This morning, Michael Shellenberger assessed the cratering political landscape for cap-and-trade legislation, and his analysis strikes me as an accurate picture of where things stand now. Among the many he took to task was the President: If there is a strategy coming from the White House, it’s not obvious what it is. Well, a few…Continue Reading…
On the Media’s Bob Garfield recently discussed the NY Times magazine’s Freeman Dyson profile with Joe Romm. You can count on Romenesko to capture the best moment in the exchange: ROMM: What The New York Times Magazine has done is elevate Dyson to a very high degree of credibility as a highly credible source on…Continue Reading…
Here’s the understated yet majestic lede in this poignant essay by Laura Paskus in the current issue of High Country News: On the outskirts of Albuquerque, the desert has surrendered the bones of 12 young women. I’m a little uneasy with the larger theme of the piece, though, mainly because I think violence to women…Continue Reading…
This is a ticking time bomb for Mexico, a greater long-term threat to the country’s sociopolitical stability than the drug cartels.
This new poll of climate scientists by The Guardian will raise many an eyebrow. If the quotes in the article reflect where the climate science community is heading, get ready for an ugly debate that will probably split the environmental community. The mitigation crowd has already boarded its freight train. If the adaptation crowd gets…Continue Reading…
No environmental issue, other than global warming, generates as much controversy and misguided rhetoric as overpopulation. (The disclaimer at the top of the Wikipedia entry that I link to speaks for itself.) The population issue has loomed so large in the environmental movement that greens these days have a tendency to consider it part of…Continue Reading…
Some months ago, Joseph Tainter published a withering essay entitled, “Collapse, Sustainability, and the Environment: How Authors Choose to Fail or Succeed.” The title is a clever play off of Jared Diamond’s 2005 best-seller. Anyone interested in an overview of collapse literature and a counter-perspective to the current popularizing of the concept should read Tainter’s…Continue Reading…
I doubt anyone walks away from an Arlo Guthrie concert disappointed. He’s too entertaining a storyteller, and many of his punch lines are masterfully timed. And then there’s the music. Tonight, I saw him at the Boulder theater and in addition to his own stuff (to borrow a favorite Guthrie word), he ranged from Leadbelly…Continue Reading…
I’m sympathetic to this farmer, who is responding to new neighbors that left the city for greener pastures: When you live in the country, sometimes it smells. Sometimes it’s noisy. Sometimes it’s dusty. Sometimes there’s cattle that cry all night for their mothers. We’re doing nothing wrong. We’re doing nothing we haven’t been doing. But…Continue Reading…
As I pulled into the supermarket today, a classic from The Cranberries came on the car radio. Because I had a rare few minutes of alone time, (parents of young children will surely understand), I stayed in the car to listen to the song, appropriately titled, “Linger.” Like coming across those stories that grab our…Continue Reading…