Latest Articles

Nothing to Fear But Air Itself

Government fails to tend to the many left sick by the 9/11 attacks The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, left behind a grim legacy. No, we’re not talking about the violent imperial fantasies and paranoia that have gripped much of the nation, but the lingering ill health of those who worked in lower Manhattan to […]

Umbra on motivating teenagers

Dear Umbra, I’m an officer for my high school’s chapter of the National Honor Society, and we stress academic importance and help our community by doing service projects. I’m trying to get a service project going in support of the environment. Greenhouse-gas emissions and alternative fuels are some things I tried to bring up at […]

A prescient speech

Kevin Drum reprints an extraordinary speech from Al Gore in 2002 that makes, among many others, the point I tried to make here.

He says:

Food can comfort and heal us in times of grief and despair

"Enjoy every sandwich." -- Warren Zevon

As is true for so many people, 9/11 is on my mind this week. I'm thinking of the people who perished on that day in the towers: those I knew from college and high school, friends, coworkers, and of course all the strangers whose families' lives are forever altered.

I'll always remember the breathtaking beauty of that day -- an impossibly blue sky -- and how all my calls to editors in NYC suddenly stopped going through. "All the circuits to New York are busy." It was only when a friend called late in the morning that I learned about what had happened. It seemed as though everything around me was disappearing, as if I might disappear myself.

Once I had gotten through to friends and family in New York, I turned on the TV. The footage of the towers coming down over and over again made me numb, but two things caught my eye.

The first was how quickly people were able to print up and post signs asking after the fate of their loved ones. They must have been carrying pictures in their wallets.

The other was how many of the pictures were of family celebrations around food.

A Q&A

The best guide I know to the climatological consensus is soft-spoken Kelly Redmond, who helps lead the influential and wide-ranging Western Regional Climate Center. The WRCC has done a great deal of work for the US Global Change Research Program on climate change issues, such as investigating the possibility that global warming could seriously degrade the Sierra snow pack on which much of California depends for water.

But don't let all that brainpower discourage you! Although a scientist, Redmond mostly speaks in commonsense English, has a bit of the poet in him, and has long worked to help ordinary folks (and reporters) understand climate issues.

For a story on fire in Southern California, I emailed some questions to Redmond. His answers were so helpful and illuminating, I expanded the interview to a wider discussion of how climate in the Western U.S. is changing.

Congress grills BP execs on Alaska spills

BP executives were under fire in Washington, D.C., this week for failing to prevent two oil leaks that occurred earlier this year in the largest oil field in the country. The company willfully ignored pipeline corrosion and harassed employees who voiced concern, Congressional representatives say.

The first leak occurred last March, spilling 5,000 barrels of oil onto the Prudhoe Bay's western tundra. The second, in early August, forced the closure of half the oil field after further testing found significant corrosion in pipelines.

The nearly five hours of questioning on Thursday focused largely on BP's failure to monitor the pipelines with a "smart pig," a diagnostic device that detects corrosion. The eastern line had not been "pigged" since 1992, and the western line since 1998.

Abnormal fish found in Potomac River

Scientists say abnormal "intersex" fish, with both male and female characteristics, have been discovered in the Potomac River and its tributaries across the Capitol Region. Although scientists are not sure of the source of the problem, they suspect Felicity Huffman is to blame.

Ginormous earthworm discovered, may get federal protection

Here's the deal: there's a three-foot-long pink earthworm living in the Palouse region of Idaho and Washington and nowhere else on the planet. It can burrow 15 feet underground and it was re-discovered last year after scientists believed it had gone extinct. Also, it smells like a lily.

At the risk of sounding unserious: awesome!

If a mock warhead is destroyed in space and there’s no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?

In case you were wondering about the latest potentially world-ending technology, Campus Progress has a great article this week on our Ballistic Missile Defense System, its "successes," and our government's apparent failure to think practically about the future.

Last week, the Pentagon announced they had launched a rocket interceptor that successfully destroyed a mock warhead in space. This was their first successful test run in nearly four years, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

Coffee giant may be involved in deforestation in Indonesia

For being a big-ass chain, Starbucks Coffee at least has a reputation as a socially responsible big-ass chain.

They've partnered with Conservation International for their Conservation Coffee program, "to encourage environmentally sound coffee-growing practices and to improve farmer livelihoods" in Mexico, Colombia, Peru, "and other Conservation Coffee™ sites around the world" that apparently don't warrant mentioning.

They recycle "at 1,544 of our stores, of which 61 percent have a recycling program." (Side note: I'm spoiled here in hippie Seattle, but it's depressing that there are Starbucks stores "located in communities where commercial recycling facilities are not available.")

They've got a composting program, Environmental Footprint Team, and green thoughts about store design and operations.

But then there's this (it's from April -- you know, I've been busy):