Articles by David Roberts

Stossel and Crichton, a match made in … uh …

Noted hack John Stossel has found a true brother-in-hackery.  On Dec. 10's 20/20, Stossel effusively praised Crichton's new book State of Fear (more on that here, and more to come), which purports to expose global warming as a media scare story perpetrated by Hollywood liberals and, oh, you know, all the usual winger suspects.

He offered no countervailing view (from, say, a scientist), instead interviewing a woman ready to pee her pants in fear after seeing The Day After Tomorrow -- presumably representative of the hysteria on the issue. The rest of the segment was devoted to lionizing the "brave" Crichton, who is allegedly taking a great risk by publishing this media-friendly, sensationalist execrement.  Read the whole gory story here.

Evangelicals and the earth

Grist, of course, ran the definitive story on the Christian right's relationship to environmentalism, but it wouldn't hurt to go gather additional insights from this piece by Alexander Zaitchik.  He asks, "If a slowly expanding majority of evangelical Christians in this country supports the regulation of industry to protect the environment, and if there is no clear Biblical injunction against doing so, why are the most vehement anti-environmentalists in American politics consistently found among the Christian Right?" If you guessed "close ties between the movement's national leadership and industry," well, give yourself a gold star.

Leapfrogging

"Leapfrogging" is the notion of developing countries adopting modern, sustainable technologies, without following the path the developed world took through the intervening (and highly polluting) steps of industrialization. It's a meme that's catching on, and WorldChanging has a kind of leapfrogging primer up to familiarize you with the basics.

WTF?

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg reads this post by Dave Pollard and calls it "inspiring!"  I had a somewhat different reaction, more along the lines of, "Stalinesque lunacy!"