Articles by David Roberts

Interview with Mike Davis

There's some pretty shocking stuff in this Tom Engelhardt interview with Mike Davis, author of City of Quartz and, most recently, Planet of Slums. It's about the extraordinary growth of urban slums filled with people unconnected to the global economy, and with no prospect of connecting. He calls it "urbanization without urbanity."

It's part one of a two-parter. Here's a little taste:

White tags

Hey, this is kind of cool. A company called Sterling Planet has created what they're calling "white tags." Just as green tags are based on the creation and use of clean energy, white tags are awarded based on targets for saving energy. In other words, they're energy-efficiency credits.

I hope this takes off. Energy efficiency is a huge source of free, clean energy, and some well-targeted incentives could kickstart a process that would eventually take on a life of its own.

Climate coverage in the NYT

Maximum Leader Chip flagged this defense of the New York Times' climate coverage by science editor Laura Chang. He thinks it's very lame; I tend to think it's just medium lame.

The NYT's climate coverage is actually quite good relative to other U.S. media, but, as a reader points out, a little tepid compared to, say, the BBC's.

The fact is that no media has figured out how to cover the climate crisis well. As the NYT's Andy Revkin is always quick to point out, it's "the antithesis of traditional news." But here's a suggestion, one Chang and Revkin both skip over: How about moving climate coverage off the science pages?

Even conservative estimates of average-global-temperature increase would mean substantial effects on all of society -- the economy, security, health, and so on. Project the issue past the science geeks, I say. Get it out into the real, day-to-day world.

NYT/CBS poll results

Bush haters will find much to celebrate in the latest NYT/CBS poll (write-up here; full results in PDF form here). Bush's approval ranking is tanking, overall -- 31%, the third lowest of any president in 50 years, behind Nixon and Carter -- and on virtually every individual issue, including the war in Iraq and terrorism.

Enviros, however, have reason for glumness. Question three is: "What do you think is the most important problem facing this country today?" 14% chose the cryptic "heating oil/gas crisis." The equally vague "environment" garnered an underwhelming 1%. And global warming? Wasn't even on the list. The big winner was "war," with 19%.

Even more glumly, a majority approves of plans to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, by 48-45%.

On the subject of global warming, how much do I hate this question?