oil
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Redefining the "American way of life"Nonsense and Sensibility
It takes only the first raw scent of the smoldering piles of debris at Ground Zero and a quick glance at the guts of the blasted, black-charred remains of the World Trade Center to immediately agree with President Bush that the Sept. 11 attacks were a direct strike at what he called “the American way […]
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A review of Arctic Refuge
First, the facts. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge covers about 19 million acres in northeastern Alaska, almost all north of the Arctic Circle. It was created in 1980 by the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which renamed and more than doubled the size of an existing wildlife range, designated about 8 million acres within the refuge as wilderness, and prohibited oil and gas production in the refuge unless authorized by Congress.
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In the Pipeline of Fire
The U.S. federal agency that oversees the safety of oil and gas pipelines is too closely tied to industry and has failed to implement safety measures mandated by Congress, according to a harsh report by the General Accounting Office. Between 1990 and 1998, the proportion of enforcement actions brought by the Office of Pipeline Safety […]
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How far can clean cars take us?
I loved cars long before I knew there was any reason to worry about their effect on the environment or be concerned about the smoke that poured from their tailpipes. In the 1960s, ignorance like mine was widespread in the United States, maintained by a powerful automotive lobby and a complacent federal government. Highway congestion, though already bad, was somewhat masked by an expanding national highway grid, and most people celebrated the migration to the suburbs that the new roads aided and abetted. Cars were equated with freedom, and ads of the period showed happy vacationing families riding in roomy sedans, with the uncrowded interstate stretching out in front of them.
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Gas 'n' Uh-oh
40 percent — petroleum’s share of global energy consumed in 1998 $246 — amount spent by the author on gasoline to drive a 1987 Honda Accord 5,700 miles on a cross-country road trip from Feb. 15 to March 15, 2000 $433 — estimated amount the author would have spent if he had driven a new […]
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She Sells Carbon Credits By the Seashore
British oil giant Royal Dutch Shell today is launching an internal market to reduce the company’s carbon emissions, an effort to combat climate change and promote energy efficiency. Under its new tradable emissions permit system, businesses within the Shell group must achieve an annual 2 percent carbon reduction, either by reducing their actual emissions or […]
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An excerpt from Seven Wonders: Everyday Things for a Healthier Planet by John C. Ryan
When the Dalai Lama of Tibet met with economist John Kenneth Galbraith, he asked the Harvard professor a simple but penetrating question: "What would the world be like if everyone drove a motor car?" The Tibetan leader probably did not intend it, but his question constitutes a koan, a paradoxical riddle of Zen Buddhist tradition. A koan has no logical answer -- "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" -- but the search for a solution may lead to a flash of enlightenment.
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How Many Scientists Does It Take to Screw in a Message?
Dr. Jane Lubchenco, a marine ecologist from Oregon State University, has been elected to many scientific honors, one of which was the presidency of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science. For her presidential address at the AAAS annual meeting, she looked straight out at the huge assembly of scientists and delivered an unapologetic, […]
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Congress Is Playing the Ugly Rider Game Again
“ACTION ALERT. This week the Senate is expected to vote on an Interior Appropriations bill that has a dirty baker’s dozen of anti-environmental riders. Now is the time to step up our opposition to these undemocratic attacks on the environment.” I get so darn sick of these emails. I get sick of the whole cynical […]
