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Encouraging Words
The Guardian, over there across the pond, has just published a splendid piece that should help put to rest some misconceptions about the ease, expense, and possibility of converting the world to a sustanable/green/you name it energy system. The writer is Chris Goodall, author of Ten Technologies to Save the Planet. He lays it all out…
Read MoreBeetle battle: NY Times Misses Beetle / Warming Link
One of the good things about the Web is that it increases accountability. Those questioning the so-called "mainstream media" (MSM) don’t have to hope that a stingy editor will find a few column inches to publish an op-ed to have their views heard. So while I’m a regular reader of The New York Times, I was happy…
Read MoreTurkeys and Lame Ducks
Joe Klein (author of Primary Colors, the scathing send-up of the Clinton years) gives President Bush quite a valedictory send-off today in the pages of TIME magazine. Besides distaste for President Bush’s "intellectual laziness," Klein lists a number of environmental actions that could be taken now in the final weeks of the Bush administration. Sadly, none…
Read MorePardon Me
It appears that Compassionate Conservatism, the muddled sound bite that was supposed to guide activities early in the reign of George II, has made a comeback, at least insofar as it applies to killers of wildlife. On November 24, right before Thanksgiving and right after Sarah Palin pardoned a holiday turkey and then proceeded to…
Read MoreBush's National Symbol: Dead Bald Eagles
We expected the worst for the environment from a Bush presidency. And he has never worked harder to meet our expectations than in these last few months. The list of misdeeds is long, and probably sadly familiar. Some of W’s parting shots include: – Gutting key protection in the Endangered Species Act. – Opening millions of…
Read MoreNew Generation Takes Direct Action Against King Coal
The coal industry, whose schemes for scores of dirty new power plants are being challenged in the courts by Earthjustice and other organizations, is also under siege by a new generation of protesters whose favored tactic is nonviolent direct action. Earlier this year, Al Gore issued a call to action—"I believe we’ve reached the stage…
Read MoreThe Obama Dawning
This blog posting by Earthjustice President Trip Van Noppen appeared this week in Celsias. For all Americans who care about our environment, which is most of us, a hopeful dawn broke with the election of Barack Obama. During the last eight years the administration did everything it could to privatize the great natural areas in…
Read MoreThere's No Bailing Out Nature
Mathis Wackernagel of the Global Footprint Network had an important (and scary) piece in the San Francisco Chronicle the other day that one hopes the new administration and the new Congress will take note of. Using data from the United Nations and elsewhere, Wackernagel reports that we’ve been overdrawing nature ever since about 1970. That…
Read MoreEnding A Flood of Waste in Florida
Smack in the middle of a groundwater shortage that had Southwest Florida officials begging people to use as little water as possible, agricultural operations opened their pumps wide and flooded millions of gallons of water wastefully over their fields. They had legal permits to do this, permits issued by the Southwest Florida Water Management District,…
Read MoreVoodoo Economics?
Now let’s see if I’ve got this straight. Thanks to two very expensive wars, tax cuts for people who don’t need them, and assorted combinations of malfeasance and corruption, the federal budget deficit is at an all-time high and growing like kudzu. So what’s the response to the financial and monetary crisis? Why bailouts, of…
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