Kit Stolz’s Posts

• Say It Ain't So, Rupert

  Wall Street Journal minimizes global warming in its news coverage 1

  Posted 6 days, 4 hours agoIn the past, before Rupert Murdoch's $5.6 billion acquisition of the Wall Street Journal, the paper was greatly respected by its peers for its news coverage, even on climate issues. This year that has changed.

• Deniers lose again in court

  How the Little Ice Age Reveals Our Climate Control 0

  Posted 2 weeks, 1 day ago

  This month Harper's magazine turns its lead essay over to Stephen Stoll, a historian, who in "The Cold We Caused," delves into the history of climate to show how "nearly incoherent" are the arguments of the likes of climate change denier James Inhofe, Senator from Oklahoma, who continues to insist against the facts that we are in a "cooling period."

  Inhofe concedes that the globe did warm after the Industrial Revolution, but doubts whether this warming was caused by "man-made gases, anthropogenic gases, CO2, methane."

  Stoll turns the question around, asking: What would happen to carbon dioxide and… Read More

• A stitch in time saves nine

  EPA chief stumbles over need to prepare for global warming 4

  Posted 6 months, 1 week ago

  In one of her first interviews with the national press since being named to office, EPA chief Lisa Jackson started well in her defense of the need for government action to regulate the emission of greenhouse gases.  But as the interview with NPR progressed, her arguments grew weaker.

• The Pariah Becomes a Prophet

  Did Guilt Drive Thoreau into the Woods? 0

  Posted 6 months, 2 weeks ago

  Henry David Thoreau went to the woods because, he wrote in Walden, he wanted to "live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life."

  Yet in the book Thoreau didn't mention the fact that a year earlier, he had accidentally set the woods near his home town of Concord on fire, causing a 300-acre blaze, a near disaster, and costing the town  $2,000, at the time a considerable sum.

  In Walden he famously scorned those who would live "lives of quiet desperation," but he didn't mention after the fire that he himself was scorned in Concord as a "woodsburner."

  Is it… Read More

• The karma of coal?

  Climate change hits Australia with a vengeance 2

  Posted 7 months ago

  Climate change-driven drought in Australia is leaving depression, despair, and suicide in its wake. The U.S. doesn't get this. Yet.

All Posts

Kit Stolz’s Recent Comments

• Click here to view comment in original post

  Record sounds terrific. Thanks for posting it. Plus, Tweedy includes a line (from "You Never Know") that might help put the feet of those panic-stricken by thoughts of climate change back on the ground...

  "C'mon children, you're acting like children/every generation thinks it's the end of the world...."

  On Friday music blogging: Wilco again posted 5 months, 3 weeks ago 1 Response

• Click here to view comment in original post

  The most interesting song I've heard from the record had nothing to do with the environment, but everything to do with the difficulty of making what used to be called "message music."

  It's called "Just Singing a Song," and it is built on the chorus: 

  "Just singing a song/Won't change the world..."

  And it rocks, btw...which maybe why it was the only one from the record that Young played when he last performed live, at his great annual fall Bridge Benefit concert.

   

  On Taking Neil Young's latest album out for a spin posted 6 months, 2 weeks ago 1 Response

• Click here to view comment in original post

  I confess, I cannot understand how this nation and W. Virginia can allow this monstrous on-going disaster known as mountain-top removal to continue, seemingly unchecked...but I can admire those such as Gunnoe who have the courage to stand up to it.

  On King coal takedown: Maria Gunnoe posted 6 months, 3 weeks ago 2 Responses

• Click here to view comment in original post

  a tortured hero -- literally

  At one point in "Slumdog," the interrogator of our likable hero refers to the "bizarrely plausible" nature of his story. Lim and some of us question that. So we're grumpy -- I guess.  

  The premise (spoiler alert!) of this film tells us that because this kid from the slums gets on a winning streak, he is abducted, interrogated, tortured, and beaten.

  Really? Or is this just a melodramatic framing device that allows us to take an on-the-run tour of the lower depths of Mumbai? I confess I liked the tour, but set this same story in any well-known Western city and the dubiousness of it would be instantly apparent. We only buy it because we want to go on the tour and we figure that somehow in weird India anything goes. The best thing you can say about it is that it's like a Dickens novel for our time, but even Dickens I don't think would resort to cheesy bad guys  actually torturing a hero on such a flimsy pretext.

  The most important movie of the year, for reasons both artistic and commercial, was "The Dark Knight." And if that movie could have contained an uplifting love story or an obvious moral, probably it too would have been granted a shot at best picture. Surely it's as solid and memorable a movie as "Titanic," which according to the Academy, is one of the best ever, or "Slumdog," which is a virtual lock to win this year.

  So then -- isn't it curious that the most popular picture of the year is too harrowing and downbeat to be considered for a big award? Says a lot about our times. On A song from the likely Best Picture and an open thread for the Oscars posted 8 months, 2 weeks ago 7 Responses

• Click here to view comment in original post

  "because this is serious business"

  Amen. Not only was it heartening to hear a candidate make so much sense, but it was esp. heartening to see the American people respond to a candidate who reminded the electorate that "this is serious business" and the nation needs candidates who "do their homework." So true, and so untrue of the GOP of today. On This might be my all-time favorite posted 9 months, 1 week ago 2 Responses