Drilling Down on Big Oil
Nice package of pieces over at Foreign Policy, all part of a special report called, “The State of Big Oil.” Worth checking out.
Author Archive
Wegman Paper Retracted, Watts Growls
Anthony Watts bites down hard on sour grapes after reading the big news yesterday in USA Today. More on that in a minute. So Dan Vergano breaks the story and offers this helpful background: The study, which appeared in 2008 in the journal Computational Statistics and Data Analysis, was headed by statistician Edward Wegman of George Mason University…Continue Reading…
The New Treaty and Arctic Gamesmanship
Last month, I wrote this post, laying out the global warming = Arctic geopolitical hot spot narrative. So it’s not exactly news to me that the latest batch of cables released by Wikileaks show, as the BBC reported, that nations are racing to “carve up” Arctic resources – oil, gas and even rubies – as…Continue Reading…
Prehistoric Art
What are the chances that someone could make a compelling movie about 30,000-year old rock art? Incredibly, Werner Herzog pulls it off with Cave of Forgotten Dreams, which I saw this weekend on the big screen. The archaeologists in the movie are terrific, and Herzog does a nice job answering all the basic questions a general…Continue Reading…
Reality Bites
Here’s news and (a headline) that is sure to rankle many in the climate and environmental communities: Obama seeks to promote more oil drilling in Alaska, offshore But it shouldn’t come as a surprise, since this is what he said during his recent “energy security” speech in March: Meeting this new goal of cutting our oil…Continue Reading…
Why Biotechnology Will Save Our Ass
If climate projections prove even partly correct in the coming decades, many areas of the planet will experience longer and nastier drought conditions. Let’s be clear: that won’t be anybody’s idea of fun in the sun. But as SciAm’s David Biello reports, for the last several years agribusiness giants like Monsanto, Pioneer and Syngenta have…Continue Reading…
Tuning Out the Latest NAS Report is Misguided
Some regular readers might be surprised to learn that I think this latest National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report, called “America’s Climate Choices,” should inspire more than a collective yawn from the media. But as Charlie Petit explains, there are institutional reasons for this: The news business is about what’s new. If a prestigious body…Continue Reading…
Morano Goes in for the Kill
If you’re Newt Gingrich, and you’re worried about your right flank, you’re thinking there’s an upside to all the grief Marc Morano is causing you: at least no family values conservatives are loudly pestering you to apologize for being a hypocrite of Olympian proportions.
A Straight Talk Revival?
This Washington Post op-ed by Senator John McCain, rebutting his fellow Republicans on the use of torture, is notable. Might it herald the return of the old McCain from the early 2000s? If so, he might also find his voice on the climate issue.
Showdown Over Fuel Efficiency
It’s coming. As Peter Whoriskey writes in the Washington Post: Over the next few months, regulators are scheduled to set the next round of U.S. fuel economy standards for [automotive] manufacturers. Among the proposals under consideration is one that would lift average fuel economy under the law to as much as 62 mpg by 2025. He…Continue Reading…