Articles by David Roberts

Electric car questions

Tomorrow I'll be chatting with the folks behind Who Killed the Electric Car? (I saw it this evening -- it's quite good.)

Any questions y'all would like me to ask?

Getting accurate information: Public or private responsibility?

An interesting debate was touched on in this thread, so I thought I'd elevate it so we can discuss it directly. Atreyger says this:

Imagine people who don't understand the [climate] science at all ... what happens is that you have a lot of hand-waving from both sides, with polarization of the pro- and con- groups who don't know what's going on and are just listening to others ...

I guess my point is that if all of us would have a better education in science and math, then this problem would be reduced.

This is a common sentiment, and there's certainly an element of truth in it: If the citizenry were better educated in basic scientific method, statistics, and logic, climate contrarianism would have a rougher time of it.

But, as Kaela put it:

‘Eco-terrorism’: This will go on your permanent record

Well this is comforting:

AUGUSTA, Maine -- State police have asked about a dozen environmental activists in Maine to provide samples of their DNA as part of an ongoing criminal investigation, police said.

Update [2006-6-8 16:28:18 by David Roberts]: See also this very good story in the L.A. Times.

David Helvarg: Blue is the new green

Happy World Ocean Day! The following is a guest essay from David Helvarg, president of the Blue Frontier Campaign and author of 50 Ways to Save the Ocean and Blue Frontier: Dispatches From America's Ocean Wilderness.

-----

Blue Is the New Green

Remember Earth Day? Very 20th century, kind of retrograde. Might as well call it Soil Day. Don't get me wrong -- I understand where this prejudice comes from. I'm a bipedal air-breather just like you. Still, on June 8, World Ocean Day, it's worth remembering that ours is a blue water planet. Seventy-one percent of the surface and 97 percent of livable habitat on this roving round space pool is saltwater.

On land, animals make their homes between the underground burrows of prairie dogs and the treetop nests of birds, maybe 300 feet of living space. The oceans, by contrast, provide habitat for living from their surface waters, where turtles munch on jellyfish (or plastic bags they mistake for jellies) down to the depths of the abyss, nearly seven miles below, in the crushing, cold, black waters of the Marianas Trench in the Pacific. Here, fish, crabs, starfish, and other creatures earn their living from marine debris raining down from above or, amazingly, get their energy from hot sulfur vents spewing from the planet's core.

Until 1977, photosynthesis of sunlight was believed to be the basis for all life in the universe. That year scientists aboard a deep-diving research submarine off the Galapagos Islands discovered sulfurous hot-water vents 8,000 feet below the surface of the sea. The area around these vents was colonized by giant red-and-white tubeworms, white crabs, clams, and other animals that contain sulfur-burning bacteria that give them an alternative means of sustaining life. Today, NASA scientists believe similar "chemosynthetic" life forms may exist around volcanic deep-water ocean vents beneath the icy crust of Jupiter's moon, Europa.