Texas Congressman Ron Paul thinks that the media and the public are being too hard on President Obama for his response to the Gulf Oil Spill: Rep. Ron Paul, the libertarian Republican lawmaker from Texas, said that people were expecting too much from the president in his ability to react to the ongoing spill into [...]

I’ve made no secret of my general disdain for Sarah Palin. But even populist attention whores sometimes shine the spotlight where it belongs. And she’s a far more right than wrong when she says “Drill, baby, drill” could very well have mitigated or even prevented the Gulf crisis. One has to be especially purblind no [...]

The market is beginning to speak when it comes to British Petroleum: As BP hacked away at a pipe gushing oil at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, investors sawed off 15 percent, or $21.1 billion, of the company’s market value Tuesday. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., during a trip to the Gulf [...]

Fox News Channel pundit, and for a short time Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin says that Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal should ignore Federal environmental laws and build sand berms despite objections from the Army Corps of Engineers that the islands could cause more damage than they prevent: Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) pushed Louisiana [...]

The New York Times reports that Africa is currently experiencing a pandemic of a mutated virus affecting the cassava crop. Cassava is Africa’s main staple crop, and is right behind wheat and rice as the number one staple crop in the world. That newcomer, brown streak, is now ravaging cassava crops in a great swath [...]

A new Gallup poll seems to indicate that President Obama is beginning to pay a political price for what many are perceiving as a lack of an aggressive response to the Gulf oil spill: WASHINGTON, D.C. — With President Barack Obama and BP taking their most aggressive steps yet in response to the massive oil [...]

The administration kicked it off, insinuating that the problem with the oil spill was the system they inherited. Joy Behar dutifully connected the dots for them, explicitly saying “the Bush/Cheney administration started it and now this poor guy has to mop it up.” In shocking news, Nancy Pelosi picked up the thread, blaming the Bush [...]

Should we be worried about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? Yes. Should BP take whatever steps are necessary to stop the spill, remediate the harm done to the environment, reimburse those who’ve suffered losses as a consequence of the spill, and have their feet held to the fire until they do? Hell, [...]

“In some cultures, there need to be ritual displays of over the top emotion for some events- profuse groveling including getting down on your hands and knees when making an apology, wailing and beating of the chest and throwing yourself on the coffin at a funeral, and so on. Apparently, this is what we expect [...]

There’s a fairly disturbing report in today’s New York Times indicating that British Petroleum was aware of safety problems at the Deepwater Horizon oil rig months before the April 20th explosion that destroyed it: WASHINGTON — Internal documents from BP show that there were serious problems and safety concerns with the Deepwater Horizon rig far [...]

Late yesterday, the officials in charge of trying to stop the Gulf Oil Spill announced that their latest efforts had ended in failure: NEW ORLEANS — In another serious setback in the effort to stem the flow of oil gushing from a well a mile beneath the Gulf of Mexico, BP engineers said Saturday that [...]

Despite initial reports of success, it’s beginning to look like the “top kill” procedure to stop the Gulf of Mexico oil leak may not be working: BP engineers struggled Friday to plug a gushing oil well a mile under the sea, but as of late in the day they had made little headway in stemming [...]

Local officials in Louisiana are accusing BP of busing in workers to the Grand Isle, Louisiana for President Obama’s visit there yesterday to make it appear that the clean-up task was larger than it actually is: BP, the oil company taking flak for its inconsistent response to the massive oil leak in the Gulf of [...]

President Obama asks a reporter to show him the tar balls in her trunks, which sounds more like a Bones episode title than a colloquy with the President of the United States: New York Times reporter Jackie Calmes was skeptical: “Can you be sure these oil tar balls are from the oil spill? Because when [...]

BP starts ‘top kill’ operation: The procedure involves injecting heavy drilling fluids into the broken well via the blowout preventer, the shut-off valve that stands on the seabed. BP said it started pumping at around 1 p.m. local time and the operation is continuing. Much is riding on the procedure, which has never before been [...]

A former nuclear submarine officer is suggesting what seems at first glance like a rather unorthodox solution to the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico: For more than 100 years, explosives have been used to break the necks of runaway oil wells, snapping the long, narrow columns and sealing them shut with tons [...]

There is further evidence today that the scope of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is worse than previously feared: Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick in spots. The [...]

Just over a month after the first ash clouds from Iceland’s erupting Eyjafjallajokull volcano are once again playing havoc with air travel in parts of Europe: Thousands of passengers were facing further travel chaos today as a new ash cloud covered large parts of the UK and forced the closure of a number of airports [...]

NPR received a tape from BP showing video of the oil spill in the Gulf and consulted several experts in the field about the rate of oil spilling from the pipe. There were three scientists. Using three different methods. And they all came up with the same result: the official estimate of 5,000 barrels a [...]

Alexander Klingman at Tired of Dystopia links the TED talk I’ve embedded below and simply says “I don’t really have comments here—it just speaks for its depressing self.” I concur–and this talk was given before the Gulf oil spill.

The University of East Anglia mail server was hacked earlier in the week and a string of private correspondences between esteemed climate scientists were published.  In addition to some juicy internecine gossip becoming embarrassingly public, a few of the messages seem to reveal doubts about the evidence for global warming and at least one refers [...]

“Obama Has Failed the World on Climate Change,” blares a Spiegel op-ed by Christian Schwägerl.  The essay is another data point in the growing notion that the new American president’s aura is fading on the other side of the Atlantic. But, as I argue in my New Atlanticist essay “Obama Disappoints Europe Ahead of Copenhagen,” [...]

Rush Limbaugh has gotten everyone from Media Matters to The Guardian to Andrew Sullivan to Paul Krugman to Raw Story to FireDogLake up in arms because he allegedly suggested that a NYT reporter kill himself.  Except that, to anyone familiar with either Limbaugh or the conventions of American English, it’s rather obvious he was illustrating [...]

I periodically hear this during presidential campaigns and when various elected officials are trying to push a green policy, often in response to global warming. Because of [insert environmental problem here] we need to pursue a policies that will promote [insert one or more alternative fuel/energy sources here]. And not only will it address [the [...]

Amusing but smart: Like many things in Japan, the message is subtle. At least Japan’s All Nippon Airways (ANA) hopes it is, now that the nation’s second largest airline has started quietly asking passengers in Japanese to use the bathroom before boarding 38 domestic flights and four international flights between Tokyo and Singapore. The request [...]

In a classic Seinfeld episode, a phenomenon known as “shrinkage” was attributed to cold water. Now, a study finds that European fish have been shrinking owing to warm water. Go figure.

As Waxman-Markey goes up to the Senate, I think it’s worth reminding people that there’s more at stake to cutting CO2 emissions than climate. There is also the more pressing issue of ocean acidification (which I’ve written about previously on OTB here). The science behind acidification is simple. As the oceans dissolve more carbon dioxide, [...]

Matt Yglesias has an interesting suggestion for a preachy movie revival: [W]hat the new rebooted Trek really needs is a re-do of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home but dealing with a more contemporary environmental threat than the need to save humpback whales from extinction. For example, The Enterprise could travel back in time to [...]

The Congressional Budget Office, the “nonpartisan” arbiter of the cost of various proposals and plans for the legislature, comes in handy sometimes. Other times, not so much. So House Democrats are discovering anew. Just five days ago Speaker Pelosi vented her frustration with the CBO for its sky high projection for health care reform: “The [...]

Richard Florida reports the results of a poll of what should be done with the 2000+ car dealerships being shuttered as a result of the bankruptcy reorganizations of Chrysler and GM: Ask the local residents about what the community needs (222 votes) Urban gardens (200 votes) Create walkable, vibrant places and improve current communities (138 [...]

Shelly’s poem Ozymandias is forced to mind when reading this piece from the Herald-Tribune of Sarasota, Florida. It makes perfect economic sense—cheap, useful cars with good gas mileage—but does it ever speak volumes about the inevitability of change… Indian car company readies Sarasota showroom Toni Whitt SARASOTA COUNTY – While working for General Motors in [...]

Michael Barone (via Glenn Reynolds) argues that elites are “out of touch” on climate change and gun control: Many years ago, political scientists came up with a theory that elites lead public opinion. And on some issues, they clearly do. But on some issues, they don’t. Two examples of the latter phenomenon are conspicuous at [...]

Responding to Kevin Drum‘s observation that no-phosphate dishwashing detergent suddenly became possible when regulation demanded it, proving that theretofore “The industry just didn’t feel like doing it,” Megan McArdle retorts, “when I look back at almost every ‘environmentally friendly’ alternative product I’ve seen being widely touted as a cost-free way to lower our footprint, held [...]

Via Randall Parker, it appears that global sea levels are rising faster than previously predicted. The global sea level looks set to rise far higher than forecast because of changes in the polar ice-sheets, a team of researchers has suggested. Scientists at a climate change summit in Copenhagen said earlier UN estimates were too low [...]

Kevin Drum seconds my concerns about conservative public intellectuals and offers two example where the Right isn’t offering useful policy alternatives. Conservatives on Global Warming Take global warming. Here’s the rough conservative reaction to it starting in the early 90s: It doesn’t exist. It exists but it isn’t manmade. It’s manmade, but it’s too expensive [...]

According to statements by the candidate, anyone wanting to build a coal plant would be bankrupted if his plan to deal with greenhouse gasses (GHGs) is implemented. “I was the first to call for a 100 percent auction on the cap and trade system, which means that every unit of carbon or greenhouse gases emitted [...]

The NYT has an editorial about the scourge of plastic bags, “which have only a brief, useful life, can survive forever in landfills and are of enormous concern to not only environmentalists but local officials who are running out of places to put their trash.” I’m old enough to remember when biodegradable brown paper bags [...]

Unlike charity air pollution doesn’t necessarily begin at home: WASHINGTON — From 500 miles in space, satellites track brown clouds of dust, soot and other toxic pollutants from China and elsewhere in Asia as they stream across the Pacific and take dead aim at the western U.S. A fleet of tiny, specially equipped unmanned aerial [...]

MIT chemists have developed a means to electrolyze water at room temperature with photovoltaic cells. A new catalyst makes it feasible to split water with solar power. MIT chemists say the catalyst, used in conjunction with cheap photovoltaic solar panels, could lead to inexpensive, simple systems that use water to store the energy from sunlight. [...]

Dateline Earth: “Al Gore Places Infant Son In Rocket To Escape Dying Planet.” Former vice president Al Gore—who for the past three decades has unsuccessfully attempted to warn humanity of the coming destruction of our planet, only to be mocked and derided by the very people he has tried to save—launched his infant son into [...]

This morning, Glenn Reynolds linked to this bit of news from Popular Science regarding a discovery that could lead to greater efficiencies in solar cells: MIT engineers have recently helped up the feasibility of widespread solar power by developing a new “solar concentrator.” The concentrator, which is a flat glass panel spread across a large [...]

It seems that the leading man-made cause of global warming is environmentalism; specifically, efforts to improve air quality by reducing pollution, New Scientist reports. Since 1980, average air temperatures in Europe have risen 1 °C: much more than expected from greenhouse-gas warming alone. Christian Ruckstuhl of the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science in Switzerland [...]

The Bureau of Land Management has placed a two year moratorium on new solar power projects proposed for building on public lands. Faced with a surge in the number of proposed solar power plants, the federal government has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on public land until it studies their environmental impact, which [...]

That’s how Instapundit refers to James Hansen, apparently the most intemperate of the global warming alarmists (yes, he’s worse than Gore because he’s Gore’s science advisor). Here’s Hansen’s latest proposal: James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on [...]

John McCain has proposed offering a $300 million dollar prize to the developer of “breakthrough battery technology.” Senator John McCain on Monday proposed the creation of a $300 million prize for anyone who developed breakthrough car-battery technology and he recommended greater tax incentives for buyers of nonpolluting autos, saying that only a combination of increased [...]

In the comments to my latest post on domestic oil production, in which I continue my skepticism over the benefits to more domestic oil production, a number of claims were made in the comments that raised some interesting issues. So I thought it might be worthwhile if I went ahead and investigated some of these [...]

As the debate over opening up more avenues to domestic oil production continues, it’s worth noting that last month, the Department of Energy, at the request of Senator Ted Stevens, produced an economic forecast about opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration. The overall benefit? Well, not much, really. Additional oil production [...]

Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions group has mounted an online petition designed to persuade Congress to open up domestic sites that are currently closed to oil and natural gas exploration. That’s certainly an understandable sentiment, given the skyrocketing increases in the price of oil over the past couple of years. But opening up for exploration is [...]

I think it is safe to say that the use of things like corn and other crops to produce biofuels simply a stupid and wrongheaded philosophy. We were told that biofuels were supposed to help break our dependence on foreign oil. Yet here I sit having to pay, if I’m lucky, $4/gallon to fill up [...]

MSNBC reports on a growing number of thefts of used cooking oil from restaurant by “biodiesel pirates”, who convert the cooking oil into fuel. Now, restaurants from Berkeley, Calif., to Sedgwick, Kan., are reporting thefts of old cooking oil worth thousands of dollars by rustlers who are refining it into barrels of biofuel in backyard [...]