The off-shore oil drilling scam

(Published at Counterpunch.com)  No, Americans aren’t going to trust Republicans on the expansion of offshore oil drilling to lower the price of gasoline. Just add this to the long list of errors, missteps and miscalculations reflected in the recent AP-Ipsos poll: “When other surveys are taken into account, the general level of pessimism is the worst in almost 30 years.”

Nuclear Florida, Beachfront reactors in an age of sea level rise

(Published at Counterpunch.com)  There is a reason Miami-Dade County in Southern Florida is the first place where America’s utility industry is moving forward with new nuclear capacity in three decades.

In Miami, Florida Power & Light found public officials malleable as silly putty, willing to allow a local agreement with a wink to substitute for solid facts that the public had the right to know: where the cooling water will come from at a time of chronic drought, where the water–more than 50 million gallons per day– will go when it is evaporated, and what will its effects be on public health and the environment.

Join ‘flash mob’ for solar power in Florida

Let’s talk about your electric bill, and something you can do to start pushing back. Can you say the words “renewable energy” quickly enough?

You ask: What in the world can I do?

Notes from Istanbul: Oil-based wealth gap buoys extremists

You have to walk in the shoes of a Turk to understand why America’s reputation is spinning sand where we need full traction in the war against terror.

The average income in Turkey is slightly more than $8,000. But in forward-leaning cities like Istanbul, signs of wealth are everywhere.

Real-estate prices resemble those of U.S. coastal cities.

The streets of Istanbul teem with young Muslims, people who look just like anyone else you know, with the same aspirations of material comfort and happiness.

When the loudspeakers on the minarets call the faithful to prayer, no one rushes from the teahouse or sweet shop to the mosque.

It is easy to see why the people of Istanbul are skeptical of war.

Cathedrals in sea decline: Reef should show how creation is knit together

I am asked, often, “I know what you are opposed to, but what are you for?”

How is this for an answer? I am for a sustainable creation. I am for Jerusalem.

Oh, I know: Who is against Jerusalem? Who is for chaos?

Yet the question moves with the questioner, toward a familiar direction: compromise, the magnetic north of politics.

In 15 years of watching Florida’s environment — and intensely now, global warming and climate change — even when land purchases, global assurances and hard lines drawn on a map are held as signs of progress, compromise is no match to the threats.

What these hurricanes are telling us

We are riveted to images of the hurricane’s victims hauled by choppers from rooftops because we are as amazed by the ways life carries us away as we are by salvation. Hurricanes are never just about hurricanes.
They are also about communities pulling together and neighbors reconnecting. In time, what was torn down is rebuilt, often with a keener eye for opportunity in its garish forms. People go their own way. And the hurricanes come again.

Energy producers, get green or prepare to take your lumps

Global warming means tangible costs and real opportunities for the world’s largest corporations. But transforming costs into opportunities desperately needs quickening. What will it take for corporate behavior to reach a tipping point that induces governments to change?

A recent forum on energy policy and security at the American Museum of Natural History in New York made sense of these entwined issues, reflecting the urgency most Americans feel about global warming.

The event was sponsored by the Democratic Leadership Council and broadcast on C-SPAN. Tim Wirth, president of the United Nations Foundation, Ted Turner, the foundation’s principal donor, and former President Clinton exchanged views with audience members.

Chicken Little and the canary in the coal mine

We wish we could fly away from troubles. Wings would help. All our angels have them.

And when we need the gift of spirit, there is always a partridge or two in a pear tree. Or humor, Big Bird. Or entertainment, video games by Tony Hawk. We invest a lot in birds.

We share the same energy and light. Mankind is a remarkable combination of bone and feather, colors glazed on by fashion, the trappings of power or other conceits and inside, these little fluttering hearts.

Then there is Chicken Little, jumping up and down because he can’t fly but thinks he sees what is ahead, and nearby, his sober cousin, the canary in the coal mine swaying on a perch.

Scripps, the 30-year Treasury bond and global warming

Managing risk is the job of mothers and fathers, who hope their children will learn well and move forward productively into a challenging world. It is also the job of financial managers responsible for investments and depreciation schedules that measure asset value in decades. Risk is the connecting point between Scripps, the 30-year Treasury bond and global warming.

Global warming: A tale of 2 nations

The United States and Great Britain share a common language, a passion for football and, when it comes to government response to global warming, nothing much else.

On Wednesday, when the Kyoto Protocol becomes international law, only one will be sulking loutishly on the sidelines: the United States.

While the Bush administration unrolls phrases like “climate variability” to test the drape of its message on the foreshortened frame of American public opinion, the original Red Coats do not mince words.

Britain’s chief science adviser, David King, calls global warming a more serious threat than terror.