Category Archives: Environmental issues

US Oil Drilling Has No Effect on Gas Prices

Posted on December 30, 2012 by Ampersand

From the AP (via ThinkProgress): U.S. oil production is back to the same level it was in March 2003, when gas cost $2.10 per gallon when adjusted for inflation. But that’s not what prices are now. That’s because oil is … Continue reading →

Posted in Environmental issues | 11 Comments  

To Conservatives Who Thought Nate Silver Was An Idiot

Posted on December 11, 2012 by Ampersand

Regarding the reliability of climate modeling, maybe you’re right, despite your lack of expertise, and despite the fact that the last time you made a testable prediction about statistical modeling, you revealed yourself to be a great deal less accurate … Continue reading →

Posted in Environmental issues | 37 Comments  

Pournelle’s Iron Law Of Bureaucracy, FEMA, and Republican Incompetence

Posted on October 31, 2012 by Ampersand

In another thread, Ron – I suspect with tongue in cheek – quoted Jerry Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy: In any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: First, there will be those who are devoted to the … Continue reading →

Posted in Elections and politics, Environmental issues | 3 Comments  

The Minimum Wage, Global Warming, and Expert Consensus

Posted on October 3, 2012 by Ampersand

Via Bleeding Heart Libertarians, I read Daniel B. Klein and Stewart Dompe’s admirable article “Reasons for Supporting the Minimum Wage: Asking Signatories of the ‘Raise the Minimum Wage’ Statement.” Klein, an economist who opposes the minimum wage, wanted to understand … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics and the like, Environmental issues | 22 Comments  

Romney Mocks Trying To Address Global Warming

Posted on August 31, 2012 by Ampersand

I wasn’t interested in the GOP convention this year, and I don’t expect to be interested in the Democratic convention. It’s not like I’m sweating who to vote for; of the two viable candidates, Obama, despite horrible flaws, is the … Continue reading →

Posted in Environmental issues, In the news | 4 Comments  

Useful Info For Meat-Eaters Who Care About Climate Change But Can’t Quit Eating Meat

Posted on July 27, 2011 by Ampersand

The graph comes from the Environmental Working Group, who describe their findings: Lamb, beef and cheese have the highest emissions. This is true, in part, because they come from ruminant animals that constantly generate methane through their digestive process, called … Continue reading →

Posted in crossposted on TADA, Environmental issues | 21 Comments  

Deconstructing Sheri Tepper’s 2008 Interview with Strange Horizons

Posted on April 15, 2011 by Mandolin

So, someone asked me what was so offensive about Tepper’s interview. After reading her comments, I’m convinced that it might actually be helpful to some people if I did a deconstruction. I don’t usually fisk things because it’s a format … Continue reading →

Posted in Abortion & reproductive rights, Class, poverty, labor, & related issues, Disabled Rights & Issues, Environmental issues, Feminism, sexism, etc, International issues, Islamaphobia, literature, Race, racism and related issues | 64 Comments  

House Republicans Agree: Global Warming Doesn’t Exist

Posted on March 16, 2011 by Ampersand

(Transcript of video here.) From The Hill: House Republicans rejected amendments offered Tuesday by Democrats that called on Congress to accept the scientific consensus that climate change is occurring, it is caused in large part by human activity and it … Continue reading →

Posted in crossposted on TADA, Environmental issues, In the news | 73 Comments  

Three Poems Up on Poets For Living Waters

Posted on August 3, 2010 by Richard Jeffrey Newman

I am late publicizing the fact that three of my poems, “Like This,” “Free Radicals” and “Empty Rhetoric,” were published on Poets for Living Waters. Here is “Free Radicals:” Rowboats on the pond: random particles dancing to laws they couldn’t … Continue reading →

Posted in Environmental issues, literature | Leave a comment  

The Democrats Are Now The Home Of Market-Based Solutions

Posted on July 28, 2010 by Ampersand

(Crossposted on “Alas” and on “TADA.”) In an op-ed in the Boston Globe, Richard Schmalensee and Robert Stavins (of MIT and Harvard, respectively) lament the Republican Party’s newfound opposition to market-based environmental solutions. LAST WEEK, the Senate abandoned its latest … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative zaniness, right-wingers, etc., crossposted on TADA, Environmental issues, In the news | 4 Comments