Articles by David Roberts

Bamboophilia

Bamboo has become something of a fetish among green types, particularly in certain quarters. While it may not be the environmental cure-all it's sometimes made out to be, it does have a lot going for it. It regenerates in a mere three years and is endlessly adaptable.

The preceding was just an excuse to show you: 1000 Things Made of Bamboo.

It was short-sighted politics, and they’re still with us

Don't miss "The Slow Drowning of New Orleans," a knock-out piece of political history from the Washington Post's Michael Grunwald and Susan B. Glasser. I've read a lot of material lately about hurricanes and the Gulf Coast, and nothing I've seen does a better job of traversing the long history of short-sighted political blundering that made the catastrophe inevitable.

The tale begins in the 1700s, and no one -- local, state, or fed, Democrat or Republican -- ends up blameless. The details are rich and varied, but at its root the story is about government's crippling inability to deal with long-term threats.

The drowning of New Orleans was caused by complex factors of weather, geography, history, politics and engineering, but it was at heart a tragedy of priorities -- not just Vitter's, but America's. For years, it was common knowledge in Louisiana and Washington that New Orleans could be destroyed by a hurricane. But decision makers turned away from the long-term investments that might have averted a catastrophe, pursuing instead projects with more immediate payoffs. Some of those projects made the city more vulnerable.

There you have it. If you want the political logic behind it, look no further than this short passage:

Arctic refuge video

This summer, the Treasure America project went up to the Arctic Refuge in search of purely economic reasons why drilling there is a bad idea.

Watch this 12-minute video to see what they came up with.

(Hat tip to Nick Aster at TriplePundit, who tagged along with the group.)

Melting polar ice cap bodes ill — very ill

I didn't manage to get to it during the week, but don't miss this Mike Davis essay over on Tom's Dispatch. It's about the seemingly obscure subject of "nonlinearity," a word that may just end up being featured prominently on humanity's tombstone.

"Humanity, R.I.P. Should have payed attention to nonlinearity."

Specifically, it's about a study -- mentioned in Daily Grist last week -- revealing that the Arctic ice cap is melting earlier in the summer, not fully re-freezing in the winter, possibly caught in an irreversible self-reinforcing cycle, and headed to final and complete disappearance by 2060.

This is some scary shit.

First, nonlinearity: