U.S. military

Pearl Harbor Today

82 years after the attack, what is the state of the harbor?

Today is Pearl Harbor Day, the anniversary of the Japanese attack that launched the U.S. into World War II.  Those of us who don’t live in Hawaii may not think much about the harbor, but I started to wonder how things were going environmentally there. The geography is more complex than I had expected. I …

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The Potential Benefits of Declaring a Climate Emergency

The idea deserves serious consideration. There actually could be some very tangible benefits.

I have a confession: When I started thinking about the possibility of a climate emergency declaration, it was mostly as a counterpoint to Trump’s possible (now a done deal) declaration of an immigration emergency.  As I’ve thought about it, however, it seems to me that there are enough potential benefits to make the idea worth …

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Energy Innovation and the Feds

Even under unified GOP rule, the federal government remains firmly committed to energy research.

Energy research is alive and well, notwithstanding Trump’s antipathy to research in general and climate/energy research in particular. We mostly associate energy research with the Department of Energy, its network of national labs, and its ARPA-E program. I’ve written previously about those programs and the importance of energy innovation. But it turns out that a …

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Thinking Globally, Acting Soldierly

Looking for people who care about climate change? Try the Pentagon.

Sometimes, it seems like the world is upside down: the head of EPA is a climate skeptic; the head of DOD takes climate change very seriously. But the view of the Secretary of Defense isn’t a fluke. There’s a liong list of Pentagon documents about the risks of climate change, going back over twenty years. …

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