Articles by David Roberts

Federal judge rips EPA a new one

Over on E&E News (paid subscription only), Darren Samuelsohn reports that a federal judge has applied his boot to the derriere of the U.S. EPA:

A federal judge lashed out at U.S. EPA yesterday for pursuing industry-friendly regulations at the same time it missed statutory deadlines to control toxic air pollution from small industrial plants.

Judge Paul Friedman of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia criticized EPA for focusing on other priorities as opposed to issuing regulations that address about a third of toxic air pollution.

"EPA has been grossly delinquent in making serious efforts to comply" with the Clean Air Act, Friedman said in his 28-page opinion (PDF).

And he put some oomph behind it:

Rifkin’s in my head

Wow, this is a fantastic interview with Jeremy Rifkin. I was only peripherally aware of the guy, but damn, he's mirroring my entire worldview (no wonder I like it!). He's got the exact right idea, about sequestration and clean coal, about nuclear, about distributed generation, smart grids, you name it. I kept highlighting parts to excerpt, but I ended up highlighting the whole thing. Here's a bit:

Mooney and Nisbet on reporters, hurricanes, and climate change

Chris Mooney and Matthew C. Nisbet have a long, careful piece in Skeptical Inquirer about journalistic coverage of the global warming/hurricane link. It's the best overview of that subject I've seen, and if you're interested in the intricacies I highly recommend you give it a read.

For the lazy among you, here's the nut:

It may be time to slow this trend! To the ramparts!

NYT commentator Bob Herbert, sitting on one of the most valuable pieces of real estate in the media world, writes a column on global warming and manages to say ... nothing.

To get the flavor, check this out: