Articles by David Roberts

Katrina aftermath watch, wrist-slash edition

Hey, remember Hurricane Katrina? Big storm? Wiped out a major American city and several small towns? Exposed the utter incompetence and venality of the current administration? Small taste of things to come as global warming accelerates?

Yeah, it's kind of slipped off the radar. But if you imagine the worst combination of big-money pandering, racial politics, and corruption of which politicians are capable ... that's pretty much what's going on down on the Gulf Coast at the moment. I challenge you to read this piece from Matt Taibbi and not get righteously pissed off.

This is the kind of thing that inclines me toward pessimism about the coming shocks and dislocations brought about by energy shortages and global warming. America has rallied and overcome challenges before. And it's possible we will this time too. But it seems to me that the spirit of public service and public welfare has become so denuded that there's virtually nothing left to rally. A country that could let this happen, a country so comfortable with depredations visited on the poor and weak by the wealthy and powerful ...

It does not inspire confidence.

PSA on Mongabay

The Mongabay rainforest site, an excellent educational resource for science and info on the state of the world's rainforests, has been updated and revised.

You think?

Condoleezza Rice:

We do have to do something about the energy problem. I can tell you that nothing has really taken me aback more as secretary of State than the way that the politics of energy is -- I will use the word warping -- diplomacy around the world. It has given extraordinary power to some states that are using that power in not very good ways for the international system, states that would otherwise have very little power. It is sending some states that are growing very rapidly in an all-out search for energy -- states like China, states like India -- that is really sending them into parts of the world where they've not been seen before, and challenging, I think, for our diplomacy. It is, of course, an energy supply that is still heavily dependent on hydrocarbons, which makes more difficult our desire to have growth, environmental protection and reliable energy supply all in a package.

Sierra Club investigation: Bankruptcy Bill helps corporate polluters dodge costs

The Sierra Club has an in-depth investigation up on the corporate practice of using loopholes in the horrific Bankruptcy Bill to shift the costs of pollution clean-up onto taxpayers. I haven't read the whole thing yet -- just thinking about that bill makes my stomach hurt -- but it looks to be a humdinger. Check it out.

(Carl Pope summarizes.)