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{ Category Archives } Environment

Smoke. Everywhere.

I escaped the worst of the awful smoke that covers vast portions of California this week by spending some time at near 10,000′ in the Yosemite backcountry. The smoke affected the views even that high, but it was much worse at lower elevations - as I discovered on my drive home last night.
California Wildfire [...]

Speaking of the Darn Global Warming Thing

A couple interesting articles and more of the pesky reality-based evidence stuff:
Dot Earth: Federal Report Links Warming to Climate Extremes. A new federal report sees more harmful climate extremes accompanying a warming climate. [NYT > Science]
Dot Earth: Seas Rising Faster Than Realized. A new study indicates that heat held in by a building greenhouse blanket [...]

More on Drilling

Seems to be environmental politics week at this blog. Ah, well. A few more thoughts regarding the sudden interest by Republicans in drilling our way out of this energy mess.
I heard a wonderful comment on the radio yesterday, right after hearing the President blame Democrats for not being responsive to his sudden call to open [...]

More on McCain’s Race for Bush’s Third Term

From a New York Time article (’Bush to Seek an End to Ban on Oil Drilling’):
President Bush, reversing a longstanding position, will call on Congress on Wednesday to end a federal ban on offshore oil drilling…
The party’s presumptive presidential nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona, used a speech in Houston on Tuesday to say he [...]

More of the Same…

From SFGate:
McCain calls for more offshore oil drilling. Republican Sen. John McCain said Monday he supports lifting the federal moratorium on offshore drilling - a position that sets him at odds with most California officials, including his ally Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who see the ban as the best way to…
- By zcoile@sfchronicle.com (Zachary Coile). [SFGate: [...]

Rolling Back the Gas Tax?

What are they thinking?
I’m sure that the idea of “helping out the little guy” with a temporary gas tax roll-back must have played well with the McCain and Clinton focus groups, but how foolish do they think we are? If the cost of gas goes down a little bit by means of suspending this tax, [...]

If It Is Getting Warmer, How Come It Seems Colder?

The global warming skeptics will grab at almost any straw rather than see the what consensus now regards as the obvious. This includes misinterpreting some “cold” weather as “proof” that the planet couldn’t possibly be warming and that “all those silly scientists must be wrong.” Or maybe it is a global scientific conspiracy. (To what [...]

Please Make It Stop!

SFGate: Bush intervention led EPA to scale back ozone limits:
The Environmental Protection Agency weakened one part of its new limits on smog-forming ozone after an unusual, last-minute intervention by President Bush, according to documents released by the EPA.
EPA officials initially tried to set a lower seasonal limit on ozone to protect wildlife, parks and [...]

Another EPA ‘Decision’ Affected by Timidity or Meddling?

The same process that derailed the California greenhouse gas automotive regulations seems to be at work here.
The Environmental Protection Agency announced a modest tightening of the smog standard on Wednesday evening, overruling the unanimous advice of its scientific advisory council for a more protective standard.
The standard, stated in terms of average concentrations of ozone at [...]

All Dried Up?

Thanks to Tom at Fluid Flow for referencing this story on his blog…
Lake Mead May Go Dry by 2021:
The disappearance of the manmade lake would create a tidal wave of ill effects for the southwestern U.S. The lake provides water for large cities like Los Angeles and Las Vegas, as well as for several agricultural [...]