There’s a new Gallup survey on environmental issues that will trigger a round of cheers and jeers in the climate blogosphere, depending on where you align. The main finding: With Earth Day about a month away, Americans tell Gallup they worry the most about several water-related risks and issues among nine major environmental issues. They…Continue Reading…
Global food security concerns are about to ratchet up: “There’s a lot more money to be made in cotton right now,” said Ramon Vela, a farmer here in the Texas Panhandle, as he stood in a field where he grew wheat last year, its stubble now plowed under to make way for cotton. Around the first…Continue Reading…
Charlie Petit at Science Tracker has a confession. He doesn’t think he’s the only one, either: A lot of science journalists who cover energy issues have probably gone through an infatuation stage, and then break-up, with a seductive actor: Peak Oil. It appeals to any reporter trying to cover a beat where numbers and natural…Continue Reading…
Michael Levi on why we don’t have a rational discussion: Most advocates can’t admit that there are any downsides to nuclear power. Most opponents can’t accept that nuclear power has anything going for it. But a commenter at his site, who is a Stanford law professor and energy policy expert, makes a good point about…Continue Reading…
Two former EPA administrators (under Republican Administrations) take a trip down memory lane: The air across our country is appreciably cleaner and healthier as a result of EPA regulation of trucks, buses, automobiles and large industrial sources of air pollution. There are three times the number of cars on the roads today as in 1970, yet…Continue Reading…
Via Judith Curry, I see there is an announcement for a new round of Capitol Hill-sponsored theatrics. The scheduled hearing is titled: Climate Change: Examining the processes used to create science and policy That’s going to be quite a show, given the deliberate bundling of science and policy. Roger Pielke Jr. should be able to…Continue Reading…
Long before William Cronon rocked Wisconsin Republicans’ world, he rocked mine when I read his first book, Changes in the Land. It pretty much reoriented my intellectual framework. (Another journalist seems to have had a similar experience.) Here’s the 1984 NYT review of the book that launched Cronon’s career. But I’m just a piker. There…Continue Reading…
I’m a student of environmental history. I’ve also long been interested in how humanity, society, and the environment have coevolved. Let’s take the example of fire as one of the major agents of change. As William Cronon writes in his introduction to Steve Pyne’s Fire: A brief history: The process of fire’s coevolution with humanity…Continue Reading…