EcocentricWater
It’s not the heat that might get us with climate change—it’s the humidity, so to speak. The risk of sea level rise due to melting land ice is one of the most recognized—if controversial and hard to predict—threats posed by global warming. Other potential impacts from global warming include increasingly powerful storms and …
EcocentricPolitics
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson finally got to use her parking space on Capitol Hill this morning. Jackson was the star witness at the newly Republican-run House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy and Power hearings on the proposed “Energy Tax Prevention Act.”
What’s that? You …
EcocentricOil
It’s the sort of news that would spoil an oil executive’s breakfast. Last night the Guardian reported that a cache of WikiLeaks cables from American diplomats in Saudi Arabia indicated that the Mideast country’s oil reserves could be overstated by as much as 40%. If true, that would have major implications for oil prices because the …
EcocentricUncategorized
Vice President Joe Biden earned the nickname “Amtrak Joe” not because he used to hop the rails hobo-style in his youth—that would be the Onion version of the Veep—but because he made over 7,900 commuting trips on Amtrak between Washington and his home in Wilmington during his 26-year career in the Senate. Logically, the White …
EcocentricHealth
Over on Healthland I have a post on a new online mapping project that will gather together reports of animal disease outbreaks from around the world. That data matters, and not just for vets—75% of the new, emerging and reemerging diseases affecting human beings at the start of the 21st century originated in human beings, including …
EcocentricForests
The story of the world’s forests is usually a depressing one. Tropical rain forests are under pressure in South America, Asia and Africa, threatening habitat for countless species and adding billions of tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere every year. But while the headlines can be scary, the reality is that the world may be close …
EcocentricForests
Today kicks off the UN International Year of Forests. (I know, it feels like International Polar Year just ended—probably because it was actually two years.) The event is meant to focus global attention on the plight of the world’s forests, which provide carbon sequestration, climate regulation and are host to an astounding variety …
EcocentricHealth
Cross-posted from Healthland:
When I was researching a piece last year on chemical regulation—and the lack of it in the U.S.—one of the facts I was most surprised to learn was the existence of perchlorate in the bloodstream of many Americans. That’s perchlorate as in “the main ingredient of rocket fuel.” Yes, the stuff that sends …
EcocentricEcocentric
How big is the storm that is threatening much of Australia with 190 mph winds? About this big, according to our friends at NASA:
In a way, though, it’s fortunate that the storm will be hitting a relatively rich, relatively well-off country like Australia, which is on the fortunate side of the disaster gap. Less than 3 years ago …
EcocentricOil
Back in early June, when the oil was just beginning to wash across the marshlands of southern Louisiana, then-BP CEO Tony Hayward made one of his several unfortunate PR moves. He appeared in a TV ad where he announced, with a background of fishermen and seabirds, that BP will “make this right.” At the time it seemed so absurd—the …
