As I mentioned in a post in early September, Anterra, a small company with two offices in the Ventura County, was raided back on September 8th by District Attorney Christopher Harman, for a suspected criminal violation of law. I talked to the District Attorney in a story published in the Santa Barbara Independent, butContinue reading “Anterra suspected of dumping hazardous waste in Ventura County”
Monthly Archives: October 2014
Oilco’s spend $9 million to defeat county anti-fracking efforts in CA
According to this excellent story from Reporting on Health fellow Leilani Clark, oil companies such as Aera, Chevron, and Exxon-Mobil have donated more than $1.7 million to efforts to defeat Proposition J in San Benito county, which would ban fracking. Ever heard of San Benito? True confession: I hadn't. Despite spending most of my lifeContinue reading “Oilco’s spend $9 million to defeat county anti-fracking efforts in CA”
New climate rhetoric: “the least worst of all possible worlds”
What makes a t-shirt about the grim future cool? An even-greater-than usual recent episode of Radiolab focused on this question. It found a route into the question through a bizarre fact: an ultra-obscure philosophical book from Zero Press called In the Dust of this Planet has overnight (well, this past year) become a fashion/cultural icon ofContinue reading “New climate rhetoric: “the least worst of all possible worlds””
“I got trapped on a path”: Charles Bowden
About ten years ago I wrote an essay, perhaps my best to date, about John Muir, that was published in the spectacular nature magazine Wild Earth. (Which sadly no longer publishes, nor can it be found on-line.) I found myself in good company, with the likes of E.O. Wilson, but the best piece in theContinue reading ““I got trapped on a path”: Charles Bowden”
Nature in a can: Tenn Williams and Thom Pynchon
In Night of the Iguana, a play first performed in 1961, but evolved out of a short story over a period of about fifteen years, Tennessee Williams expressed anger at our species for ruining our planet. In the movie of 1962, starring Richard Burton as a disgraced priest, his character, at the end ofContinue reading “Nature in a can: Tenn Williams and Thom Pynchon”
Why are Americans so extreme?
Heather Havrilesky wants to know what it is about extreme fitness that fascinates Americans: A blond woman in a hot pink spandex tank hoists a sledgehammer over her shoulders, then slams it down with a dull thud onto the big tire in front of her. Beside her, another woman swings her sledgehammer even higher, grimacingContinue reading “Why are Americans so extreme?”
NASA vs. NOAA: battle of the winter forecast charts
The headline exaggerates, of course, but doesn't in fact mislead. Here's a graph of a NASA climate model, depicting a forecast of precipitation in the U.S. for the next winter. Colors tell the story. In truth, it's a little hard to decode the anomalies chart, but this turns out to be just one of eightContinue reading “NASA vs. NOAA: battle of the winter forecast charts”
El Niño 2014 October forecast: Glass little over half full
NOAA released its October outlook for our winter, based on ocean temperatures, and continues to find a 60-65% chance of the appearance of the boychick. Here's my fave set of graphs today, from another site, and here's my fave single graph: These are tempeartures taken across a section of the equatorial Pacific, the vast belt acrossContinue reading “El Niño 2014 October forecast: Glass little over half full”
The American pine-nut vs. climate change: NPR
A week or so ago had the privilege of living in the western fringe of the pine-nut forest of the Southwest and became fascinated with these super-hardy and super-productive trees, upon which so much life in this region depends. (Not so much human life these days, true, but once upon a time.) So today IContinue reading “The American pine-nut vs. climate change: NPR”
The arrival of autumn — in the eastern Sierra
Mountaineer/photographer Cory Freeman reports that fall has come to the eastern Sierra, a week or two early. Wish we could say the same in SoCal.
Kit Stolz 