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Bill Moyers hearts us, and we him

Speaking of how great we are and how you ought to give us money: Bill Moyers (who we interviewed here)  loves us. He recently won the fourth annual Global Environment Citizen Award from the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School. Meryl Streep gave him the award. Here's the speech he gave (note repeated Grist kudos, not that we're bragging, which we obviously are):

Update [2005-2-10 13:17:50 by Dave Roberts]:In the speech below, Moyers repeats a quote from James Watt that appeared in this story. It now appears that Watt never said any such thing, and a correction has been posted on the story. Moyers later apologized to Watt. The rest of the story, and Moyers speech, stands.

Hey brother, can you spare a dime?

Alaska! You rock!

That's right, the rest of you 49 laggards (you too, D.C.!). Alaska is the first state to go green in the United States of Grist.

Let us explain. Yes, we're doing a fundraiser. We gotta. We're a nonprofit and we rely on your gifts to keep going.

"Well shucks," you're thinking. "I rely on Grist for all my environmental news, served with a side dish of humor. My love for the mag is more than enough to prompt me to make a donation!"

Aww, y'all are sweet. But we like to have a twist. We're just like that. This year, we're sick of seeing that damn red and blue map everywhere, and we're sick of being told that the U.S. is composed of two alien groups who can barely recognize each other any more. We happen to believe Americans share some broad goals and principles -- clean air, clean water, and healthy food come to mind. We're all about unity, folks, and we think you are too.

So donate. When the number of donations from your state reaches its number of electoral votes, it turns from red or blue to green. Let's turn the whole country green!

We'll make a point, and oh yeah, we'll be able to keep bringing you award-winning environmental coverage. It's a win-win!

Original Cinergy

Energy giant Cinergy comes out in favor of greenhouse-gas regulations For some time, enviros have been predicting that with states and other countries starting to regulate their greenhouse-gas emissions, sooner or later large energy companies in the U.S. would begin craving the predictability of consistent federal guidelines. It appears that day is upon us, as […]

Philippine Philippic

Illegal logging in Philippines contributes to flood devastation Recent storms in the Philippines have wreaked havoc on the country, with hundreds killed or missing in landslides and floods, and enviros and government officials are both taking aim at what they call a principal culprit: illegal logging. Though unusually high rainfall and the geography of the […]

The LNG and Short of It

States express outrage at LNG provision hidden in omnibus spending bill Deep in the 3,016-page, $388-billion omnibus spending bill recently approved by Congress, tucked away in a section on Federal Energy Regulatory Commission salaries and expenses, is a provision stating that the feds — not individual states — get to decide where liquid natural gas […]

Science

Is a basic understanding and appreciation of science necessary to be an environmentalist?  Does it help?  Does it matter?

I'm inclined to say Yes, an understanding of science -- not necessarily all the facts (that's a lot to ask), but certainly the basic principles of scientific inquiry -- is necessary to act effectively to preserve the natural world.

Which is why stuff like this depresses me to no end. Some 55 percent of Americans believe that God created human beings in their present form. That is to say, they do not believe in evolution. Sixty-five percent want evolution and creationism taught side-by-side in schools, and 37 percent want evolution replaced entirely by creationism in schools.

For the record: The scientific consensus on evolution is orders of magnitude more solid than that on climate change. We can quibble about the epistemological and ontological meaning of the word "fact," but to the extent that science produces any facts at all, the basic notion of evolution by natural selection is a fact. If you reject it, you are -- whether you acknowledge it or not -- rejecting science.

And if your mind's in the habit of rejecting empirical scientific data, why should you believe when scientists tell you that the climate is warming? That species are dying off? That mercury causes birth defects?

If someone wants to make the argument that science and environmentalism are separable -- that the spiritual side of environmentalism is what's important -- I'd like to hear it in comments.

Consensus

Via Chris Mooney: Naomi Oreskes has a short paper in the recent issue of Science in which she reports on her review of peer-reviewed climate science papers from 1993 to 2003.

Her results are stark: Not a single peer-reviewed scientific paper challenged the consensus that climate change is being driven by human activities. Not a single one. She concludes:

Many details about climate interactions are not well understood, and there are ample grounds for continued research to provide a better basis for understanding climate dynamics. The question of what to do about climate change is also still open. But there is a scientific consensus on the reality of anthropogenic climate change. Climate scientists have repeatedly tried to make this clear. It is time for the rest of us to listen.

Indeed.

Bush admin isn’t putting money where its mouth is on “clean coal”

When pressed on climate change, the Bush administration is fond of citing “clean coal” technology as the wave of the energy future. Even some enviros are starting to grudgingly acknowledge the technology’s potential for good. Coal: Can you dig it? Photo: NREL. But all Bush’s talk doesn’t appear to be translating into the funding needed […]

Dan Aykroyd rants about overconsumption

In an interview done to promote his (widely panned) new feel-good flick Christmas with the Kranks, Dan Aykroyd let loose his opinions on overwrought consumerism:

"[T]he common enemy in North America is the Western consumer. The consumer has driven oil up to $50 a barrel so we have to have these wars," he said. Still, he called for supporting the troops fighting those wars: "we've got to support those young men and women who are out there protecting our big fat bloated lifestyle. ... But let's take that $110 billion we're putting into conflict and put it into hydrogen cell research."

The interviewer pointed out the obvious: "But as a Hollywood success story, you're part of that whole fat bloated lifestyle." To which Aykroyd replied, "Yes, I know. I drive a V10 Ford Excursion and I have to tell folks all the time: look, I've got five kids and a dog and birds. I would have to have two Lincolns with two V8s, you see, so it would be 16 cylinders."

Lest ye judge, though, he properly disposes of his bottles and cans! "But I recycle at home. I started that with my dad in the neighborhood, we started a recycling thing that turned into quite a big thing with all the people in our neighborhood up in Canada doing bottles and cans and glasses."

Hollywood stars: throwing stones from glass houses since the sign was erected in 1923.

Hull to Pay

Delaware River oil spill elicits new criticism of single-hulled oil tankers Last weekend’s oil spill on the Delaware River — which U.S. Coast Guard officials now say may be considerably worse than previously estimated, involving up to 473,500 gallons of crude — is drawing attention to single-hulled oil tankers. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) calls them […]