Uncategorized

Just my imagination, once again…

Greenpeace is not having much luck catching illegal tuna fishermen because the fishermen are are not having much luck catching any tuna. However, you can bet they will continue to try as long as the Japanese are willing to pay $50,000 for a single large adult bluefin. You wouldn't think that one or two trips to the local sushi bar a year would help drive tuna to extinction, but that's how it works. Our biodiversity is dying a death from 6.5 billion tiny cuts. This is also why harping at consumers has such limited success. The good news is that this will free up Greenpeace resources to shadow other boats in other waters until whatever they are fishing for goes extinct.

What if our Navy, instead of wandering around killing whales and dolphins with their sonar, were to spend some of their free time helping Greenpeace enforce fishing bans?

Songbirds show high mercury levels

Conservation groups have spent the last few years fighting to make sure that FDA warnings about mercury are actually shared with consumers -- and we're starting to have some real success getting the message out. Many consumers, especially expecting mothers, now know about these warnings and are closely monitoring which -- and how much -- seafood they eat in a given week to avoid mercury contamination. But as The New York Times reports, a recent study shows that mercury has spread further than previously thought.

This "eye-opening" study tested songbirds in New York and found that every one had elevated levels of mercury -- meaning that mercury is now literally finding its way into our back yards.

Nuclear waste accumulating

The Onion: still funny.

Readers talk back about Wal-Mart, vegetarian jokes, hope for the future, and more

  Re: The Writing on the Wal-Mart Dear Editor: First let me say, I love Grist and appreciate the work you do and, mostly, enjoy the irreverent humor with which […]

Farmers’ almanac

Last Sunday, the Wichita Eagle published a long front-page feature on global warming. Not on global warming as "scientific controversy," mind you, but on global warming's potential future impacts on state agriculture (more droughts, more dryland crops), native wildlife (more armadillos, altered bird migrations), and intensified tornado seasons.

Higher temperatures mean more energy in the atmosphere. More energy means more turbulence. More turbulence means greater extremes. More heat waves like last week's. More snowstorms. More thunderstorms. More tornadoes.

Hunker down, Dorothy.

They Weren’t Kidding About the “Future” Part

Feds move forward with clean coal plant — kind of The U.S. government is moving ahead with FutureGen, a $1 billion demonstration clean coal plant — and by “moving ahead,” […]

Offshore drilling

The Progress Report has tons of good info and links on the subject of offshore drilling today:

None like it hot!

Here's the video about global warming (from the Futurama folks) that showed up in An Inconvenient Truth:

Fossil fuel morality II

I absolutely agree with David, and I'd just like to point to this article from a few days ago: The Bishop of London (Church of England) has said that needlessly contributing to global warming is a sin. This is the case whether you fly somewhere for a vacation, or simply fail to winterize your home.

Making selfish choices such as flying on holiday or buying a large car are a symptom of sin. Sin is not just a restricted list of moral mistakes. It is living a life turned in on itself where people ignore the consequences of their actions.

Zombie lies

Yesterday, Naomi Oreskes -- whose study on the scientific consensus around global warming is cited thither and yon, including in An Inconvenient Truth -- had an op-ed in the L.A. Times saying that, contra Richard Lindzen's recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, there is too consensus on global warming science.

Good lord this faux debate is tiring.