No Energy is Clean Enough, Green Enough

February 1, 2023

Apparently, people in rural Ohio are not overly fond of renewable energy. In fact, various county commissioners there voted down 42 wind energy and 43 solar energy projects in 2022. Sixteen of the proposed wind farms were in Logan County. Interestingly, Logan County, Colorado also said no to a proposed wind farm. The two counties […]

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Cooking Up Another Ban

January 27, 2023

The national press corps sometimes jokes about a president so excited by a big event he insists, “We must tell the press at once!” and his staff responds, “Yes, sir – announcement or leak?” Leaks are not always unplanned in Washington; often they are a strategy, floating a trial balloon to see the reaction. It […]

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It Wasn’t Always This Contentious

January 18, 2023

When did environmental issues become so divisive, bitter, angry, and litigious? Historically speaking, that is a recent development. We generally think of America’s environmental awareness as beginning with Theodore Roosevelt and his allies: George Bird Grinnell, Gifford Pinchot, John Wesley Powell, John Muir and a few others, who gave the name “conservation” to the movement […]

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Coal is Still King – Elsewhere

January 13, 2023

Does the rest of the world know something we don’t? A December report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) confirms that worldwide use of coal hit an all-time high in 2022, following a huge increase in 2021, and is on track to increase further in 2023. The report was barely mentioned by most of the […]

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Can Anyone Manage the Federal Estate?

January 10, 2023

Remember when air travel used to fun? Big carriers like PanAm competed with TWA and Eastern, as did smaller ones like Braniff and Piedmont, each claiming to offer better food and more comfortable seats. They’re all gone now. The big mergers started in 2001 with American and TWA. Delta and Northwest merged in 2008, followed […]

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Powered by Human Ingenuity

December 30, 2022

The recent news that scientists have finally produced a controlled nuclear fusion reaction that generates a net energy gain was greeted with substantial skepticism, but also a great deal of excitement. Some of the hype was a bit over the top, heralding the achievement at Lawrence Livermore Labs as a sign that a fossil-fuel free […]

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OK, the Deserts Are Blooming – Now What

December 20, 2022

There are many studies on the history of the Bureau of Reclamation, established in 1902 to bring water, and life, to the west. Some writers claim it was needed to relieve overcrowding in the cities, to get people to move to farms. What nonsense. The migration of the American population from farms to cities had […]

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If All the Answers Fit on Bumper Stickers

December 8, 2022

The bumper sticker on the car in front of me this morning read, “There is no Planet B.” How profound. Senator Bill Armstrong once said, “We could change the world with a bumper sticker if we could figure out what to write on it.” He understood it is almost impossible for most people to ignore […]

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What Exactly is Settled Science?

November 29, 2022

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently made the statement that “There is scientific consensus that the lives of children are going to be very difficult… leading young people to have a legitimate question: is it still OK to have children?” I’m completely comfortable with her deciding not to have children, but that aside, what scientific consensus is […]

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Citizens of the Same World

November 18, 2022

History students learn one of the most famous lines from inaugural addresses, that spoken by President Kennedy in 1961, which begins, “And so my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you…” They rarely learn the next line, which was “My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do […]

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