The Dakota Access pipeline poses a threat to indigenous people. Their resistance poses tough questions for all of us.
fossil fuels
Trump and the RNC platform have little to say about climate action. Yet many steps we could take are inherently conservative.
In Oslo, the freeze-thaw cycle of a warm winter made my bike commute unpleasant. Elsewhere, it's a matter of survival.
The Sixth Extinction, by Elizabeth Kolbert
For Elizabeth Kolbert, the human story reads like a Greek tragedy. Near the end, we realize too late that we brought about our own demise.
Joe Nocera thinks that everyone protesting the Keystone pipeline is pretty silly. He makes a series of weak arguments, and I'll direct you to others to explain why the pipeline isn't about a U.S. geopolitical advantage, why the environmental cost of tar sands oil extraction isn't small just because Nocera says so, why activism is more important than wonky incrementalism, and why a carbon tax wouldn't make tar sands extraction more viable. I'm more interested in Nocera's overall point: that we need to reduce demand for fossil fuels, not supply.
Sandra Steingraber, ecologist, activist and author, was in Joliet, Illinois, Wednesday to present a lecture on our era of “extreme energy extraction.” (See the Century interview with Steingraber.) According to Steingraber, we’re acting more and more foolishly as we hold on more and more tightly to our dependence on fossil fuels.
The use of clean energy sources is growing, but unless those sources become cheaper and more efficient, they won't put a dent in the rise in carbon emissions.
When news came out that Obama would get to approve or block a pipeline linking Texas refineries to the tar sands of Alberta, it was clear that it was time for more than words.