Happy Earth Day…

In America, tragedy doesn’t count unless it happens to rich New Yorkers. Think Oklahoma City vs. New York, think Kiribati, the Maldives and Seychelles vs. New York, think New Orleans vs. New York, think Port-Au-Prince vs. New York, think Detroit vs. New York; are you as sick of whining rich New Yorkers as I am? [...]

Thomas Hedges writes: “This is a very American idea,” Arne Jungjohann, a director at the Heinrich Boll Stiftung Foundation (HBSF), said at a press conference Tuesday morning in Washington, D.C. “We got this from Jimmy Carter.” Germany adopted and continued Carter’s push for energy conservation while the U.S. abandoned further efforts. The death of an [...]

A Jewish view of hurricanes

Chris Mooney wrote in 2007: Even as we act immediately to curtail short term vulnerability, every exposed coastal city needs a risk assessment that takes global warming scenarios into account…Scientists at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York have been studying that city’s vulnerability to hurricane impacts in a changing world, and [...]

David Rothkopf writes: Sandy also will batter the other elements of the region’s infrastructure, in which America has failed to invest for the past half century or so. She will destroy weakened roadways and bridges and breakwaters. She will lash ancient port facilities. She will paralyze an air-traffic control system and railway systems that lag [...]

Via What’s Up… WHAT: Fracking Waste and Ohio’s Injection Wells WHERE: West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church WHEN: Saturday, 15 September at 3:30 p.m. Teresa Mills, representative from the Buckeye Forest Council and CHEJ, will give a free (with free parking) presentation titled, “What You Need to Know About Toxic Fracking Waste and Ohio’s Injection Wells,” [...]

On Monday I had an excellent lunch with Cavana Faithwalker and his daughter at the Barroco Gill on Madison. The food was amazing (you have to try this place) but the conversation was more so. One of the topics we discussed involved a story Cav had sent me earlier involving farmers in India profiting from [...]

These are the vital elements for survival of any individual ranked in the order of which their absence is most critical under normal environmental conditions (energy moves up in temperature extremes, we tend to freeze to death pretty quickly). In the 21st century, however, energy continues to gain significance as electrical devices increasingly define access [...]

From the Burlington Free Press: Burlington[, Vermont,] police in riot gear shot protesters with what they described as “pepper balls” and “stingball pellets” as a large, peaceful demonstration turned violent and ugly Sunday afternoon. No arrests were made. It was unclear if any of the protesters were seriously injured. Six New England governors and five [...]

[Update @ 1058 on Monday, 23 July --Via John Cole: Went over to my friend Walt’s house to hang out for a little bit, and we sat on his screened in porch overlooking the creek, passed a bottle of wild turkey, and I smoked a Marlboro red that made me dizzy and sweat and think [...]

Woody Guthrie sat down to write what I’ve always believed ought to be our national anthem in 1940 in response to Irving Berlin’s God Bless America. More than 70 years later the song remain as powerful as any song can be. The first phase of the epic land battle for the soul of Riverdale, Pennsylvania [...]

From PowerLine: Yes, [President Barack Hussein] Obama played to the cheap green seats by delaying the Keystone pipeline, but the Alaska decision shows where the real action is. As the New York Times story continues: And now, the president is writing a new chapter in the nation’s unfolding energy transformation, in this case to the [...]

From Jim Sheehan at the Ohio City Bicycle Co-op: OCBC is hiring! Bike Mechanic needed! The Ohio City Bicycle Co-op needs more help to repair donated, used bikes for our education programs and retail sales. We are seeking a bike mechanics with at lease 2 seasons of professional bike shop repair experience for part- or [...]

America’s Top 10 Most-Polluted Waterways… My hometown of Marietta, Ohio, is just 80 miles downstream from No. 3 Coshocton.

1022: Heartland Institute exposed as a propaganda outfit 0834: Unintended consequences

Please quit killing trees for no good purpose… Previously… previouslyer…

From my hometown newspaper this morning: A spill of fracking wastewater in Monroe County has residents there concerned about whether officials there are prepared to handle the coming boom, as more and more contractors access shale formations deep underground. Ohio Department of Transportation officials said a truck hauling wastewater from the process of hydraulic fracturing, [...]

From the Associated Press: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday that fracking — a controversial method of improving the productivity of oil and gas wells — may be to blame for causing groundwater pollution. From The United States Environmental Protection Agency: EPA Releases Draft Findings of Pavillion, Wyoming Ground Water Investigation for Public Comment [...]