According to this excellent and short WSJ video feature, 180k farmworkers this year have tested positive for COVID-19, and some of them have died. Here’s a story from Santa Maria in Santa Barbara county about a group of 250 or so such guestworkers living in crowded conditionsin a motel…and interviews with two who contracted theContinue reading “180k farmworkers sickened w/Covid”
Tag Archives: Wall Street Journal
Insurers see new risks, markets w/climate change
From the Wall Street Journal, a new series debuts today: The Price of Climate Insurers’ most immediate climate peril is water. More heat means more moisture held in the atmosphere and greater precipitation. Melting ice is pushing up sea levels. A 2013 study in the journal Nature projected average flood losses for the world’s 136Continue reading “Insurers see new risks, markets w/climate change”
Visualizing income inequality
This is a really good visualization of the theory of income inequality, as expounded in Thomas Piketty's best-selling book Capital in the 21st Century. But you don't have to read the book to get it! All you have to do is watch the infographic. From — of all places! — the Wall Street Journal.
WSJ Expert: We need an alternative to coal for AGW
Because the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) editorial page consistently has found reasons to scoff at the risks of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), it's notable when an expert vetted by the paper — Robert Rapier, an energy specialist – declares that global warming is a problem. In order to address the carbon dioxide problem, we either have toContinue reading “WSJ Expert: We need an alternative to coal for AGW”
Fracking: Pro, Con and (possible) Compromise for CA
The Wall Street Journal is excited about the possibilities of fracking for California: California has Saudi Arabia-scale oil resources, notably in its largely untapped Monterey shale field, which stretches northeast for more than 200 miles from Bakersfield in central California. New technologies, especially smart, horizontal drilling and hydrofracturing, aka "fracking," make that oil accessible, andContinue reading “Fracking: Pro, Con and (possible) Compromise for CA”
Paper vs. Plastic: The Wall St. Journal Weighs In
All my readers probably know this already, but kudos to the WSJ for taking the question seriously:
It’s No Party at the LA Times
Miguel Bustillo, a first-rate reporter and writer who came up through the ranks of the LA Times, is leaving to take a job with the Wall Street Journal. American journalism is full of LA Times ex-pats: another is Robert Lee Hotz, was the top writer at the paper on global warming issues before he leftContinue reading “It’s No Party at the LA Times”
Global Warming Quotes, via the WSJ
A superb selection of quotations on global warming, almost all of them (save from James Hansen) new to me, courtesy of The Wall Street Journal. The first, in some ways, is the best: 1979 “It is the sense of the scientific community that carbon dioxide from unrestrained combustion of fossil fuels potentially is the mostContinue reading “Global Warming Quotes, via the WSJ”
Good News Friday: Coal Plants Cancelled Nationwide
According to the Wall Street Journal, the coal industry is struggling to build new plants, because of fear of climate change. It’s a long story, so I’ll put a couple of other excerpts (one relating to Florida) below the fold, but here’s the lede:
From coast to coast, plans for a new generation of
coal-fired power plants are falling by the wayside as states conclude
that conventional coal plants are too dirty to build and the cost of
cleaner plants is too high.
[cut]
As recently as May, U.S. power companies had announced
intentions to build as many as 150 new generating plants fueled by
coal, which currently supplies about half the nation’s electricity. One
reason for the surge of interest in coal was concern over the higher
price of natural gas, which has driven up electricity prices in many
places. Coal appeared capable of softening the impact since the U.S.
has deep coal reserves and prices are low.
But as plans for this fleet of new coal-powered plants
move forward, an increasing number are being canceled or development
slowed. Coal plants have come under fire because coal is a big source
of carbon dioxide, the main gas blamed for global warming, in a time
when climate change has become a hot-button political issue.
Bad and Good at the LA Times
The Los Angeles Times recently lost one of its best science reporters, Robert Lee Hotz, to The Wall Street Journal. For those of us in SoCal, it’s a shame: Hotz had been doing a first-rate job reporting on climate change issues, from places like Greenland, on the front page. Now he’s doing a first-rate jobContinue reading “Bad and Good at the LA Times”
Kit Stolz 