While on a book tour recently, Bill McKibben made an interesting point in an appearance in Santa Barbara. McKibben–a former New Yorker writer who wrote his first book on climate change back in l989–in an aside told the crowd that to expect the Sierra Club and traditional conservationists to take on global warming with "theContinue reading “Looking for a New Climate Change Metaphor: Canaries Exhausted”
Category Archives: thinking out loud
Graph of the Week
Much-linked, and deservedly so, this graph via Ezra Klein from the Center for Economic and Policy Research shows how little time we Americans give ourselves. We are the only nation in the industrialized world not to legislate paid time off for workers. Even the notoriously workaholic Japanese mandate ten days a year. Us? Zero. Pathetic.
The Precarity
Half the people I know don’t have real jobs, or don’t have real jobs most of the time. Maybe it’s even more than half, as most of the people I know are writers, journalists, readers, artists, that sort of folk. I have been fortunate to have a real job reading scripts, but how much longerContinue reading “The Precarity”
Environmentalism: What We Really Think
In New York magazine, Kurt Andersen has an excellent look at the state of environmentalism, based on a Gallup Poll that came out this week. The poll, in all frankness, doesn’t seem to have gotten much below the surface. It does indicate that a vast majority of Americans (89%) recycle, and a substantial majority haveContinue reading “Environmentalism: What We Really Think”
Farts vs. CO2: An Accounting
For years, Republicans have brought up farts to mock the concept of global warming. (For instance, this year in Congress, in response to testimony by four climatologists, Dana Rohrabacker of Orange County claimed that "Global warming could be the result of dinosaur flatulence.") Now at last, Brian Beutler goes to the EPA statistics to weighContinue reading “Farts vs. CO2: An Accounting”
The Ultimate Working Class
Gary Snyder just published a surprisingly charming book of essays called Back on the Fire. (I’d link to the excellent review by Thomas Curwen in the LATimes, but their freaking search engine can’t find it.) Anyhow! In a characteristically tough-minded essay called "Writers and the War Against Nature," Snyder articulates a thought yours truly hasContinue reading “The Ultimate Working Class”
Changes in Outlook, Changes in Look
Special thanks to Alberto Berio, of Artillery Unit (see design link below right) for helping with the new look. Comments, complaints, discussion welcome as always. But now on to more serious topics, treated (I hope) with our customary blend of fact and irreverence. To wit, here’s a Tom Toles’ sketch on the upcoming hurricane season…andContinue reading “Changes in Outlook, Changes in Look”
Drought Forecast Ahead, but…
…can’t get into that today. For now, here’s one piece of interesting news, courtesy of the WSJ: Coal Industry Faces Bleak Future. The coal industry faces a bleak future unless ways are developed on a commercial scale to capture and store carbon dioxide in the campaign against global warming, according to a study released Wednesday.Continue reading “Drought Forecast Ahead, but…”
We Interrupt This Blog for an Oblique Comment on Morals
Specifically, on Stinson Beach, which I knew well growing up. Has it always been this way? Is this an "isolated example?" Am I being a prude? Or is this just the 21st century?
Will: Reagan Changed Conservatism, Maybe for Worse
George Will, who last year literally attempted to wave off global warming, this year types an unusually interesting assessment of a president he has often praised, Ronald Reagan. Quoting a new book by New York historian John Patrick Duggins, he suggests that Reagan changed the nature of conservatism, and possibly for worse. "God couldn’t createContinue reading “Will: Reagan Changed Conservatism, Maybe for Worse”
Kit Stolz 