A few of you may not remember 1989 very well, but I do. America was experiencing the first few months of the George Bush presidency — not the son but the father, George H.W. Bush. The B-52s and “Love Shack” were at the top of the music charts. But the spring’s big news story was the crash of the giant oil tanker the Exxon Valdez, which ran aground under the command of its...
Just a quick follow-up on a post I wrote earlier this month about offshore drilling in the Arctic, which so far has been one disaster after another ever since Shell launched its project off Alaska this past summer. Recently, the feds who’ve signed off on this unholy venture have told the public that in a worse-case scenario, authorities or contractors could deploy dispersants like Corexit...
There’s a couple of things we’ve learned about the U.S. government — and some of the people who’ve worked there — over the last three years. We saw in the Gulf of Mexico that when it comes to dispersing a major oil spill, the feds have no idea what they’re doing. But sadly, when it comes to dispersing bad info, the government is second to none. Now the feds are...
As President Obama launches into his second term, evidence abounds that he needs to re-focus his energy policy on how the government can do more to promote alternative sources of power — especially wind, solar and hydro. Other Western nations are increasingly banking on alternative energy — but here in the United States our approach has been a free-for-all for the cheapest energy...
This is what passes for “good news’ on the domestic offshore drilling front these days: An environmental disaster seems to have been narrowly averted in the waters off Alaska — after an accident that carried echoes of the Exxon Valdez spill there a generation ago and which amplified the worst fears about a risky new venture in the Arctic: Crews hoped to board an oil drilling rig...
