Articles by David Roberts

New mine safety official not so good on the whole mine safety thing

I have a sneaking suspicion that sometimes when I link to stuff, y'all don't herd over en masse to read it. WTF?

With that in mind, I hope the excellent Justin Rood will forgive me for just poaching this entire post from TPMmuckraker:

Haven’t bashed the guy in a while

What with Inhofe capturing all the earth-fu**ing-lunatic attention on Gristmill of late, it's been way too long since we pointed out the earth-fu**ing-lunacy of Rep. Richard "Dick" Pombo (R-Calif.). Let's look around for some Pombo bashing, shall we?

Oh, look! Here's some in the NYT:

In a little-noticed provision of the much-reviled Deep Ocean Energy Resources Act -- which the House passed in June and the Senate will take up when Congress returns -- Mr. Pombo lowered the royalty rate for oil shale from 12.5 percent to 1 percent. Should the day arrive when the price of shale oil becomes competitive, this could turn out to be an extraordinary giveaway of federal revenue (most oil shale lies under federal land) and a huge incentive to wreak environmental damage.

And here's some more in Rolling Stone, which ranks Pombo the seventh worst Congressman (only seventh?):

What’s the best balance of green and cheap?

So, I find myself in a bona fide environmental quandary. (Perhaps I should write a letter to Umbra!) My wife and I just bought a house -- we'll be moving in in a couple of weeks. A few days ago we ripped up the (tattered, cat-pee-stinking) carpet, to discover that there are not, marketing claims to the contrary, "hardwoods throughout." Most of the floor, in fact, looks like some kind of particle board.

Long story short: we need new floors throughout the house.

Big stuff could be happening

It isn't a big deal yet, but if this has a measurable effect on the coming elections, it will be seen in retrospect as a big, big deal:

Democratic strategists are joining forces with conservative evangelicals to promote a faith-based campaign on global warming, in an improbable alliance that could boost Democratic hopes of taking control of Congress.

At a news conference today, the president of the Christian Coalition and a board member of the National Assn. of Evangelicals -- both groups closely tied to the religious right -- will announce Call to Action, an effort to make global warming a front-and-center issue over the next three weeks for Christians in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Tennessee, North Carolina, Colorado and several other states with pitched election campaigns.