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What’s to do in New England?

I'm getting hitched in August (yay!) to this dashing young man, and we're talking about honeymooning in New England. Any of you Gristmill readers live in the area? Any ideas of where we should go? What we should do? Where we should stay? (No, I don't think we'll stay at your house -- but thanks for the offer.)

Any tips (eco- or otherwise) would be greatly appreciated!

Moyers and humility

In his extraordinarily humane baccalaureate address to Hamilton College, journalist Bill Moyers raises all the looming catastrophes -- peak oil, global warming, etc. And raises all the reasons for hope. And then admits that he has no $%@! idea what's going to happen.

I think all of us -- particularly, ahem, the bloggers among us -- could learn from this kind of humility:

Gore = Goebbels?

Jesus. The slime campaign against Gore is escalating even faster than I expected.

ThinkProgress -- which must have 500 interns watching every news channel and reading every publication -- brings news of the latest:

Sterling Burnett is a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, an organization that has received over $390,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998. This afternoon on Fox, Burnett compared watching Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth, to watching a movie by Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels to learn about Nazi Germany. Watch it.

Yowza.

Forget about litter. Forget about recycling. Get political.

Numerous times on this blog, I've argued that while individual behavior is not irrelevant, it certainly shouldn't be the focus of environmental advocacy. Individuals are highly constrained in their choices; substantial environmental improvement will only happen with structural changes in our laws, regulations, and business practices.

Brad Plumer makes a similar point today, drawing from Heather Rogers' Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage:

Scientists predict bad hurricanes; Robertson predicts worse

In Daily Grist today, we report that scientists are predicting another grim hurricane season -- and may even create a Category 6 for the super-intense storms of the future.

If you think that's scary, wait 'til you see what Pat Robertson says is in store!

Repent, ye Northwesterners!

Under the fold is another local-news video from YouTube, which has nothing to do with the environment but may be the single funniest thing I've ever seen.

Hook and bullet crowd worried about global warming

FieldNotes, the blog for Field & Stream magazine (!), summarizes the results of a recent poll of the hook and bullet crowd.

Here's the nut:

A survey recently conducted for the National Wildlife Federation shows an overwhelming majority of hunters and fishermen agree with the consensus in the scientific community that global warming is real, that it already is eroding their quality of life, and that it poses a definite threat to the future of two things they love: fish and wildlife.

Note that this was not a poll of liberal-leaning sportsmen; 73 percent of respondents consider themselves conservative to moderate on political issues. The survey was conducted by the research firm Responsive Management, whose client list includes numerous fish and game agencies and the National Shooting Sports Foundation (click here for a description of the methodology).

This can't be happy news in Rove-land.

Brilliant

I think I've mentioned before that I love The Poor Man. Today, once again, The Editors demonstrate a kind of crazed brilliance, this time on the subject (scroll down to the bottom) is Ronald Bailey's scrupulously "balanced" assessment of the new CEI ads.

I won't even try to summarize. Just go read it.

A handful of imaginary species are protected by real laws

Dave Shealy has spent chunks of his life trudging through the muck of the Everglades’ Big Cypress Swamp in search of a monster — a hairy, 450-pound one that can stand seven feet tall and reeks of rotten eggs. Most people think Shealy’s either crazy or a shameless publicity hound, but he couldn’t care less. […]

Americans and Climate Change: From science to values II

"Americans and Climate Change: Closing the Gap Between Science and Action" (PDF) is a report synthesizing the insights of 110 leading thinkers on how to educate and motivate the American public on the subject of global warming. Background on the report here. I'll be posting a series of excerpts (citations have been removed; see original report). If you'd like to be involved in implementing the report's recommendations, or learn more, visit the Yale Project on Climate Change website.

Below the fold is the second half of the report's second chapter, "From Science to Values." It addresses how politicians and "authentic messengers" can direct values discussions. The latter, most interesting part lists some reasons to be cautious about transitioning to values talk. I must admit to sharing some of these concerns.

How companies are driving down the impacts of shipping

We all know that planes, trains, and automobiles use gobs of fuel and spew mega-gobs of greenhouse gases and other pollutants into the atmosphere — and that makes freight transport a particularly dirty business. Your new iPod is in there somewhere. Photo: iStockphoto. The environmental impacts of shipping goods hither and yon are significant but […]