Measuring Public Opinion on Environment and Sustainability: How Conventional Wisdom Gets That Way | The New York Observer

The problem with the existing survey question is that as long as we draw our wealth and sustenance from the natural environment (you know, things like food, air and water), economic growth will depend on environmental quality. While our political dialogue is often built around the assumption that we can trade off one against the other, we really can’t. No biosphere = no wealth.

Support for the idea of global warming is slipping

Supporters of cap-and trade may have to worry about another kind of heat when they find themselves in political hot water. Most people surveyed, 51 percent, stated that economic expansion should take precedent over environmental concerns. Other polls have clearly shown that the majority of Americans are not for environmental reform if they result in higher taxes and fees. This, coupled with the fact that in Illinois July 2009 was the coldest July in history, have many people finding the idea of global warming laughable. Elected officials are going to have to understand that the American people are their employers. Voters don’t send them to their respective Statehouse or to Washington to promote their own political careers, or to fund the initiatives of special interest groups whose agendas run in direct contradiction to the values of the people they represent.

Crew Log 60 - Pearce Point Harbor, Amundsen Gulf

The ice charts we've seen show Peel as currently impassable, with a threat of more ice filling in from the north. It sounds like a precarious position, and we not only wish those crews good luck, we'll be following their exploits with more than passing interest.
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Here in the Arctic, the next month or so will be, to put it mildly, very interesting. We're about to see whether the Northwest Passage Class of '09 goes on to graduate...or, truth be told, if they're held back and get a head start on the Class of 2010.