Strange bedfellows in a case before SCOTUS on Wednesday, which involves the president declining to exercise a lawful power in an international environmental dispute.
Strange bedfellows in a case before SCOTUS on Wednesday, which involves the president declining to exercise a lawful power in an international environmental dispute.
Entrepreneurs are leveraging technology, including smartphone apps, to accomplish what bureaucracies are incapable of achieving alone.
Plus, Elon Musk steps in it.
B.D. McClay reviews Daisy Hildyard's 'The Second Body'—a thought experiment in how we relate to the world.
In August, Oliver Schmidt pled guilty to helping Volkswagen evade clean air laws with special software that tricked emissions tests. The software worked even with cars whose emissions were 30 times higher than normally allowed.
For 37 years, efforts to open the remote Alaskan tundra known as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling for oil and natural gas got nowhere. It’s a barren, uninhabitable area that looks like the surface of an asteroid. But environmental groups and their Democratic allies treated it like a…
Every Sunday evening, the press office at the Environmental Protection Agency receives emails from the New York Times and Politico asking for EPA administrator Scott Pruitt’s public schedule for the coming week. The press office ignores the emails.
Breaking news from the international environment beat: China last month launched a new electric-powered cargo ship from the southern port city of Guangzhou, according to the international business publication Quartz.
Sunday Hill Farm, Wiltshire
Midway through the remarkable new documentary Jane comes a scene that could stand for its whole improbable story. Twenty-something Jane Goodall, not yet a credentialed scientist but doing the work of several, sits with a telescope on the floor of an African forest watching chimpanzees in a tree,…
In a desperate ploy for attention to their newish, clickbaity opinion section, THINK (check out the “hot take” rubric on its description of the GOP tax plan as a “dumpster fire”), NBC News has turned to a reliable source of outrage with a column by Travis Reider titled, “Science proves kids are bad…
The generic, everyday name is “bear can.” The original model of the bear-resistant food container, pioneered by Garcia Machine Inc., is a black cylinder with countersunk lid, unsmashable, too large to be carried off in a bear’s mouth, with a blank surface that offers no purchase for paws or claws.…
In 1971, when Congress passed the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act, the aim was to protect the animals from “capture, branding, harassment, or death.” The law hailed wild horses as “living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West.”
Bisbee, Arizona, is at the center of a jurisdictional tussle with the state government, a kerfuffle that may prove whether there’s room in a conservative state for local self-determination—even liberal local self-determination.
Bisbee, Arizona, is at the center of a jurisdictional tussle with the state government, a kerfuffle that may prove whether there’s room in a conservative state for local self-determination—even liberal local self-determination.
"The battle to feed all of humanity is over.” The opening line to Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 jeremiad The Population Bomb is a sober one. “In the 1970s the world will undergo famines—hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death.”
"The battle to feed all of humanity is over.” The opening line to Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 jeremiad The Population Bomb is a sober one. “In the 1970s the world will undergo famines—hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death.”
A barrel of crude oil was trading at around $48 at the end of last week. For a generous segment of the population, this is good news. Commuters will spend less on gas and have more to spend on, say, the things that Amazon Prime can deliver to their front doors. And, of course, Jeff Bezos will be…
The New York Times really, really wants you to behave yourself environmentally on your travels this summer. In March the paper published "How to Have a Green Vacation." Come May (for those who may not have been paying sufficient attention in March) the Times published "Greening Your Summer…
President Donald Trump stated on Thursday that the United States would pull out of the Paris climate agreement, saying that it would not only help the economy of the United States but act as "a reassertion of America's sovereignty."
California tries diligently to be an environmental leader. From spending billions of dollars building a high-speed rail system to nowhere to forking over tens of millions each year on urban forestry—code for planting trees in cities—the state has not shied away from spending big on green goals.
Never again will a non-holiday pass without some sort of public #Resistance exertion. While anti-Trump emotions run high, festivals of malcontent give the aggrieved opportunities to vent in vague opposition to the administration. International Women's Day, that Soviet feast day sanitized and…
Donald Trump might turn out to be a blessing in disguise for the environmental movement. As Winston Churchill replied when his wife suggested his party's loss might turn out to be just such a blessing in disguise, "At the moment it seems quite effectively disguised."
Donald Trump might turn out to be a blessing in disguise for the environmental movement. As Winston Churchill replied when his wife suggested his party’s loss might turn out to be just such a blessing in disguise, "At the moment it seems quite effectively disguised."
The Standing Rock protest may be over, but here's one thing that won't be over for quite some time: the standing mountain of trash that the ever-so-environmentally concerned protesters of the Dakota Access Pipeline left behind when they abandoned their makeshift camp on the Standing Rock Indian…
As Barack Obama's tenure as president comes to a close, his administration is not backing off the apocalyptic climate-change rhetoric. The same week that the president used executive action to ban new offshore oil and gas drilling in federally controlled areas of the Arctic and and Atlantic oceans,…
Liberals and the environmental left have gone into a tizzy over the selection of Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt as Donald Trump's pick to head of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Writing at National Journal, Josh Kraushaar suggests Democrats' far-left policies on energy and the environment have been a problem for the party at the ballot box. There are even some Democratic politicos, Kraushaar reports, who are discussing pulling back from the party's hard line on energy…
Former vice president Al Gore met with President-elect Donald Trump Monday at Trump Tower, according to the transition pool report. The former Tennessee senator and 2000 Democratic nominee for president was expected to meet with Trump's daughter Ivanka, but Gore also says he spoke with Trump.
Having failed in their attempt to paint energy companies with the same brush as tobacco companies, environmental activists have switched tactics and are now accusing publicly traded oil and gas corporations of hiding the true costs of climate change to their businesses. The effort threatens to…
Just a few weeks ago, Secretary of State John Kerry admitted that "one of the most successful environmental agreements in history" was actually now a huge driver of climate change. Late last week, Kerry went further, saying that "HFCs [hydrofluorocarbons], which was supposed to be the solution,…
Now that Secretary of State John Kerry has the Paris Agreement on climate change under his belt, he has set his sights on amending the 1987 Montreal Protocol that phased out "ozone-depleting substances" (ODS) such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and halons to help close the ozone hole over the…
President Obama will tolerate a lot for an opportunity to push his climate-change agenda. At this weekend's G20 summit meeting of the world's developed (aka "rich") nations, which account for 85 percent of the world's economy, his Chinese hosts really poured on the humiliation.
A new revelation about former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson's platform is, unfortunately, part of a continuing series, after he inexplicably came out against religious liberty and former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld expressed dubious sentiments about the Second Amendment.
Philadelphia
The twin pillars of the administration's environmental policy have collapsed, but the Democratic platform is calling for a doubling down on that policy of regulation and subsidization in order to achieve "climate justice" and transform America into a "clean energy superstar". Nothing less. The…
Last Thursday, Secretary of State John Kerry met in Washington with leaders of forty-five nations to discuss the Islamic State, which he calls "ISIL," and terrorism. Refering to that meeting, Kerry said Friday during a remarks at the Vienna International Center in Austria that working on climate…
The presence of a climate justice warrior who zip-tied himself to the White House fence and President Obama's "climate czar" on the Democrats' platform drafting committee has the party poised for a progressive shift on energy policy.
Almost 40 years ago, the last “green" president, Jimmy Carter, went on national TV and glumly told the nation from the Oval Office: "We could use up all of the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade."
Nicholas Stern is one of the world’s über-environmentalists, the author of the famous Stern Review, a 700-page study released by the British government in 2006, which concluded, “Climate change is a serious global threat, and it demands an urgent response.” Eight years on, Stern professes himself…
Secretary of State John Kerry recently told the graduating class of Boston College that climate change is threatening "nothing less than the future of the entire planet." Now another State Department official is asserting that even if the planet dodges the climate change bullet, the earth may be…
Darren Samuelsohn of Politico rhapsodizes over the utter wonderfulness of Al Gore who is, these days, “richer and skinnier than ever.”
Thursday, the Washington Post published a piece titled "The biggest lease holder in Canada’s oil sands isn’t Exxon Mobil or Chevron. It’s the Koch brothers."
A new Gallup poll shows the American people say climate change is one of the problems they worry about the least.
Today is Susan Rice's first day on the job as National Security Advisor. And already her portfolio has been expanded.
Mention Ronald Reagan to an avowed environmentalist, and you’ll generally elicit a groan. In the conventional telling, the Gipper appointed right-wing extremists to key environmental positions and proceeded to give timber companies and energy interests a free hand to despoil nature. Had Congress…
It’s symbolically appropriate that one of President Obama’s preferred forms of “green energy” crony capitalism has the effect of killing off the national bird. The federal wind production tax credit (PTC) is mercifully set to expire on New Year’s Eve. The PTC provides a financial boon, at great…
A top adviser to President Barack Obama, Valerie Jarrett, was heckled at a speech yesterday to grassroots organizers by a "climate activist."
The world's greatest deliberative body (just ask any of its members) got hung up over what is called a "Sportsmen's Bill." The impasse came on the first day after the Thanksgiving holiday, which is, traditionally, a time when hunters like to be in the deer woods and duck marshes, which the bill…
The Wall Street Journal editorial board writes, “Here’s one good way to consider the vote in 2012: It’s about whether to re-elect President Lisa Jackson, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, which these days runs most the U.S. economy.” The Journal observes that the Obama EPA has now…
To find a metaphor for the failed Obama presidency, look no further than Solyndra. Before it went bankrupt, the solar panel manufacturer was more than the recipient of a $535 million loan guarantee from the federal government. It was the model for the White House effort to put the American economy…
The Department of Energy's Solar Decathlon kicked off today in Washington on the National Mall, under inauspiciously dark rainy skies. In a press release announcing the competition, Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu is quoted as saying, "The Solar Decathlon collegiate teams are showing how…
This week, climate change activists suffered a major loss at the Supreme Court, which unanimously threw out their highly publicized lawsuit against power companies. Although—or perhaps because—the Court's opinion was clear and direct, the losing activists have sought desperately to spin a loss into…
Longview, Washington—When an Australian shipping company named Millennium Bulk Terminals announced plans last November to open a coal export terminal in this port city of 36,000, few predicted any trouble. Millennium quickly bought the site on which the terminal would be located, a property on the…
The way Alyssa Kent described the work of her school’s environmental group, Campus Greens, was almost quaint. “We’re building a garden, and we’re going to supply the lettuce that we grow to the school cafeteria,” said Kent, a junior at Wells College in Aurora, New York. “And we’re about to start a…
John Bolton: "Obama Wobbly on Libya."
Over at The New Republic, Bradford Plummer has an article about the near total political failure of the environmental movement in the last few years:
Steve Hayward on Obama's Re-Election Prospects.
According to a new treaty being drawn up by Bolivia at the U.N., "Mother Earth" would be given "the same rights as humans, including the right to life, to pure water and clean air." Both Ecuador and Bolivia have already incorporated the "rights of nature" into their constitutions.
“Sputnik” was not the only nostalgic moment in the State of the Union address. When President Obama called on Congress to “invest” in “clean energy breakthroughs” that would “translate into clean energy jobs,” he echoed every president since Nixon. In fact, President Obama himself made the same…
Two excellent bits of reader email on the removal of phosphates from dishwasher detergents. The first is from a reader who has been pumping up his new detergent by adding his own phosphate. He notes that the customer review section of one trisodium phosphate product on Amazon features people…
Like the nearly simultaneous release of Deep Impact and Armageddon, Chemical Engineering News also ran a cover story last week about the expunging of phosphates from dishwasher detergents. (You can read my version of the story here.)