Articles by David Roberts

Milloy’s attempt to fight the zeitgeist falls on its face

You many have heard a while back about a new mutual fund -- the Free Enterprise Action Fund -- headed by Junk Science proprietor and legendary hack Steven Milloy. Milloy started the fund as a way to counter what he sees as the pernicious influence of so-called socially responsible investment (SRI) initiatives, which are (obviously!) nothing more than fronts for capitalism-hatin' lefty special-interest groups. The fund launches shareholder initiatives at places like Goldman Sachs and GE demanding that the companies stop saving energy and cutting back greenhouse-gas emissions. Seriously.

Anyhoo, we didn't cover this in Daily Grist or here, 'cause really, why give cranks the attention they so desperately seek?

However, Tim Lambert has a hilarious post up today reviewing the financial performance of the fund. It is, to say the least, less than stellar.

Sweet, sweet schadenfreude.

New scheme for OPEC would make Venezuela’s oil reserves world’s largest

There's some big stuff happening in Venezuela these days. In an interview with the BBC, President Hugo Chavez announced a bid that could change the entire world oil situation. He wants OPEC to set its long-term oil target price at $50/barrel. Why? At $50, large portions of Venezuela's copious heavy crude in the Orinoco Tar Sands become economically viable, and Venezuela's official oil reserves automatically skyrocket to 312 billion barrels -- surpassing Saudi Arabia's 262 billion, currently the world's largest.

This would raise OPEC's production quotas, bring in a bucketload of new revenue to the Venezuelan government (which just renegotiated more favorable terms with several oil companies, and seized oil fields from two companies that refused to cooperate), and dramatically increase the country's influence and Chavez's stature.

The best summary I've seen is this one from Motley Fool:

Climate neutral carpet

I just got this intriguing email from Interface.

Getting climate change into the nightly weather report

Also on Salon today is a fascinating piece from Linda Baker on efforts among the meteorological community -- that is, local weathermenpersons -- to inject a little scientific education on climate change into their segments, and the resistance they're getting from the suits. The depressing thing is the consensus among everyone Baker spoke to that stories about, or even mentions of, climate change are bad for ratings. People seem really to resist having global warming inserted into what, uh, somebody (who was that, anyway?) called the "sacred mundane," the rituals of day-to-day life that give us a sense of grounding and safety. Joe Sixpack would rather climate change stay "out there," as a political or scientific issue, a public debate. He doesn't want it intruding on his private world.

That's the kind of barrier we have to get through. We have to connect climate change to the sacred mundane. And what's more mundane than the nightly weather report?

(On a related note, see Amanda's interview with the Weather Channel's climate-change specialist Heidi Cullen.)