It is not unusual for public figures to be unhappy with how they are portrayed in the media. Sometimes their complaints are understandable, other times not so much. What is unusual is for a public figure to take legal action against a journalist. That’s because in the United States there is a very high bar…Continue Reading…
George Monbiot, Britain’s most popular environmental writer, has arrested himself. Four prominent climate scientists recently issued a pleading letter to greens to stop opposing nuclear power. And now an influential non-profit that for years has focused on climate change is all but begging that we not close down aging nuclear reactors. What the hell is going on? I…Continue Reading…
Paul Krugman’s current New York Times column on the Nevada rancher who was a folk hero to Fox news before he revealed himself to be an ugly racist will typically please liberals and infuriate conservatives. I was nodding along in agreement with Krugman’s piece until about halfway through. That’s when I came across a sentence…Continue Reading…
Twenty years ago, a hugely influential article by Robert Kaplan titled “The Coming Anarchy,” was published in The Atlantic magazine. Kaplan argued that the environment would be the “national security issue of the early twenty-first century.” He predicted that resource scarcity and ecological degradation would be destabilizing forces in the developing world, “making more and more…Continue Reading…
This tweet from today caught my eye: One picture that will convince everyone to vaccinate their kids http://t.co/cPH5cnbd9C — ThinkProgress (@thinkprogress) April 8, 2014 The smart folks at ThinkProgress seem to have missed all the media coverage of this recent study, which found that, for those already suspicious or concerned about vaccines, images of sick children…Continue Reading…
The anti-GMO troops in the United States received some unwelcome news this week from Margaret Hamburg, commissioner of the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA). At a congressional hearing on Thursday, Hamburg reiterated the FDA’s support for voluntary GMO labeling initiatives, but nothing beyond that: The way FDA has for many years interpreted the law…Continue Reading…
In the late 2000s, the notion of “clean coal” was widely panned. As Bryan Walsh wrote in a 2009 Time piece: currently there’s no economical way to capture and sequester carbon emissions from coal, and many experts doubt there ever will be. Critics in the Guardian and elsewhere dismissed “clean coal” as industry greenwash. But…Continue Reading…
The end of the world, like everything worth knowing these days, will be tweeted: NASA-funded study: industrial civilisation headed for ‘irreversible collapse’? | Nafeez Ahmed http://t.co/nWqOcD3UkB — Guardian Environment (@guardianeco) March 14, 2014 If a study with the imprimatur of a major U.S. government agency thinks civilization may soon be destined to fall apart, I…Continue Reading…
In the late 2000s, a new climate change story line emerged in the media. The seeds for this narrative were perhaps sown ten years ago, when a worst-case scenario report commissioned by the Pentagon triggered breathless headlines about a research field known as “abrupt climate change.” Perhaps you saw the 2004 movie. The sensationalist portrayal of…Continue Reading…
In the U.S. food is taken for granted. There are well-stocked supermarkets and no shortage of cookbooks and eateries to indulge appetites. This bountiful supply allows Americans to focus more on the aesthetics of food and, to an increasing degree, where and how it is produced. For the millions around the globe who do not…Continue Reading…