As the oil spill has worsened, reporters have dug into BP’s company policies, demonstrating that the energy company often put profits well before safety throughout many parts of its operations. Exhibit A in that case was always a 2005 fire in BP’s creaking Texas City refinery, which killed 15 people—four more than died in the Deepwater …
Hurricane Alex Mucks Up the Oil Spill
At least the worst-case scenario—for once—isn’t happening in the Gulf of Mexico. When forecasters warned last week that a tropical depression was forming in the Carribean, Coast Guard officials cautioned that that they would need to shut down containment operatons over the blown well for as much as two weeks if the storm came to …
When Does a Flight Become “Binge Flying”?
In their eternal war against the scourge of carbon emissions, greens have had a tough year of it, what with the near collapse at Copenhagen, the controversies at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the slapstick comedy that is the U.S. Senate’s attempts to deal with energy policy.
But environmentalists have had some good …
Study: Cane Toads Will Thrive in Warmer World
Cane-toad fighting Australians had better brace themselves for more bad amphibious news this week. Researchers at the University of Sydney have found that the invasive, poisonous cane toad that has been goading the southern continent for the better part of the last century will have a distinct advantage as global temperatures …
Climategate Continues to Crumble
Score a win for climate science: Penn State University announced today that climate scientist Michael Mann had been cleared of all scientific misconduct charges stemming from the “climategate” emails that had been hacked from Britain’s East Anglia University last fall. Here’s the release from the folks at State College: (More on …
Why Paying Damage Claims for the Gulf Oil Spill Won’t Be Easy
It might take King Solomon to properly decide the hundreds of thousands of damage claims on the oil spill that will likely be filed before the crude is finally cleaned up. We don’t have King Solomon, but we might have the next best thing: Kenneth Feinberg, the Washington lawyer who ran the compensation fund for victims of 9/11. Feinberg …
Why Aren’t People Getting Angrier at the Gulf Oil Spill?
Over at his new blog on the New Republic, Jonathan Cohn—the TNR writer who covered health care like Darrelle Revis on a wide receiver—asks where the public outrage is on the Gulf oil spill:
Two months after the Deepwater Horizon rig first exploded, where are the marches on Washington? Where are the phone calls lighting up Capitol
…
EPA Says Dispersants OK—But Major Questions Remain
This afternoon, on Day 72 of the Gulf spill, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the results of its first round of toxicity testing on the chemical dispersants being applied to the crude. Let’s break it down good news/bad news, because that seems kind of bloggy.
Good news: the EPA’s initial tests found that the …
An Investigative News Site Gets a Web Facelift
The media is not in a good way right now. Advertising has fallen off a cliff, taking revenue with it, and even if the economy recovers, it’s far from clear that those funds will ever flow to mainstream news organizations at the level they once did as the media landscape grows more crowded. Magazines and newspapers have been cutting back …
Apple Under Pressure to Open Up on China Supply Chain
Environmental NGOs in China and the U.S. are trying to redirect the world’s fixation on the new iPhone 4 to the environmental records of the factories where it and other mobile phones and computers are built in China. In particular, the groups have been revving up pressure on Apple to answer questions about pollution regulation …