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Here’s the latest consensus projection from NOAA on Hurricane Katrina’s path:

Hurricane Katrina is now heading towards the northern Gulf Coast, and if it hits New Orleans, we all will likely suffer the consequences. Most of the city lies below sea level, protected on three sides by  twenty-five foot levees. If the heavy rains, strong winds, and storm surge of the hurricane overcomes the levees, expertsContinue reading “Katrina Heads Towards The Gulf Coast”

Some writers are prescient; they can sense a change in the wind and put down on paper something yet to happen, or yet to be documented. In an obscure play from l972, Small Craft Warnings, Tennessee Williams described a contagious wasting disease afflicting homosexuals that sounds very much like AIDS. And in l925, in anContinue reading “A Writer Foresees A Map”

Environmentalists are often said to be obsessed with "gloom and doom." Nice euphony, but no,  environmentalists simply want to save what they can of what’s left of the planet. They’re delighted when they are able to forever preserve some part of the world (as for example, the founder of Esprit recently worked with Chile andContinue reading “Debunking Two, Two, Two Lies At Once”

Just weeks before a long-scheduled United Nations conference on world poverty, the U.S. and Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton have demanded hundreds of fundamental changes to an international agreement years in the making. Here’s the lede from the Washington Post:   UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 24 — Less than a month before world leaders arriveContinue reading “At the Last Minute, 750 Amendments from Mr. Bolton”

A famous barrister (and wonderful writer) named John Mortimer, was recently quoted saying: "You know, with some people who utter dire threats about global warming, for instance, that they are going to be hostile to smokers, motor cars, jokes about mothers-in-law, school nativity plays, strip shows and the swallowing of live oysters. Equally tedious areContinue reading “A Vicious Rumor…Refuted”

National Geographic is not the magazine it used to be–it’s better. At least when it comes to reporting on natural resource issues, no other magazine can blend the personal, the photographic, and the graphic as well. In this month’s issue, in a warmly-written and highly informative story called "Powering the Future," can be found thisContinue reading “The Energy Appliance”

Speaking of the escalating chaos in Iraq, James Wolcott wonders when the spinmeisters will awake to the obvious, and pointedly asks: …will it be like global warming, which Russert, Stephanopolous, Chris Wallace, and the rest ignore altogether, as if waiting for heatstroke deaths to dot the capital lawns before acknowledging something momentous is happening. They’reContinue reading “Line of the Week”

On Friday, Ventura County got some good news. Although Los Angeles is allowing Newhall Ranch to develop an entire new city on the outskirts of Santa Clarita, the Nature Conservancy bought 377 acres  of habitat for endangered species along the Santa Clara River near Piru Creek from a mining company for less than $600,000.   Continue reading “Some Good News for Ventura County”

According to an editorial in the Arizona Republic, seven people in Phoenix have died in the last two days of a vicious heat wave, with record-breaking temps topping 116 degrees. The editorial adds:    "…there’s something else that’s eerie and ominous about this heat wave. Sunday’s storm notwithstanding, the monsoon – a seasonal shift inContinue reading “Seven Dead in Phoenix in Two Days”