"I would guess a few Green readers had the experience, over the holidays, of arguing yet again about global warming with a parent or brother-in-law who thinks it’s all a big hoax. ... Fortunately, the M.I.T. climate scientist Kerry Emanuel has provided us with a solution to this problem: an updated edition of 'What We Know About Climate Change,' his 2007 book explaining the science of global warming."
"WEST YELLOWSTONE, Montana -- The nonprofit bison advocacy group Buffalo Field Campaign and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have reached a settlement that requires the agency to process and respond to Freedom of Information Act, FOIA, requests from citizens nationwide in a 'timely' manner."
"Any food sold in Washington state and made with genetically engineered crops would have to be labeled under a ballot initiative submitted Thursday."
"Companies will not be able to keep trade secrets for hydraulic fracturing ingredients if a proposed Alaska rule is adopted."
"In a year of strange weather worldwide, climate change reporting by the world's journalists fell another 2 percent, according to DailyClimate.org's archive of media coverage. But there were some surprises."
Too often stories fail to disclose such industry ties, which might call into question the experts' objectivity. The Checks and Balances Project, an energy watchdog group, did an analysis of coverage in 60 publications over a five-year period with very interesting results.
"A landmark Environmental Protection Agency report concluding that children exposed to toxic substances can develop learning disabilities, asthma and other health problems has been sidetracked indefinitely amid fierce opposition from the chemical industry."
"Barbara Kingsolver's novel, 'Flight Behavior,' opens with a scenario that could have been ripped from a Harlequin Romance: Dellarobia Turnbow, a restless young housewife in rural Feathertown, Tenn., is walking into the woods to meet a man who is not her husband. Things take a turn, as they always do in fiction. But this turn is not the usual one."
Award-winning ScientificAmerican.com associate editor David Biello has been reporting on the environment and energy since 1999. He is the host of the 60-Second Earth podcast, a contributor to the Instant Egghead video series, author of a children's book on bullet trains, and hosts the PBS documentary series Beyond the Light Switch. Read Biello's comments on the state of environmental journalism and the value of SEJ to its member-journalists.
December 18, 2012
Dave Mann, Editor
Piper Stege Nelson, Publisher
The Texas Observer
307 W 7th Street
Austin, Texas 78701
editors@texasobserver.org
Mr. Mann and Ms. Nelson:
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