Oceans
BP Spill + 4
Four years ago, the BP Deepwater Horizon was still gushing oil. The well was finally capped in mid- July. There’s been a lot of legal action since then, but it’s hard to keep track of all the piecemeal developments. Here’s quick rundown. The Presidential Commission investigating the spill identified the “root causes” as management failures by industry and …
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CONTINUE READINGAddressing Climate Change Without Legislation
A new report from UC Berkeley looks at the underused powers of the US Department of the Interior.
Now that the Environmental Protection Agency has announced its proposed rules for restricting greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants, the climate focus of EPA and the states will first be on polishing the rules for final approval, then on the anticipated law suits, and then on the development of state plans to meet the …
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CONTINUE READINGGoing, Going, Gone
Despite it’s depressing subject, Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction is a great read. She travels around the world, from a “hotel” for endangered frogs in Panama to an outdoor biodiversity experiment in the Peruvian rainforest to an endangered rhino’s rectal exam in Cincinnati. Yet, there’s no denying that the topic is a downer. The title implies that we …
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CONTINUE READINGSea Level Rises, Premiums Not So Much
Congress apparently just couldn’t resist restoring subsidies for coastal homeowners.
The President has now signed an important modification of the flood insurance program. The changes are hard to understand, in part because the bill changed an earlier 2013 law that itself amended the basic statute. So you have to work through the whole sequence to see what is going on. Before I go into more …
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CONTINUE READINGProtecting Marine “Wilderness”
A new study shows how to strengthen marine preserves.
The Bush Administration is not remembered fondly by environmentalists, but one important exception came at the beginning of 2009. That’s when President Bush created an additional 195,000 square miles of marine reserves, on top of the 140,000 miles he had created previously. Such marine reserves are not unique to the United States, of course. Yet, …
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CONTINUE READINGOffshore Fracking Battles Brewing in the Golden State
Increased attention to fracking off the California Coast; what our state agencies can do about it
As prior blog posts and reports have detailed, hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) has been occurring onshore in California for decades, yet without full disclosure to the public or state regulatory agencies. Recently, new reports of offshore fracking in both California and federal waters have surfaced, showing that fracking has also been underway off the coast for …
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CONTINUE READINGNewsflash: Not All Climate Stories are Dismal, Scientists Actually Try to Discover the Truth
Methane Leaks Not Caused by Human-induced Climate Change,
NPR aired a story this week about what scientists thought, in 2008, were ominous signs of a warming ocean. Churning bubbles of methane — a very potent greenhouse gas — were pouring out of the ocean floor in Arctic Norway. Scientists theorized that as the globe and the oceans warmed, the methane trapped in the …
CONTINUE READINGAre Polar Bears Really Endangered?
“Glib contrarianism” in environmental journalism
The news web site Slate is known for its counterintuitive articles – so much so, that the term “slatepitch” has been coined. But sometimes trying to write a counterintuitive article leads you to write something, well, just wrong. Today, Slate ran an article about “Five Species You Thought Were Endangered That Really Aren’t (Including the …
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CONTINUE READINGTackling Plastic Pollution in the Oceans
New Emmett Center report recommends top ten solutions for marine plastic debris
Ever wonder where the plastic crap that we generate winds up? Much of it ends up in the oceans. An estimated 20 million tons of plastic litter enter the ocean each year, much of it from land debris but also coming from fishing and aquaculture operations, shipping, and other marine sources. The stuff takes a really …
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CONTINUE READINGNot all drones are weapons of war
Scientists promote low-cost aerial drones as conservation tools
Speaking of visualizing environmental problems, they are hidden for different reasons and therefore can be revealed by a variety of different mechanisms. Drones are one tool with a great deal of potential. Aerial drones have gotten a lot of attention as weapons of war or counterterrorism in the U.S. arsenal. Whatever you think about the …
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