Articles by David Roberts

American Prospect on a green economy

I haven't read all (or even most) of it yet, but I feel obliged to direct you to a special edition of American Prospect on the subject of a post-petroleum economy. Much of it is behind a subscription wall (go ahead, subscribe), but David Morris' piece on the carbohydrate economy is free to read, and a mind-blower. At least it blew my mind a little. I'm still processing it -- may post something later.

What’s your Burley score?

Alan Durning wants to know: What's your Burley score?

The Burley in question is an old bike trailer. The Durning family uses it when they walk around their neighborhood, to carry groceries, broken vacuum cleaners, whatever. (Their car was recently totaled.) They can get about a mile from home comfortably, towing the Burley.

Within a mile of the Durning household are 248 businesses. That's his Burley score: 248.

What's yours?

(Check out Alan's post for instructions on calculating your score. Mine happens to be identical to his, since apparently we live mere blocks from one another.)

McGavick: Alaska’s choice for Washington

Supporters of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge loathe Washington Senator Maria Cantwell, their most tenacious and successful foe. And no one loathes her more than the Alaskan Congressional delegation.

In a week or so, they are holding a big fundraiser for Republican Senate candidate Mike McGavick, who's challenging Cantwell in November:

Yipee, we’re all gonna die!

All you biocentrists have a new hero.

Particularly amusing was this understated student evaluation:

Though I agree that conservation biology is of utmost importance to the world, I do not think that preaching that 90 percent of the human population should die of Ebola is the most effective means of encouraging conservation awareness.

(via Drudge)

Update [2006-4-5 12:39:2 by David Roberts]: Well, dammit. I had a bad feeling about posting this, but it seemed like the kind of juicy thing that would start discussion. Now it seems I was a dupe. Via Andrew Sullivan, I see that the big stink being raised over this professor was started by an anti-evolutionist kook, and that the professor's words have been twisted and stripped of context. Let this be a lesson to all of you (OK, to me) about the dangers of speed blogging. Pharyngula has more.