Articles by David Roberts

More death

Speaking of the death of environmentalism, there's a good post and discussion of the issue over on greenState, which I shall be adding forthwith to our blogroll.

China

Here's a worthwhile David R. Francis editorial about China's growing demand for oil. It's another reminder that environmentalists who really care about the fate of the earth -- the entire earth, not just their favorite camping spot out West -- can do nothing more valuable than trying to make sure that China does not follow the same development path as the U.S. and Europe. This means lobbying the Chinese government not only to adopt aggressive conservation and renewable energy programs, but also to open up the free flow of information, in the press and particularly on the internet. A vigorous exchange of information inside the country can lead, through the distributed efforts of thousands of concerned citizens who experience those problems directly, to the development of innovative energy, resource, and conservation solutions. Despite the fond hopes of China's ruling elite, sustainable economic development is not feasible without the simultaneous development of an open democratic culture. Bottom-up, distributed, openly shared solutions are China's best hope of leapfrogging.

Perchlorate

We get lots and lots of press releases here. Occasionally I like to pass one along.

Earlier this month, virtually every paper in the nation published a story on a National Academy of Sciences report on the rocket-fuel ingredient perchlorate. The report, they claimed, showed that perchlorate is some 20 times safer than U.S. EPA estimates, which could save businessses millions.

But according to the Environmental Working Group, this isn't actually what the report said. Read on:

Dimming hopes

Let's get one thing straight: Grist was into global dimming before global dimming was cool.

Now: A BBC documentary is pushing, with great hype (not to say hysterics), the notion that efforts to reduce fossil fuel use will reverse global dimming and thus -- irony! -- accelerate global warming. I have already grumpily blogged this once. Now the folks over at RealClimate, about whose site I use the adjective "indispensable" with numbing regularity, have addressed the subject, saying, in effect, Slow down, cowboy! We don't really know that much about dimming.

Now that some perspective has been added to the hype, I'm certain that wingnuts will stop forwarding around the new dimming stories as proof that driving SUVs is a virtue. Right?

Update [2005-1-21 15:17:39 by Dave Roberts]: More from RealClimate.