Salon.com > Environmentalism http://www.salon.com Tue, 21 May 2013 03:48:00 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Meet the “family values,” anti-environment hypocrites http://www.salon.com/2013/05/06/pro_family_values_anti_environment_hypocrites/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/06/pro_family_values_anti_environment_hypocrites/#comments Mon, 06 May 2013 15:11:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13290348 My newspaper column on Friday highlighted an easy to understand fact: According to World Bank data, the livestock industry is responsible for between 18 percent and 51 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. My column also predicted that by simply mentioning that fact, I would receive all sorts of angry email and tweets from conservatives not refuting the data, but declaring that they will eat even more meat to prove some incoherent point about "freedom." And not surprisingly, over the weekend, the prediction came true, especially after Drudge posted a link to an outraged screed about the column (notice: The screed didn't bother to include one single data point or fact in refutation of the World Bank study).

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/06/pro_family_values_anti_environment_hypocrites/feed/ 83 The Gulf Coast may never recover http://www.salon.com/2013/04/23/three_years_after_bp_disaster_the_gulf_coast_is_still_coping_with_the_aftermath_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/23/three_years_after_bp_disaster_the_gulf_coast_is_still_coping_with_the_aftermath_partner/#comments Tue, 23 Apr 2013 20:02:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13279928 Three years after an explosion at British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 workers, injured dozens, and set off the worst oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry, the waters along Gulf Coast seem almost back to normal. Much of the oil is gone. New Orleans-based photographer Julie Dermansky says there’s still a lot left. The oil, she says, is often hard to locate because it has a tendency to play hide and seek. Dermansky, who photographed the spill in 2010 “pretty much non-stop for four months," has been doggedly following the story for the past three years — reading up all the research she can lay her hands on, making trips out to the worst impacted areas in Louisiana every few months, and talking to people from affected communities. In the early days of the spill she was hired by several major publications, including The Times, London, The Washington Post, and Der Spiegel. But these days she travels without assignment, covering expenses on her own, since few publications hire photographers or reporters to cover what’s now an old news story. Last week, Dermansky again visited the beaches and marshes along the Louisiana and Mississippi coast — some of the worst hit areas where crews are still cleaning up tar mats and tar balls. I spoke with Dermansky via email and over the phone about her trip and her assessment of the situation in the Gulf Coast.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/23/three_years_after_bp_disaster_the_gulf_coast_is_still_coping_with_the_aftermath_partner/feed/ 4 Could New York run on renewable energy alone? http://www.salon.com/2013/04/21/can_an_entire_state_run_on_renewable_energy_alone_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/21/can_an_entire_state_run_on_renewable_energy_alone_partner/#comments Sun, 21 Apr 2013 12:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13276751 Scientific American
Three times now, Mark Jacobson has gone out on the same limb. In 2009 he and co-author Mark Delucchi published a cover story in Scientific American that showed how the entire world could get all of its energy — fuel as well as electricity — from wind, water and solar sources by 2030. No coal or oil, no nuclear or natural gas. The tale sounded infeasible — except that Jacobson, from Stanford University, and Delucchi, from the University of California, Davis, calculated just how many hydroelectric dams, wave-energy systems, wind turbines, solar power plants and rooftop photovoltaic installations the world would need to run itself completely on renewable energy.The article sparked a spirited debate on our web site, and it also sparked a larger debate between forward-looking energy planners and those who would rather preserve the status quo. The duo went on to publish a detailed study in the journal Energy Policy that also called out numbers for a U.S. strategy. Two weeks ago Jacobson and a larger team, including Delucchi, did it again. This time Jacobson showed in much finer detail how New York state’s residential, transportation, industrial, and heating and cooling sectors could all be powered by wind, water and sun, or “WWS,” as he calls it. His mix: 40 percent offshore wind (12,700 turbines), 10 percent onshore wind (4,020 turbines), 10 percent concentrated solar panels (387 power plants), 10 percent photovoltaic cells (828 facilities), 6 percent residential solar (five million rooftops), 12 percent government and commercial solar (500,000 rooftops), 5 percent geothermal (36 plants), 5.5 percent hydroelectric (6.6 large facilities), 1 percent tidal energy (2,600 turbines) and 0.5 percent wave energy (1,910 devices). In the process, New York would reduce power demand by 37 percent, largely because the new energy sources are more efficient than the old ones. And because no fossil fuels would have to be purchased or burned, consumer costs would be similar to what they are today, and the state would eliminate a huge portion of its carbon dioxide emissions.New York state could end fossil fuel use and generate all of its energy from wind, water and solar power, according to Mark Jacobson. Image: Graphic by Karl BurkartOnce again, reaction was swift. The New York Times heralded the study as scientifically groundbreaking and practically impossible. But this time Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering, is digging in. He took his analysis a step further and found a surprising way to sell his plan. And he’s close to finishing a similar study for California, which will lend more depth to his vision. I asked Jacobson why he’s out to change the world, how he answers his critics and what it will take for his plans to get traction in government.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/21/can_an_entire_state_run_on_renewable_energy_alone_partner/feed/ 12 TransCanada minister preaches the gospel of crude oil http://www.salon.com/2013/04/16/transcanada_minister_preaches_the_gospel_of_crude_oil_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/16/transcanada_minister_preaches_the_gospel_of_crude_oil_partner/#comments Tue, 16 Apr 2013 19:56:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13272610 OnEarth Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.—Matthew 5:13

“I pastored the First Baptist Church out here in Polk for three and a half years,” Myron Stafford said. His distinct Southern drawl marked him as an outsider, but everything about him -- from his salt-and-pepper temples to his jeans and Western shirt -- made Stafford seem familiar to Terry Van Housen, a cattle feed yard operator in Stromsburg, Nebraska. Stromsburg isn’t far from Polk, where Stafford said he had filled in for the local minister, delivering Sunday sermons. Still, Van Housen couldn’t place him, so Stafford reminded Terry of a wedding he had performed recently, for Robbie Glasser’s son. Then he ticked off recent funerals he had presided over.

“I did three last year,” Stafford began. “I did Don’s funeral.”

“Don Hanquist?” Van Housen jumped in.

“Yeah. I did Mr. Recknor’s funeral.”

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/16/transcanada_minister_preaches_the_gospel_of_crude_oil_partner/feed/ 4 Industrial hazards force communities to consider relocation http://www.salon.com/2013/04/15/industrial_hazards_force_communities_to_consider_relocation/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/15/industrial_hazards_force_communities_to_consider_relocation/#comments Mon, 15 Apr 2013 18:15:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13269892 The Center for Public Integrity BELLE ROSE, La. – Tim Brown eases his john boat from his back yard dock into his daily therapy: The Bayou Corne that courses through this patch of southern Louisiana like a lifeline. Brown powers past the Tupelo Gum, Cypress Moss and Swamp Maple trees that drape the bayou in a frame, and steers to the spot where he reels catfish and collects thoughts.

“If I had to actually leave this place and go back to a house on dry land, I’d probably be dead in two years,” says Brown, 65 and retiring next year. “I guess you can say it’s a totally different life out here.”

But now that life, for Brown and 350 other residents in a neighborhood with “Crawfish Crossing” signs and roads named Gumbo, Jambalaya and Crawfish Stew Street, has been shattered by discovery of a 14-acre sinkhole that fractured the community’s calm and may bury its dreams.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/15/industrial_hazards_force_communities_to_consider_relocation/feed/ 2 Are Arizona’s national forests worth destroying? http://www.salon.com/2013/04/13/leave_arizonas_national_forests_alone_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/13/leave_arizonas_national_forests_alone_partner/#comments Sat, 13 Apr 2013 21:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13269208 An ongoing battle between local residents and environmentalists and a Canadian mining company eager to dig for copper in the spectacular Santa Rita Mountains in southern Arizona’s Coronado National Forest has become the poster child for the need to reform a 141-year-old law that governs hard rock mining on federal lands.

A state fish and game department report says the mine would render the northern parts of the Santa Rita Mountains "almost useless.”

Vancouver-based speculative mining company, Augusta Resource Corporation, and its Arizona subsidiary, Rosemont Copper Company, plan to blast a mile-wide, half-mile deep copper mine on 4,000 acres of the mountains, 50 miles southeast of Tucson. If its proposal goes through, Rosemont claims the mine could supply 5 percent of the country’s copper needs and will bring “thousands of jobs” and “$19 billion in economic stimulus” to southern Arizona.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/13/leave_arizonas_national_forests_alone_partner/feed/ 30 6 things you need to know about the Arkansas oil spill http://www.salon.com/2013/04/04/6_things_you_need_to_know_about_the_arkansas_oil_spill_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/04/6_things_you_need_to_know_about_the_arkansas_oil_spill_partner/#comments Thu, 04 Apr 2013 12:43:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13261353 AlterNet By now, you already know that at least 84,000 gallons of crude spilled from an ExxonMobil pipeline, swamping an Arkansas subdivision on Friday, and causing the evacuation of 22 homes. In addition to the loss of wildlife, damage to property, and environmental and human health hazards posed by the spill, it may have implications for the Keystone XL pipeline currently under consideration by the Obama administration.

There is a lot more to the story that's important to understand. Here are six crucial things.

1. Not Your Average Crude

InsideClimate News reported shortly after the spill that an Exxon official confirmed the pipeline was "transporting a heavy form of crude from the Canadian tar sands region." Specifically, it has been identified as Wabasca Heavy, Lisa Song writes, "which is a type of diluted bitumen, or dilbit, from Alberta's tar sands region" although you won't hear any Exxon folks calling it tar sands.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/04/6_things_you_need_to_know_about_the_arkansas_oil_spill_partner/feed/ 5 New spill reveals how horrible Keystone could be http://www.salon.com/2013/04/01/new_spill_reveals_how_horrible_keystone_could_be/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/01/new_spill_reveals_how_horrible_keystone_could_be/#comments Mon, 01 Apr 2013 19:12:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13258021 The Keystone XL pipeline was already a bad idea three days ago. It is a terrible idea today.

This weekend, the Orwellian-named Exxon Pegasus pipeline spilled thousands of barrels of oil into a residential neighborhood in Mayflower, Ark. Twenty-two families were evacuated from their homes, and cleanup, days later, continues. Check out this appalling video of crude oil leaking into the streets of this everyday American community:

The oil is the same heavy crude from tar sands that oil companies behind the Keystone XL pipeline want to extract. In fact, the only difference between the Pegasus pipeline that leaked and the proposed Keystone XL? The proposed Keystone XL is longer --- over 300 miles longer than the pipeline that leaked in Arkansas on Friday. That means the Keystone XL pipeline is even more likely to leak. Not exactly a comforting prospect.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/01/new_spill_reveals_how_horrible_keystone_could_be/feed/ 27 Your tap water is probably laced with antidepressants http://www.salon.com/2013/03/14/your_tap_water_is_probably_laced_with_anti_depressants_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/14/your_tap_water_is_probably_laced_with_anti_depressants_partner/#comments Thu, 14 Mar 2013 21:01:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13229450 the fix The idea that we’re being unwittingly drugged when we drink a glass of ordinary tap water smacks of dystopian science fiction or political conspiracy theory. Accusations that Communists were spiking America’s water with sedatives—under the cover of the federally instituted fluoridation program—were such a staple of Cold War–era paranoia that Stanley Kubrick satirized it in his 1964 masterpiece, Dr. Strangelove. While such fear-mongering may seem quaint, what’s truly ironic is that Americans today are consuming prescription drugs—including addictive psychoactive ones—via the water supply. Who knew?

There’s a good chance that if you live in an urban area, your tap water is laced with tiny amounts of antidepressants (mostly SSRIs like Prozac and Effexor), benzodiazepines (like Klonopin, used to reduce symptoms of substance withdrawal) and anticonvulsants (like Topomax, used to treat addiction to alcohol, nicotine, food and even cocaine and crystal meth). Such are the implications of environmental studies that have been leaking out over the past decade. Whether or not this psychoactive waste has any effect on the human nervous system remains unclear, but when such pharmaceuticals are introduced into the ecosystem, the fallout for other species is demonstrable—and potentially dire.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/14/your_tap_water_is_probably_laced_with_anti_depressants_partner/feed/ 9 “Don’t Frack My Mother,” sings Yoko Ono and a fairly large number of celebrities http://www.salon.com/2013/03/13/dont_frack_my_mother_sings_yoko_ono_and_a_fairly_large_number_of_celebrities/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/13/dont_frack_my_mother_sings_yoko_ono_and_a_fairly_large_number_of_celebrities/#comments Wed, 13 Mar 2013 12:52:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13227558 Sean Lennon, Yoko Ono, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Fred Armisen and other famous faces are doing their very best Bob Dylan in the latest YouTube offering from the Lennon-Yoko environmental outfit, Artists Against Fracking.

The tune -- a light riff on "The Times They Are a-Changin'" called "Don't Frack My Mother" -- is a direct appeal to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo while his administration continues to weigh whether to allow fracking in the state. The song is a little like the "We Are the World" of natural gas extraction, but catchier and less self-serious.

The celebrity crooners implore Cuomo "don't frack my mother, 'cause I ain't got no other" while Ono, in her particular, wonderful brand of shout-song adds, "Don't frack me!" (Related: She is wearing sunglasses, signature fedora and scarf while singing in front of a random white door. Classic Yoko.)

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/13/dont_frack_my_mother_sings_yoko_ono_and_a_fairly_large_number_of_celebrities/feed/ 2 Save the rhino! http://www.salon.com/2013/03/09/save_the_rhino_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/09/save_the_rhino_partner/#comments Sat, 09 Mar 2013 20:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13222903 Like the dodo, the dinosaur, and the pig-footed bandicoot (maybe), the western black rhinoceros is now a thing of the past, hunted to extinction for its horn. And small wonder. Despite being banned in 1977, the rhino horn trade is flourishing. Twenty years ago, a kilo of horn went for $4,700. Today, it sells for $65,000, making it more valuable than either gold or cocaine. Poaching is on the rise, and by some accounts, the number of endangered (but not yet extinct) white rhino killed doubles each year. By 2035, African wildlands could be devoid of the animal.
Pacific Standard

As parties to the international Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) meet in Bangkok this week, a team of Australian conservationists are presenting an unusual—and controversial—proposal: in order to save the remaining African rhinos, farm them for their horns.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/09/save_the_rhino_partner/feed/ 14 Illinois deal on fracking could be national model http://www.salon.com/2013/03/07/illinois_deal_on_fracking_could_be_national_model/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/07/illinois_deal_on_fracking_could_be_national_model/#comments Thu, 07 Mar 2013 21:25:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13222241 CHICAGO (AP) — After years of clashing over the drilling method known as hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," the oil industry and environmentalists have achieved something extraordinary in Illinois: They sat down together to draft regulations both sides could live with.

If approved by lawmakers, the rules would be the nation's strictest. The Illinois model might also offer a template to other states seeking to carve out a middle ground between energy companies that would like free rein and environmental groups that want to ban the practice entirely.

Brian Petty is executive vice president of governmental and regulatory affairs at the International Association of Drilling Contractors. He says "anytime you can bring the lion and lamb to the table, it's a good thing."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/07/illinois_deal_on_fracking_could_be_national_model/feed/ 6 Polar bear trade to remain legal http://www.salon.com/2013/03/07/polar_bear_trade_to_remain_legal/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/07/polar_bear_trade_to_remain_legal/#comments Thu, 07 Mar 2013 19:11:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13221965 An Obama proposal to ban the trade of polar bear pelts, hides and other body parts was rejected by an international gathering of conservationists after a plea from Canadian Inuits. The ban was intended to help save the wild polar bear population, as global warming threatens to reduce its numbers by as much as two thirds in coming decades. But the Canadians claimed that “selling polar bear hides enables us to support ourselves,” Terry Audla, a spokesman for the Inuits, told the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), according to the Washington Post:

Canada is the only nation with polar bears that allows sports hunting. With two-thirds of the world’s polar bear population, Canada exports several hundred polar bear hides and parts for sale each year.

...Each year, an average of 3,200 items made from polar bears – including skins, claws, and teeth – are reported to be exported or re-exported from countries in which the animals live. Polar bear hides sell for an average of $2,000 to $5,000, while maximum hide prices have topped $12,000.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/07/polar_bear_trade_to_remain_legal/feed/ 7 The Green Movement isn’t fringe! http://www.salon.com/2013/03/05/michael_grunwald_im_a_respectable_environmentalist_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/05/michael_grunwald_im_a_respectable_environmentalist_partner/#comments Tue, 05 Mar 2013 17:20:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13219282 Earth Island Journal Environmentalists on Thursday were electrified by an essay by TIME national correspondent Michael Grunwald offering his support for the campaign against the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. After suffering a week’s worth of slights from armchair quarterbacks dissing the Keystone opposition as wooly headed and un-strategic here, finally, was a member of the establishment commentariat saying the recent protests in Washington were spot-on.

In an essay titled, “I’m with the tree huggers,” Grunwald wrote:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/05/michael_grunwald_im_a_respectable_environmentalist_partner/feed/ 6 Bloomberg considers a ban on Styrofoam http://www.salon.com/2013/02/07/bloomberg_considers_a_ban_on_styrofoam/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/07/bloomberg_considers_a_ban_on_styrofoam/#comments Thu, 07 Feb 2013 23:15:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13194605 New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is considering banning Styrofoam cups and containers, according to a Sanitation Department official.

“We’re studying all the different things in our waste stream. We want to make sure that everything in our waste stream is recyclable,” Ron Gonen, deputy commissioner for recycling at Sanitation, told the New York Post.

The packaging -- popular among delis, restaurants and food vendors around the city but long maligned by environmentalists -- is nearly impossible to recycle, Gonen added.

And it's really dang expensive to throw away.

According to the Post, it costs the city an average of $86 per ton to landfill some 2 million tons of regular garbage like Styrofoam every year. Recycling ends up being far cheaper, coming in around $10 a ton for paper and about $14 a ton for glass and plastic, the most likely packaging alternatives to Styrofoam.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/07/bloomberg_considers_a_ban_on_styrofoam/feed/ 6 Minn. cancels moose hunting as population plummets http://www.salon.com/2013/02/06/minn_cancels_moose_hunting_as_population_plummets_2/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/06/minn_cancels_moose_hunting_as_population_plummets_2/#comments Wed, 06 Feb 2013 18:24:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13192599 MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Minnesota officials are canceling the state's moose hunting season because of a sharp decline in the moose population.

Department of Natural Resources officials say their annual aerial survey to estimate the moose population was "extremely disappointing," at about 2,760 animals.

Minnesota's moose population was estimated at a little more than 4,200 in last winter's survey. That number was already down by half from 2006.

Researchers are studying why one of Minnesota's signature animals is dwindling. Scientists think warmer weather, parasites and disease are contributing factors.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/06/minn_cancels_moose_hunting_as_population_plummets_2/feed/ 0 When two guys married a tree http://www.salon.com/2013/01/29/when_two_guys_married_a_tree/ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/29/when_two_guys_married_a_tree/#comments Tue, 29 Jan 2013 12:45:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13184355 In June 2009, Michael Galbreth and Jack Massing, known as the conceptual art duo the Art Guys, put on tuxes and walked down the aisle together at a marriage ceremony in the sculpture garden of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. It was nearly a year to the day after California’s Proposition 8, which sought to outlaw gay marriage, made it onto that state’s ballot, and gay marriage was, of course, still illegal in Texas. Not that it mattered. The two men getting “married” that morning were both heterosexual – in fact, they were both already married to women. As they approached the minister in front of gathered family, friends and local art lovers, the duo dragged behind them a wagon with a live oak sapling planted in a pot. Readings were recited, vows were spoken, and the guys slipped a brass shower curtain ring onto one of the naked branches of the little oak. The Art Guys proclaimed it all “art.” The piece was called "The Art Guys Marry a Plant."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/01/29/when_two_guys_married_a_tree/feed/ 14 My 1,700-mile hike across the XL Pipeline http://www.salon.com/2013/01/20/my_1700_mile_hike_across_the_xl_pipeline/ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/20/my_1700_mile_hike_across_the_xl_pipeline/#comments Sun, 20 Jan 2013 12:45:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13159595 I'd felt strangely drawn to the Keystone XL.

In the fall of 2011, when I fantasized about walking the length of the 1,700-mile proposed pipeline -- that, if approved, will carry oil from the Tar Sands of Alberta to the Gulf Coast of Texas -- I was a lowly dishwasher at an oilman's camp in Deadhorse, Alaska.

At the time, I was broke, just out of grad school, and demoralized with my situation. I had a miserable job that didn't require a high school diploma, let alone the liberal arts degree that had nearly bankrupted me, and I was living in quite possibly the coldest, darkest, dreariest place on earth. I was an adventurer at heart, burdened with the duties of making a living.

I can say, from experience, that when you find yourself washing spoon after spoon, in the middle of the night, in a silent kitchen, at a working camp 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle, you will begin to question the direction of your life. But I can say this also: The soul must first be caged before it can be freed. And when Liam, the cook I worked with, suggested we go on an adventure the next summer and hike the XL, I knew his idea was both crazy and brilliant. I looked at him and said, with what must have been an almost frightening excitement, "We must!"

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/01/20/my_1700_mile_hike_across_the_xl_pipeline/feed/ 22 Birding: The latest angsty Manhattan craze! http://www.salon.com/2013/01/15/birding_the_latest_angsty_manhattan_craze/ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/15/birding_the_latest_angsty_manhattan_craze/#comments Tue, 15 Jan 2013 22:48:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13172315 My Central Park bird species was Nycticorax nycticorax, or the Black-crowned Night Heron. It’s not an unusual or endangered bird or anything, and can be found in most parts of the world. It's just that I wasn't expecting to encounter one in the middle of Manhattan. A slightly squat, gray-and-white predatory water bird about 2 feet tall, it hunts by night (as the name suggests) and spends its days hunkered down in trees by the water’s edge, which is where my wife and I met one in the spring of 2005, by the pond in the southwestern corner of the park. We weren’t birding or anything. We were the underslept parents of 1-year-old twins, relishing a brief springtime escape in a city park whose wildlife population seemed dominated by rats, pigeons, pond turtles and other invasive scavenger species. The heron was not interested in our amazement. He opened one eye, shifted slightly on his branch, and went back to sleep.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/01/15/birding_the_latest_angsty_manhattan_craze/feed/ 12 Fracking fights back http://www.salon.com/2012/12/12/fracking_fights_back/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/12/fracking_fights_back/#comments Wed, 12 Dec 2012 15:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13122175 Most of the legal news about Colorado these days revolves around whether or not the federal government will try to use the courts to prevent the state from implementing its new marijuana law. That's certainly an important story, but arguably just as important is the impending -- and possibly precedent setting -- legal battle here over the future of oil and gas drilling after the city of Longmont voted to ban hydraulic fracturing (aka "fracking") within its boundaries.

That vote wasn't some fluke. Following Pittsburgh's lead, both Republican and Democratic residents in the city voted overwhelmingly to ban the controversial natural gas extraction process after reports from (among others) the Environmental Protection Agency, Duke University, the University of Colorado and the fossil fuel industry itself documented fracking's potential hazards. Yet, despite all of this, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) just announced that his administration will officially back any lawsuit brought by those same firms against Longmont's new law.

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