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…
Being in the moment.
Nothing seems to shake the climate rafters like a fierce debate over the labels that combatants use to smack each other around. Although this thread from yesterday is still going strong, I thought I would break out a comment that rises above the scrum: My belief is that those who are affected most negatively by the…Continue Reading…
This is painful to rehash, but I want to draw your attention to a streak of foreign policy ignorance that persisted in the 2000s. On a related (and more recent) note, four days after President Obama authorized a military campaign against Libya, I found this headline disconcerting: Who are the Libyan Rebels? U.S. tries to…Continue Reading…
Whether you believe the term”climate denier” is used accurately or unfairly in the climate debate, I’d be curious to hear what you think of this headline atop Andrew Bolt’s latest column: Six million Jews didn’t die so Combet could smear a sceptic
It wasn’t that long ago that George Monbiot was accusing Stewart Brand of running the most insidious and subtle exercise in corporate propaganda I have yet encountered. I thought it was a tad hyperbolic. But that was then. It turns out that both of these environmentalist icons share remarkably similar views on nuclear power, coal, and…Continue Reading…
It would be so entertaining, wouldn’t it? Can someone please cut through the BS for me and explain what is going on with their dueling posts on this Berkley Earth Temperature Station business? Romm’s latest contains not one but two “bombshells,” a “wow” and a “double wow.” He also says that he meant all along to…Continue Reading…
From Bloomberg News: Saudi Aramco and China National Petroleum Corp. agreed to build a 200,000 barrel-a-day refinery in southern China as producers seek to meet rising fuel demand in the world’s fastest-growing major economy. Same. As. It. Ever. Was. Might as well enjoy this classic from one of the best concert movies evah.
Pinetop Perkins, who just passed away at the age of 97, was one of those ageless blues musicians. Jeez, I first saw him over two decades ago at the old Lone Star Cafe in Manhattan (I miss that iguana on the roof!). Here he is going strong at 95. Here’s how he lived life in his…Continue Reading…
If you thought assigning attribution of individual weather disasters to global climate change was tricky business, imagine trying to establish a causal link between specific ecological problems and global warming. In this commentary in Nature Climate Change, ecologist Camille Parmesan and her co-authors suggest not going there. It’s not that they think global warming doesn’t adversely…Continue Reading…