Tom Turner’s Posts

• Nation's waterways at stake with Supreme Court

  Court to hear case that interprets Clean Water Act's purview over mine fill 0

  Posted 10 months ago

  The future of America's streams, rivers and lakes is on the agenda of U.S. Supreme Court justices this Monday, Jan. 12, when they hear arguments on whether a pristine Alaskan lake may be killed by operators of Kensington gold mine.

  Earthjustice attorney Tom Waldo, who has kept the lake alive through a series of successful battles in lower courts, will again take the lead in this final showdown -- but the stakes have become much greater.

  "The whole reason Congress passed the Clean Water Act was to stop turning our lakes and rivers into industrial waste dumps," Waldo said. "The… Read More

• Listening to CDs Without Melting Antarctica

  Tom Turner reviews Transforming Electricity by Walt Patterson 0

  Posted 10 years, 3 months ago

  Walt Patterson is a physicist by training, an entertaining and lucid writer (he seldom misses a chance at wordplay -- note the title of this book), a fan of jazz and baseball and real ale, and an incisive popularizer of important but complicated matters. And yes, he's my friend. Remind me to tell you some day about several hours we spent years ago in the bookstores on and near Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley, scouring dusty shelves for out-of-print popular books on atomic energy, The Atom Is Your Friend and such.

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Tom Turner’s Recent Comments

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  Roadless Rule

  Your summary says that the Clintonians "instituted" the Roadless Rule at the tail end of his term. While it is true that publication in the Federal Register happened just a week before W Bush was inaugurated, the rule was the product of years of public hearings (600 or so)public comments (a million and a half), and a great deal of debate and consideration. Had the Supreme Court not bequeathed the White House to the shrub the timing might have been different, but to say that the Roadless Rule was cooked up at the last minute to polish Clinton's legacy is simply not right.On Bush administration begins plotting its legacy posted 2 years, 1 month ago 1 Response

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  eco-porn

  Word spy credits coinage of this expression to Michael Fischer, then executive director of the Sierra Club, but I protest. I wrote a chapter in The Environmental Handbook, published for the first Earth Day in 1970, titled: "Ecopornography, or how to spot an ecological phony." It was a discussion of ads by various corporations that amount to greenwash, still a commonplace.On An eco-lexical eco-spasm for the modern eco-age posted 2 years, 4 months ago 12 Responses

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  Whaling Commission

  The story about the clash between Sea Shepherd and the Japanese whalers has a small but significant error that was not in the source article. To wit, the Grist piece says the hunt "was OK'd by the International Whaling Commission as a scientific pursuit," which isn't quite right. As the Guardian rightly put it, the hunt is part of a "scientific whaling programme, conducted within the rules of the International Whaling Commission." The IWC's rules allow member countries to conduct "scientific" whaling on their own: individual hunts are not approved by the commission. If there were a vote on the permits Japan has awarded herself, it would likely fail to be approved.On Sending Out an SOS posted 2 years, 9 months ago 3 Responses

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  Bush

  Umbra, dear, you are altogether too polite. It is a matter of fact, not opinion, that this administration is the worst, environmentally speaking, in the history of the republic. Bobby Kennedy wrote a whole book on the subject. So did Carl Pope and Paul Rauber. And a few others. Yes, those people are from NRDC and the Sierra Club, but for corroboration try Republicans for Environmental Protection http://www.repamerica.org/, who don't think much better of the administration than I do. This isn't close. Looking to the EPA for a neutral assessment is akin to asking Ang Lee which is the best movie of the year.On Umbra on politicians and the environment posted 3 years, 7 months ago 7 Responses

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  Worldwatch

  Fascinating and depressing. Ed Ayres is a great guy and a fine editor. Chris Flavin should be embarassed. But I want to know more about Les Brown's departure. He was ousted? How did that come down? He's still doing his think, more power too him. What happened in 2001? Anyone know?

  Tom Turner

  On Worldwatch kerfuffle posted 4 years, 11 months ago 4 Responses