A congressman set off a legislative bomb in California’s water wars last week.
Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona) inserted a rider into an Interior Department appropriations bill that would exempt from all judicial review the intensely contested Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta twin tunnels project. Passage of the rider — it’s scheduled for a House committee vote Tuesday — would mean that the water diversion scheme wouldn’t have to follow federal or state law.
Mr. Leslie writes on dams, water scarcity, soil and other environmental topics.
May 10, 2018
Here’s a curious ritual of American politics: Whenever a large energy project is proposed, the ensuing debate revolves chiefly around how many jobs it will create.
For example, backers of the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a contested 600-mile natural gas conduit that would run from West Virginia to North Carolina, have maintained that it would create nearly 20,000 construction and manufacturing jobs.
Similarly, President Trump’s announcement last year that he was reviving the Keystone XL pipeline suggested that it would generate 28,000 construction jobs. On the other hand, The Washington Post concluded that the real number was 3,900 construction jobs, based on a State Department estimate.
If you doubt that the AMOC has weakened, read this stefan @ 28 May 2018
A few weeks ago, we’ve argued in a paper in Nature that the Atlantic overturning circulation (sometimes popularly dubbed the Gulf Stream System) has weakened significantly since the late 19th Century, with most of the decline happening since the mid-20th Century. We have since received much praise for our study from colleagues around the world (thanks for that). But there were also some questions and criticisms in the media, so I’d like to present a forum here for discussing these questions and hope that others (particularly those with a different view) will weigh in in the comments section below.
Exhibit #1, and the prime observational finding, is a long-term cooling trend in the subpolar Atlantic – the only region in the world which has cooled while the rest of the planet has warmed. This ‘cold blob’ or ‘warming hole’ has been shown in IPCC reports since the 3rd assessment of 2001; it is shown in Fig. 1 in a version from the last (5th) IPCC report. In fact it is Figure 1 of the Summary for Policy Makers there – you can’t get more prominent than that.
Bill McKibben summed up the historical background and urgent trajectory of the fossil-fuel divestment movement world-wide in the speech in Stockholm Sweden upon receiving the Right Livelihood Award.
For three decades Vice President Dick Cheney conducted a secretive, behind-closed-doors campaign to give the president virtually unlimited wartime power.
For three decades Vice President Dick Cheney conducted a secretive, behind-closed-doors campaign to give the president virtually unlimited wartime power.
Richard Bruce Cheney (born January 30, 1941) is an American politician and businessman who was the 46th Vice President of the United States from 2001 to 2009.
Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, Cheney was primarily raised in Sumner, Nebraska, and Casper, Wyoming. He attended Yale and then the University of Wyoming, at the latter of which he earned a BA and an MA in Political Science. He began his political career as an intern for Congressman William A. Steiger, eventually working his way into the White House during the Nixon and Ford administrations, where he later served as the White House Chief of Staff, from 1975 to 1977. In 1978, Cheney was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives representing Wyoming’s at-large congressional district from 1979 to 1989; he was reelected five times, briefly serving as House Minority Whip in 1989. Cheney was selected to be the Secretary of Defense during the Presidency of George H. W. Bush, holding the position for the majority of Bush’s term from 1989 to 1993. During his time in the Department of Defense, Cheney oversaw the 1991 Operation Desert Storm, among other actions. Out of office during the Clinton administration, Cheney was the Chairman and CEO of Halliburton Company from 1995 to 2000.
In July 2000, Cheney was chosen by presumptive Republican Presidential nominee George W. Bush as his running mate in the 2000 Presidential election. They defeated their Democratic opponents, incumbent Vice President Al Gore and Senator Joe Lieberman. In 2004, Cheney was reelected to his second term as Vice President, defeating Senator John Kerry’s running mate, Senator John Edwards. During Cheney’s tenure as Vice President, he played a leading behind-the-scenes role in the George W. Bush administration’s response to the September 11 attacks and coordination of the Global War on Terrorism. He was an early proponent of Operation Iraqi Freedom and defender of the Administration’s anti-terrorism record. He became at odds with President Bush’s position against same-sex marriage in 2004.[4] Cheney was often criticized for the Bush Administration’s policies regarding the campaign against terrorism, wiretapping by the National Security Agency (NSA), and so-called enhanced interrogation techniques.[5][6][7]
In 2011, Cheney published his memoir In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir, written with daughter Liz Cheney, and in 2015, published another book, Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America, again co-authored with his daughter. He has been cited as the most powerful Vice President in American history.[8][9] At the same time he has been among the least favored politicians in the history of the United States: his approval rating when leaving office was only 13%.
Medical personnel check a woman evacuated from her home near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant for radiation exposure on March 16, 2011.Asahi Shimbun via EPA
In the wake of Fukushima, Tomonobu Narita is at the forefront of a movement to withdraw money from banks that back environmentally harmful energy projects.
by Daniel Hurst / May.27.2018 / 5:27 AM ET
YOKOHAMA, Japan — Buddhist priest Tomonobu Narita admits he hadn’t thought much about energy policy until the Fukushima nuclear meltdown forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes in 2011.
Now he’s at the forefront of a budding movement in Japan to withdraw money from banks that provide finance for environmentally harmful energy projects.
“I was taught about the idea of how changing your bank account can contribute to bettering the environment, and that was an enlightenment for me,” said Narita, the third-generation head priest of a temple in Yokohama, south of Tokyo.
The campaign to “divest” from fossil fuels such as coal has gained traction in the United States, Europe and Australia in recent years, but environmental activists are now targeting Japan. They see the country as crucial to the success of international efforts to address climate change.
Welcome to Transition Studies. To prosper for very much longer on the changing Earth humankind will need to move beyond its current fossil-fueled civilization toward one that is sustained on recycled materials and renewable energy. This is not a trivial shift. It will require a major transition in all aspects of our lives.
This weblog explores the transition to a sustainable future on our finite planet. It provides links to current news, key documents from government sources and non-governmental organizations, as well as video documentaries about climate change, environmental ethics and environmental justice concerns.
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