Category Archives: Global Warming

The Time Tunnel

3/7/2013 – 3:06 pm

But for the grace of God, Trekkies, there go I.  In the mid-1960s, Star Trek wasn’t the only implausible, sci-fi haven for hack actors.  For one, glorious 30-episode season (1966-67) ABC aired The Time Tunnel. With a premise as cardboard as its sets, Time Tunnel hurtled time-traveling techie protagonists Tony (James Darren) and Doug (Robert […]

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Hot New World, Toxic Old World

2/28/2013 – 4:53 pm

In the New Yorker magazine a few weeks ago, Ian Frazier wrote about the effects of Hurricane Sandy on Staten Island. His report mixes the heartache and loss suffered by the community with the cold, wet facts of climate change and other injuries we’ve inflicted on our surroundings.  At one point, Mr. Frazier (whose nickname […]

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A Bit of Everything

1/24/2013 – 7:42 pm

I spent a good portion of last weekend happily skating on the Pine Street Barge Canal near my house.  It was perfect winter exercise and recreation, just what I needed to bring a healthy glow to my cheeks.  (I’m a crappy skater, but I enjoy it.)  Gliding over the rough patches near the beaver lodge, […]

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Gas Attack

1/17/2013 – 2:01 pm

Two weeks ago, I wrote about the Shell oil rig Kulluk, which was then beached on an uninhabited island off Alaska’s south coast.  Shell has since refloated the rig and it’s now in a sheltered harbor being inspected.  This is not the end of Shell’s troubles. Shell’s incompetence with equipment (see here for a longer, […]

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Empty Shell

1/3/2013 – 8:00 pm

Happy New Year.  The snow here is two feet deep and the temperature is in single digits, sometimes above and sometimes below zero.  Winter in Vermont as it should be and as it too rarely seems to be anymore. Global warming is the cause, of course, and while we seem to be enjoying a respite […]

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Chump Change = No Change

11/15/2012 – 4:57 pm

Let me apologize in advance for all the numbers that follow, but they’re important. Eleven men died on Deepwater Horizon the night BP’s Macondo well blew out in April 2010.  It’s one number we shouldn’t forget and no number can be placed on the loss their families and communities suffered and continue to suffer. The […]

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Geography, For Example

10/18/2012 – 5:21 pm

Some things we can’t control.  Geography, for example. Mountains ranges in Europe tend to run east-west; in North America, they run north-south.  A new report by the reinsurance company Munich Re cites this fact as one reason North America experiences more weather related disasters than Europe – there’s no east-west mountain range to separate cold […]

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