Latest Articles
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An escaped prisoner’s natural inclinations
A while back, we ran an article on the prison-environment connection. I was reminded of it today when reading an interview with Charles Thompson about his escape last month from a Texas jail. This was the first quote from the death-row inmate: "I got to smell the trees, feel the wind in my hair, grass under my feet, see the stars at night. It took me straight back to childhood being outside on a summer night."
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Blood for oil?
The price of gas too much for you? Donate some blood and get a $5 gift card from ExxonMobil.
(Via BB)
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How South American biofuels are gaining steam, and why that freaks the U.S. out
In his drab office in the fashion-obsessed chaos of downtown Buenos Aires, Argentina, Edmundo Defferrari cuts a farmhand’s figure in a corporate man’s world. Soy is growing up down south. Photo: USDA/Keith Weller. The 28-year-old industrial engineer, in cap, jeans, and scruffy beard, taps through a PowerPoint presentation choked with graphs, statistics, and cartoon renderings […]
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The Arctic Shuffle
One:
One questioner pointed out the tepid support for ANWR from oil companies, "leading some on Wall Street to say this is more of a political issue than an energy economics issue." Another person pointed out that Norton's forecast of a million barrels a day from ANWR was "somewhat underwhelming."
If geologists were to decide that there were only three thimbles of oil beneath area 1002, there would still be something to be said for going down to get them, just to prove that this nation cannot be forever paralyzed by people wielding environmentalism as a cover for collectivism.
It's not about oil any more, it's about political power, and if they have to piss on one of the country's last untouched places to prove their wankers are bigger, they'll do it.
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An interview with Kathleen McGinty, Pennsylvania’s green go-getter
Kathleen McGinty, head of Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection, approaches the state’s environmental challenges with an optimistic “let’s-get-it-done” attitude. Early in her career, she made waves as chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality and deputy assistant to then-President Bill Clinton. After creating and heading up the first-ever White House Office on Environmental […]
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Perilous
New York City nonprofit Transportation Alternatives has produced this crazy 60-second video of a bicyclist trying to navigate a bike lane in Manhattan. Not for the faint of heart.
If you're into the whole NYC-biking-video thing, the New York Bicycling Coalition has a whole list of short video clips from around the city.
But first and foremost check out the TransAlt one, which they're using to lobby for better bike lanes.
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Arctic Refuge drilling to be attached to defense appropriations bill
Oh crap.
From Congressional Quarterly:
Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Ted Stevens said Thursday that House and Senate appropriators have agreed to attach drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to the Defense bill in conference, though it is unclear if he can muster the 60 votes needed to end a filbuster on the legislation that the move would provoke.
"We've agreed to put ANWR on it so we'll just have to wait and see what's going to happen," said Stevens, R-Alaska. "The leaders of the subcommittee on both sides have agreed. They will support it so I think it will pass."
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Stevens, a staunch supporter of energy exploration in ANWR, had outlined a gambit Wednesday to link drilling in the region to hurricane relief aid that also will likely be attached to the Defense spending measure (HR 2863) in the hope that Gulf Coast lawmakers would vote with him. Tying the measure to support for the troops makes voting to sustain a filibuster doubly hard.
House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., made it clear to Senate leaders earlier this week that ANWR drilling cannot pass in the House on the budget savings package, and suggested using the Defense Appropriations conference report as the alternate vehicle, according to a Senate GOP aide.
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Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., who voted against the Senate budget savings package largely because of his opposition to ANWR drilling, said it would put him in a difficult position if ANWR were attached to the final Defense spending bill.
"I have a clear position on ANWR. I have a clear position on supporting our troops," Coleman said.
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Some Democrats attacked Stevens' plan Thursday.
"Like Ahab, certain Republicans are so dedicated to a lost cause that they have lost their reason in the process," said Rep. Ed J. Markey, D-Mass., in a statement. Markey said adding ANWR to the Defense appropriations bill would slow down the approval of funding for the troops.
"Let us hope that those who captain the Senate will turn this ship around before it founders on a filibuster," Markey said. -
Turn the Meat Around
Conservationists pay to end hunting in western Canada wilderness The Raincoast Conservation Foundation opposes sport hunting, and it’s putting its money where its mouth is: It purchased key hunting rights to a prime wilderness area along the coast of British Columbia, and plans to end sport hunting there for good. In late November, the group […]
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Stickin’ It to the Pan
DuPont to pay $16.5 million for hiding chemical’s risks DuPont will pay $16.5 million in a settlement with the U.S. EPA for failing to report information on health and environmental risks of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a chemical used to make Teflon and other plastics. Greenies are ticked that the company won’t be forced to admit […]
