Republicans Overseeing National Parks Deny ‘Systemic Threat’ Of Climate Change | ThinkProgress

Despite the pressure from deniers, the National Park Service is already undertaking efforts to anticipate and adapt to a changing world, such as the Climate Change Response Council, the creation of which Republicans bashed. As National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis said in 2010, “I believe climate change is fundamentally the greatest threat to the integrity of our national parks that we have ever experienced.”
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As the National Parks Conservation Association noted in its report, “the threats facing America’s national parks are serious and sobering. Our parks are becoming biological lifeboats in a changing and challenging landscape.” We should take this call to action seriously — it’s the only way that our parks will survive.

Cars today, gone tomorrow

The Times again: "As he stood watching a few cars inch through a mass of bicycles and pedestrians, the city's chief traffic planner, Andy Fellmann, smiled. 'Driving is a stop-and-go experience,' he said. 'That's what we like! Our goal is to reconquer public space for pedestrians, not to make it easy for drivers.' "
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But still, one has to ask, what do these cities do with people who more or less have to get around by car, including the infirm? Special placards are no good if everybody is going 10 miles an hour, and they certainly don't help find parking places when there are no parking places at all.

This is too bad: Recent studies have shown the older people who can no longer drive - or no longer have a car - become much more isolated and, it is speculated, more depressed as they are increasingly shut in by their four walls. The car, after all, is just a tool we build - it does good things and bad things, and it thrives in a landscape designed for it.

More fun with unintended consequences « The Daily Bayonet

Cleaner air causes global warming. Add it to The List. Wait, what?

Academics campaign against Lord Monckton's Lang Hancock lecture

The letter - now signed by 50 academics and PHD students - says ''in hosting this lecture, Notre Dame University is undermining the academic community.