Climate Climate & Energy
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Critical List: Texas drought is a natural disaster; climate change causes extreme weather
After months of drought, the federal government declared 213 counties in Texas natural disasters.
Even if wildfires stay clear of Los Alamos, burning trees and heated soil contaminated with residual radiation from old nuclear tests could be a problem.
Here's the scientific explanation for why extreme weather can be connected to climate change. -
Critical List: Global warming — it's happening; Exxon funds climate deniers
In case you hadn’t heard … the world is warming up.
Exxon just can't quit climate deniers.
The Supreme Court thinks that the EPA must regulate carbon under the Clean Air Act; now it will decide if it can regulate wetlands on private property under the Clean Water Act. -
Critical List: Wildfire threatens Los Alamos; a sweet electric bike
In Arizona, the wildfire is at the edge of Los Alamos National Laboratory, which has radioactive materials and other nasty stuff on the premises. It’s all safety stored, the government says. We’re also being told that everything’s cool at that nuclear plant in Nebraska that’s knee-deep in the flooded Mississippi.
China's going to run out of water within 30 years at current rates of consumption.
More people want their own personal wind turbine, but it's not a status symbol. Yet. -
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Prepare for a world energy war
Reliance on fossil fuels could lead to 30 years of bloodshed as world powers fight over limited resources.
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Critical List: McKibben's march on Washington; speeding up permits for offshore drilling
Bill McKibben invites you to come to D.C. in August and march on the White House over and over and over again. The goal is to convince the administration that siphoning Canada's tar sands through the Keystone XL pipelines is not a good idea and also to get heat stroke.
Transocean issued a report blaming BP for the Macondo spill. A Norwegian prosecutor issued a report blaming Transocean for $1.8 billion in tax evasion.
House Republicans don't care who was to blame for the Macondo spill; they just want the EPA to approve permits for offshore drilling more quickly. Bored with this spill! Let’s start on a new one! -
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Me, on The Majority Report, talking EPA and Great Places
While David Roberts was at Netroots Nation, he dropped by to chat with Sam Seder on his radio show The Majority Report about the EPA. Take a listen.
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What is the dream behind the American Dream Movement?
Van Jones gave a speech at Netroots Nation on the "American Dream Movement." The idea is for the left to borrow from what the Tea Party has done well.
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Standing up for the EPA: the panel that’s sweeping the nation
David Roberts joined a Netroots Nation panel that included Miles Grant, Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, and Sen. Ben Cardin. You can watch it here.
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Critical List: Rich countries renege on Copenhagen promise; solar panels get cheaper
Remember when, at Copenhagen, richer countries responsible for most carbon pollution promised to supply aid to poorer countries suffering the consequences? Yeah, that's not happening.
People want to give Tony Hayward, the ex-BP head, money to buy oil and gas firms in emerging markets, perhaps because the idea of rich people fiddling with the economies of less-wealthy nations gives them warm fuzzy nostalgic feelings of colonialism.
The debt limit fight is going to kill any chance of climate legislation, forever. -
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Military spends more to air condition tents than NASA's entire budget
Steve Anderson, a retired brigadier general who was Petraeus' chief logistician in Iraq, says that the Pentagon spends $20 billion a year just to air condition tents and temporary buildings in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's more than NASA's entire annual budget. There's an easy fix, says Anderson: Spray tents with polyurethane foam. An existing $95 […]
