Latest Articles

Kempthorne leads list of possible replacements for Norton at Interior

The rumor mill is churning fast as Interior Secretary Gale Norton prepares to bid adieu to the Bush administration, and two names on the short list of possible replacements are leading the pack: for an outside-the-Beltway pick, Dirk Kempthorne, Republican governor of Idaho; for an inside-the-agency pick, Lynn Scarlett, currently Norton’s No. 2, who will […]

Bartlett on peak oil

Last Friday, Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) appeared in a 90-minute documentary called Oil Crash. On March 18, he'll appear in We Were Warned, a CNN documentary on the same subject.

At 4:30 EST today, CNN's "The Situation Room" (helmed by the execrable Wolf Blitzer) will air a story about Bartlett, in conjunction with the release of new poll about energy.

Also, yesterday, Bartlett made a speech on the matter before the House. In it, he quotes heavily from this 2005 report by the Army Corps of Engineers (PDF).

Anyway, Bartlett's raising the alarm. I've reprinted some excerpts from his speech below the fold.

Update [2006-3-15 15:26:41 by David Roberts]: Hm. Looks like I basically replicated an Oil Drum post. That'll teach me to start writing before I visit the ol' RSS aggregator.

Breaking dog condom news!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- Bloomington, IN - August 3, 2005 -- Dog Condoms, Inc. is announcing a voluntary recall of its Dog Condoms® canine prophylactics, due to an unacceptable failure rate reported during preliminary release in test markets. Use of these recalled condoms may result in unwanted canine pregnancies. Additionally, meat-scented Dog Condoms® may present a choking hazard, especially for smaller dogs.

You can read the rest here.

Update [2006-3-15 14:18:22 by David Roberts]: This is, of course, fake. Sigh.

What’s behind the boom in environmental film festivals?

On the final day of the Planet in Focus film festival in Toronto last fall, the packed house at the Royal Cinema felt every aching step of Jon Muir’s 2,500-kilometer trek in the documentary “Alone Across Australia.” When the death of Muir’s dog made his adventure truly a solo act, he quietly sobbed and rocked […]

Me and Barack

This Saturday, I will be meeting Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). I've been told I get exactly five minutes of his time. That's enough time for about, um, one question (actually, the way I talk, I'm lucky if I get the question itself out in five minutes).

One question.

What should it be?

Bicker Agua

World Water Forum to get controversial kickoff this week in Mexico City If you’re going to be in Mexico City on Thursday, don’t drink the water. Oh, and you might want to swing by the World Water Council’s not-very-creatively-named World Water Forum — or a protest march timed to coincide with its opening. Dozens of […]

(Tell Me Why) I Don’t Like Tuesdays

Scientists report even less Arctic ice, even more greenhouse gas In the wake of unprecedented summer melts, Arctic sea ice has failed to grow to its typical winter reach for the second year running. Researchers fear this signals — stop us if this sounds familiar — an irreversible amplification of the effects of climate change […]

Umbra on politicians and the environment

Dear Umbra, I got into a long debate with a conservative friend recently about how President Bush has shown that he does not have environmental interests at heart. But I did not have any facts on hand about detrimental policies or budget cuts. On the other hand, my friend was able to go to the […]

They’re Just Not That Into You

U.S. oil execs defend record profits — again — in Senate testimony ExxonMobil, Chevron, and the gang took another turn at the Senate’s cotillion yesterday, flirting with the Judiciary Committee and making coquettish demurrals about record profits and price gouging. Unlike November’s fete with the Senate Commerce Committee, this time oil executives were sworn in […]

Poverty and environment redux

I commend Grist's editors for this landmark series. Their efforts, along with the many great writers who have contributed, have helped exemplify one of the central themes of environmental justice:

Environmentalism in the absence of people (as both political participants and right-endowed members of the Earth community) has led to worse social and ecological conditions by concentrating the negative impacts of industrial civilization on the disempowered, while not solving the core ecological issues it set out to fix.

If this is correct, then environmental justice offers a very serious and very useful critique of our environmentalist agenda.

If, as reformers, we can face up to this difficult reality, we can begin to re-form our own movement in ways that recognize our short-comings and work to avoid them in the future.

The critique implies a question: How do we be sure to "include people as both political participants and right-endowed members of the Earth community" in our environmentalist agenda?

I believe we must. I have offered some tentative suggestions for how to do so elsewhere (I would add make all landscape decisions local in character to that list), but I would love to hear from others who are wrestling with these issues.

Peace,
Kip