In 2007, I wrote a cover story for Audubon magazine about Wyoming’s imperiled sage grouse population. New research had shown that the iconic bird avoided using habitat in the vicinity of roads, gas wells and other related energy infrastructure. All the noise and traffic was a big turnoff. As the scientist who led one of…Continue Reading…
In a recent post and comment elsewhere, I have suggested that better communication will not be enough to convince the masses to embrace climate change as an urgent concern. The philosopher Alain de Botton comes to the same conclusion is this elegant essay: The role of the commentator on the environment is at one level…Continue Reading…
And some climate activists chided me for making hay out of the Mojave desert/renewable energy controversy. Looks like Romm is taking on Feinstein over this and in doing so, he’s ignited a zesty debate among his loyalists, revealing a green schism that is sure to grow wider and nastier. Or has it already? Craig Goodrich,…Continue Reading…
The controversial wind farm proposed off of Cape Cod, in Massachusetts, will have to overcome yet another hurdle, this latest one thrown up by the National Park Service, which announced yesterday that the Nantucket Sound was eligible to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It’s an extraordinary ruling on several levels, which…Continue Reading…
As with wildfires, floods, and drought, connecting the dots between anthropogenic climate change and human migration is difficult. So I admire a story that explores the likely prospect of climate-driven refugees through the lens of recent environmental disasters. Joanna Kakissis pulls it off in this superb NYT story. I got to know Joanna last year,…Continue Reading…
I love it. The blogger who goes on endlessly in blog posts inveighs against tweeting: Journalists simply shouldn’t be twittering on science or other subjects that require more than 140 characters to discuss intelligently, which is pretty much every topic. It makes total sense: it often takes Romm thousands of words to make the same…Continue Reading…
During George W. Bush’s two terms, environmentalists and archaeologists complained (with justification) that the oil & gas industry was allowed to run roughshod over Western public lands. I wrote a bunch about this for numerous magazines, from Audubon and Mother Jones to High Country News and Archaeology. The same question arose in all these stories:…Continue Reading…
In a short, snappy video interview with Nature, Stanford climatologist Stephen Schneider veers between hope, resignation, and realism. He makes a good case for what can be salvaged from Copenhagen, and why that matters. Along those lines, he offers this clever twist on an over-used phrase: We can’t let the perfect be the enemy of…Continue Reading…