Wow. After years of bowing to his state’s all-powerful coal barons, West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller took to the floor of the Capitol Wednesday to denounce them. Rockefeller accused big coal of using scare tactics and lies to bully people over environmental regulations. And he says it’s time coal executives stopped “pining for the past” […]
Last week the Army Corps of Engineers said the southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline would likely move forward – because the pipeline would have minimal environmental impact on the scores of rivers it would cross. Minimal impact. Just days later, a similar Canadian pipeline burst on the Red Deer River of Alberta (the […]
By David Brin As this is being posted, I am at the Annual Future in Review… or FiRe … conference in Laguna Beach, California, a gathering of tech entrepreneurs and venture folk and such, where I am the regular/resident futurist scifi-guy. I’ll be helping run the “CTO Challenge.” This year’s topic – developing a plan to help […]
By Emma Newman As coal plants in the United States continue to close, local organizations around the country appear to have struck a blow to the industry. But in reality, as coal consumption decreases in our country, global demand continues to rise. A result of this shift in demand can be found in recent proposals […]
The NRDC Action Fund just released a book called Reckless: The Political Assault on the American Environment, about the House Republican majority that cast more than 200 votes against environmental safeguards last year. We aren’t the only ones dismayed by the rise in GOP extremism. Republican leaders are too. This week, two esteemed conservative thinkers published a must-read […]
By David Brin I regularly consult with various branches of our “protector caste”… from the military services and homeland security to several unnamed “agencies.” Naturally, I am encouraged by the fact that some of the most serious-minded men and women on the planet are very interested in well-grounded projections of diverse possible futures – not […]
Possibly the biggest issue this election – far beyond the environmental consequences – is how the flood of dirty energy money from the Koch Brothers is threatening American democracy (and our jobs, homes and families!). Next month, Robert Greenwald’s new expose docutmentary, Koch Brothers Exposed, will have its world premiere in New York City on […]
By David Brin Much in the news is an effort by the Koch brothers – coal barons David and Charles – to seize complete control over the Cato Institute, which has long touted itself as the leading libertarian think tank in the United States. Staffers and fellows at Cato have been beating the drums of insurrection, calling for support […]
Republicans for Environmental Protection today called on Speaker John Boehner to take up dozens of Republican-sponsored conservation and preservation measures that are pending in the GOP-led House. In its letter to the Speaker, the organization pointed to three dozen Republican-sponsored measures that await House consideration. The measures would designate scenic wilderness areas, protect free-flowing rivers, […]
By Bill McKibben Across the planet now we see ever more flooding, ever more drought, ever more storms. People are dying, communities are being wrecked — the impacts we’re already witnessing from climate change are unlike anything we have seen before. But because the globe is so big, it’s hard for most people to see […]
By David Brin Go read one of the most important books in the past twenty years, Robert Wright’s Nonzero. Our entire Enlightenment Experiment has been about positive sum games. Open-competitive Economic Markets, Science, Democracy… these are all examples of systems set up to harness competition and produce positive sum results for all.Alas, there are forces in […]
Unfortunately, the energy talk on the GOP campaign trail remains dominated by climate denial. Rick Santorum, the winner of the latest two GOP primaries, wrote an op-ed over the weekend in which he called climate change “a pseudo-science” and “a liberal orthodoxy.” Mitt Romney said last week that he had once been a “radical” on energy issues because he […]
By Bill McKibben . Cornell’s Global Labor Institute issued a big new report [PDF] this morning examining the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, the most comprehensive look yet at its economic impact. And it makes clear just how right President Obama was to block this boondoggle: It would make money for a few politically connected oil companies, but at […]
By Rocky Kistner . Natural Resources Defense Council As TransCanada announced it would begin building the southern leg of its Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline from Oklahoma to Texas—setting the stage for a new Congressional battle over the transnational pipeline—Michigan residents are worried about a massive tar sands oil spill that persists in their backyards. That’s because thousands […]
Everyone from Rick Santorum to President Obama say they want to clean up the tax code. It’s full of weird incentives that cost the government some $600 billion every year and often make little, or negative, economic sense. Ezra Klein riffs on a thread started up by David Brooks. “David Bradford, a Princeton economist, has […]