline says it all: "Wells Fargo commits to largest-ever corporate purchase of renewable energy in US."
From the press release:
Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) said today it will buy renewable energy certificates (RECs) to support generating 550 million kilowatt-hours of clean, renewable wind energy a year for three years. With this action, Wells Fargo becomes the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy in the United States according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
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The purchase will offset 40 percent of Wells Fargo’s electricity consumption with 100 percent Green-e® certified wind energy. It will help develop renewable energy and prevent the emission of 380,000 tons of carbon dioxide each year, the equivalent of reducing the CO2 emissions of 75,000 cars annually or by reducing the equivalent CO2 emissions associated with 40,000,000 gallons of gasoline each year.
