Writing Worth Reading
Reinsurance made fascinating. How Munich Re researches, prices global risk, including climate change. "What is the probability that Cologne's historic Old Town will be flooded a second time within the next year? Ten percent"
Date of publication online: 2 September 2010
Guaranteed to be the most interesting article about potash you will read this year. Surge in price of key fertiliser mineral signals rising Chinese demand for food, fear of world food shortage
Date of publication online: 27 August 2010At last, floods get blockbuster treatment. A month late, but a great story. All there. Human tragedy, infrastructural devastation, further undermining of government, geopolitical repercussions
Date of publication online: 26 August 2010Profile of elderly billionaire brothers who bankroll much of America's right-wing populism and climate-change denial. "They are the Standard Oil of our times"
Date of publication online: 23 August 2010Surprisingly interesting short account of Iranian town, and nuclear reactor just built there. Looks like a legitimate power-generation plant. Other Iranian projects much more dangerous
Date of publication online: 23 August 2010Striking series of photographs related to the BP oil spill. From beautiful wildlife and landscape shots to informative images of the clean-up operation
Date of publication online: 20 August 2010Good backgrounder on Russian fires. Bogs around Moscow drained early last century for peat fuel, then neglected, sold off, built upon. Only way to stop fire would be to reflood them
Date of publication online: 16 August 2010Office memos from angry boss of Texas oil company which drilled 49 dry holes, went broke. "There is one thing that differentiates me from my employees. I am a known son-of-a-bitch, and I care to remain that way"
Date of publication online: 5 August 2010Industrial fishing is destroying successive species. Cod, halibut, haddock, swordfish, marlin, skate all rare. Bluefin tuna may soon be extinct. Is no regulatory solution possible?
Date of publication online: 27 July 2010Six notes on diverse topics from much-respected investment strategist. All good, but "Everything You Need To Know About Gobal Warming In 5 Minutes", is the one to read first (Scribd)
Date of publication online: 20 July 2010
FT redeems lacklustre coverage of BP spill with this fine account of anger among company insiders at falling share price, PR fiasco. Fails to mention that BP's PR boss is former FT editor
Date of publication online: 15 July 2010Engaging mixture of memoir and polemic. Writer recalls working in his twenties for "honourable" independent oil driller, contrasts that ethos with malign, corporate self-interest of BP in Gulf
Date of publication online: 10 July 2010Good primer on problems confronting America's power industry—mainly aging grid infrastructure, fossil-fuel reliance—and a round-up of possible solutions, if and when money can be found
Date of publication online: 7 July 2010Grey squirrels are patient, smart, tough, athletic, sociable, chatty. "At the end of a hard day’s forage, they greet each other with a mutual nuzzling of cheek and lip glands that looks decidedly like a kiss"
Date of publication online: 5 July 2010A common phrase, but does it actually work? Past experimenters, among them Benjamin Franklin, found little effect. Huge new test in prospect if a Gulf hurricane hits Deepwater Horizon oil spill
Date of publication online: 23 June 2010Institutional investors threaten to sue BP for misrepresenting safety record. But these same people ignored years of warnings from green pressure groups, chose not to hold BP to account
Date of publication online: 22 June 2010Lessons for climate change, from Gulf oil spill. We're bad at calculating risk. We're overconfident about technological solutions. Environmental disaster isn't sure to bring policy change
Date of publication online: 16 June 2010BP disaster explained movingly in human terms. Story of explosion re-told through eyes of men working the rig. Starts slowly, builds strongly, well worth reading through to the end
Date of publication online: 15 June 2010House of Representatives Energy Committee chairmen write to BP boss, alleging five counts of negligence. Warn him to "come prepared" when giving testimony this week (PDF)
Date of publication online: 14 June 2010Interview with Matthew Simmons, author of "Twilight in the Desert". Spill is big oil's "Challenger". BP a month away from Chapter 11. Obama should turn clean-up over to US military
Date of publication online: 9 June 2010Huge, meticulously reported feature on Deepwater Horizon leak, pinning blame on Obama for green-lighting BP, while failing to reform regulatory agencies
Date of publication online: 8 June 2010Idiosyncratic, sometimes surprising, advice on greener living. When you walk home from the shops with two carrier bags, about 1/1000th of the carbon footprint is in the bags, rest is in the shopping.
Date of publication online: 8 June 2010
The man and the memoirs: a collection of essays, diaries and polemics portraying Britain's former...
Profile of elderly billionaire brothers who bankroll much of America's right-wing populism and climate-change denial. "They are the Standard Oil of our times"
Six notes on diverse topics from much-respected investment strategist. All good, but "Everything You Need To Know About Gobal Warming In 5 Minutes", is the one to read first (Scribd)
Idiosyncratic, sometimes surprising, advice on greener living. When you walk home from the shops with two carrier bags, about 1/1000th of the carbon footprint is in the bags, rest is in the shopping.
Niger Delta suffers equivalent of Gulf oil spill every year—and nobody outside the area seems to care, least of all the oil companies. Forest, famland "covered in a sheen of greasy oil"