EcocentricWildlife
Usually when we’re writing about wildlife here at Ecocentric, we’re describing efforts to conserve biodiversity in the face of development, pollution and climate change. (Unless we’re just talking about big, fat marmots.) But when it comes to Canada geese, the state of New York has different ideas. The New York Times is reporting that …
EcocentricRegulation
Carbon cap-and-trade is dead—at least for this political lifetime. And while the circular firing squad among Democrats and greens has already begun, it’s worth taking a deep breath and remembering that there are other tools that can be used to deal with climate change. As TIME’s Joe Klein points out, the Supreme Court ruled more than …
EcocentricOil
With a tropical storm looking more and more likely to hit the site of BP’s blown well in the Gulf of Mexico, retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad W. Allen made a difficult decision on Thursday night. In the end, however, the evacuation order was given. The rigs and ships involved with the relief well and the containment operations began …
EcocentricPolitics
The headline has been written countless times, but this time it is true: carbon cap-and-trade of any sort will not come out of this Congress—and perhaps it never will. Instead of comprehensive economy-wide carbon cap that Senator John Kerry had urged—and that the House had already passed a year ago—or even the compromise …
EcocentricOil
While the White House, Congress and the oil industry fight over the controversial deepwater drilling moratorium, a federal judge quietly made a significant decision on the next frontier of offshore oil and gas exploration: the Arctic seas. Yesterday U.S. District judge Ralph Beistline blocked energy companies from developing oil and gas …
EcocentricOil
While the rest of us wait to see whether a brewing storm will bring oil spill containment and cleanup on BP’s spill to a halt—just when the endgame had begun—the oil industry is moving on. Yesterday four of the biggest oil companies announced they were committing $1 billion to build a rapid-response system to cleanup deepwater oil …
EcocentricEnvironmentalism
Shortly after taking office in May, Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron said that he wanted his new administration to “be the greenest government ever.” He’s not off to a good start.
On Thursday, Cameron’s Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman announced that the government will stop funding the Sustainable Development Commission …
EcocentricHealth
I had the chance to go on the Leonard Lopate show on WNYC yesterday afternoon to talk about the renewed push to regulate antibiotics used for growth promotion in farm animals. With the Food and Drug Administration now urging meat producers to limit the amount of drugs they give their animals—over concern about the rise in antibiotic …
EcocentricOil
Time to play good news/bad news on the Gulf spill once again. Good news: retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad W. Allen told reporters today that he was all but ready to authorize BP’s static kill procedure, which would involve pumping mud in through the containment cap, and that it could begin within 48 hours. If it works, the procedure …
EcocentricRegulation
Let’s put this out there first: I do not know much about cosmetics. I have deodorant and shaving cream and—because I burn in the sun faster than Robert Pattinson in Twilight—lots and lots of sunblock. The average American uses 10 personal care products a day, and I am sub-average.
But I do know that government regulation of …
