Wednesday-Night

Natural Resources Defense Council: Transition to Green
Gulf of Mexico oil spill
Question of the Day: What do the oil catastrophe and the Wall Street collapse have in common?
In both cases, a powerful, politically protected industry invented something that could not easily be repaired when it broke….
The American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES)
John Stewart on the […]

The World’s Ongoing Ecological Disasters
(Foreign Policy) While it’s probably still too soon to celebrate, BP appears to finally be getting the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico under control. But many of the world’s greatest environmental catastrophes continue, with no end in sight.
The Deepwater Horizon incident may have been the worst oil spill in […]

Wednesday-Night.com for photos and more
Ron Meisels was warmly congratulated on the recent announcement of the Caldwell Meisels Canada Fund (formerly the Caldwell Canada Fund), reflecting “the recent hiring of prominent technical analyst, Ron Meisels, President of Phases & Cycles Inc., as a consultant to the Fund”.
The Census Brouhaha (more on Canada 2010: The census debate)
Prior […]

Banning the Burqa (and the niqab)
See the Economist “Banning the burqa — A bad idea…whose time may soon come in parts of Europe” for an even-handed discussion of the two sides of the argument, much of which was iterated this evening
As several European nations, in particular France, debate banning the burqa, Wednesday Nighters were […]

Africa, China, the United States, and Oil ; Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Africa Policy Forum
A thoughtful article that goes a long way towards explaining conflict in and between nations - in Africa and many other parts of the world.
The Revenge of Geography : People and ideas influence events, but geography largely determines […]

Pembina Institute; Arctic & Antarctic
U.S. lawmaker wants halt to TransCanada pipeline
House Energy and Commerce committee chairman Henry Waxman urged the State Department to block TransCanada’s planned Keystone XL pipeline.
“This pipeline is a multi-billion-dollar investment to expand our reliance on the dirtiest source of transportation fuel currently available,” Mr. Waxman said in a letter to […]

More on oil and Wednesday-night.com Oil Notes

For several years, Wednesday Nights have witnessed often passionate discussions on the validity of M. King Hubbert’s prediction of the early depletion of (easily accessible - ‘cheap’) fossil fuels. With current rising oil prices, Hubbert’s Peak has become a familiar term far beyond the circles of energy experts. […]

Svalbard Diary: The unending light
The trip to Oslo is the first leg of a journey to the Svalbard archipelago, a set of islands north of Norway which boast the most northerly settlement in the eastern hemisphere: Ny Alesund. On the western shore of the island of Spitsbergen, this place is devoted more or less entirely […]

More on Wednesday-Night.com
Afghanistan, McChrystal and the media - role and responsibility 
The Rolling Stone story The Runaway General that precipitated General Stanley McChrystal’s dismissal provided fodder for discussion of the role of the media in reporting and interpreting news.
The New York Times’ masthead logo, “All The News That’s Fit to Print,” like Jack […]

By Matthew O. Berger and Emilio Godoy*
WASHINGTON/MEXICO CITY, Jun 16, 2010 (IPS) - On a spring day in the Gulf of Mexico, a pipe issuing from the sea floor ruptured, sending an explosion rippling up to the drilling platform above and spewing oil into the surrounding waters. Experts scrambled to […]