The Select Oil Company charged the nightshift it cobbled together near Port Fourchon with preparing for the morning’s cleanup. The international petroleum and gas conglomerate had sent out teams of managers in the afternoon to gather local day laborers and whoever else they could find to help unload the 30 semi-trailers headed for different locations […]
When it comes to the nation’s abandoned mines, cleanup can be anything but clean The varieties of tragedies at the United States’ half-million abandoned mine sites boggle the mind. Each layer of disaster compounds the damage of every other layer. Each of the 500,000 estimated mine sites is a multi-million-dollar clustermuck left for taxpayers and […]
Cyber-security in the electrical grids has become big business, but is it safe yet? I recently stumbled upon a banner ad for a fascinating international conference: “Istanbul 2017,” a gathering of cyber-security professionals and a showcase for their businesses. Even more intriguing than this trade show ad was the website where it was placed: OSGP.org, […]
ORLANDO, FL—4:50 a.m., April 13th, 2017 Florida. We’ve done much here in our beloved state to earn our reputation for being crazy from the heat. But, even here, the sun sometimes shines on doing the right thing. For instance, yesterday, the Florida Senate passed SB10, which is a bill that conservationists say is a crucial […]
In the early morning, my life’s experiences shape my paragraphs One of the great things about being an author is that every experience—all of life—informs one’s writing. From my childhood on a large dairy farm in Wisconsin to my decades as an emergency room physician in Florida, in one way or another, it all ends […]
The American tradition of rugged individualism traces directly back to the cowboy on the lonesome prairie. We Americans are wired for individual survival and progress. Of course, even the archetypal cowboy is part of an unbreakable natural system—a fact that undercuts the fantasy of complete independence. On the surface, immediately we observe the symbiosis of […]
As we enter National Disaster Preparedness Month, a look at hard-hit U.S. areas Friday evening, Tropical Storm Hermine crept into the Carolinas, where its winds lashed at red oaks and birches, homes, and infrastructure throughout the Appalachian piedmont. As a Category 1 hurricane, Hermine entered Florida Friday morning through Apalachee Bay, along the bend of […]
You’d think we have enough trouble without poisoning our own water Systems, by definition, consist of interconnected parts. Oftentimes, when one part of the system fails, the entire system fails. This is also true with ecosystems, and that makes a headline which appeared on NPR.org Sunday that much more troubling. “Poisonous Algae Blooms Threaten People, […]
The realities of life “as we transition in a non-linear fashion to a much warmer world,” as University of Ottawa climatology professor Paul Beckwith describes it, twist, warp, soar, and dive. It’s what Beckwith calls “chaotic climate.” He is one of several scientists worldwide concerned with the recent “dive” of a Northern Hemisphere jet stream […]
“What is inexplicable and inexcusable is, once people figured out that there was a problem there, and that there was lead in the water, the notion that immediately families weren’t notified, things weren’t shut down. That shouldn’t happen anywhere.” – President Barack Obama on the Flint water disaster That a disaster which began in approximately […]