Even Spill Won’t Convince Tea Partiers

As the Democrats are expected to use BP’s oil spill to push for stricter regulation of business in the United States, left-wing commentators are wondering why even the disaster in the Gulf won’t convince small-government conservatives. The Obama Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — which rarely urges passage of specific legislation — both […]

Who’s to Blame?

In the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that began on April 20, the question has been asked in media both left and right: who’s to blame? From Time magazine to The Washington Independent to cable news, journalists seemed more obsessed about wondering who is responsible than reporting on the actual catastrophe. In all […]

The Political Disaster of the BP Oil Spill

The BP oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, still spewing after more than a week and several failed mitigation attempts, is certainly an environmental disaster, the extent of which will likely not be known for many weeks to come. But it is also a political disaster. First of all, though the initial accident was […]

Arctic Tensions Rising

Tensions between Russia and its Arctic neighbor states flared up against last week when President Dmitri Medvedev told his Security Council on Wednesday that the country must be prepared to defend its claim on the region’s natural resources. With global warming rapidly changing the Arctic landscape, the region might well emerge as a future battleground […]

Future Arctic Battleground

Global warming is rapidly changing the Arctic landscape. In the summer of 2008, for the first time in recorded history, the polar icecap retreated far enough to allow shipping north of Eurasia and North America; by 2013, these sea routes are expected to be completely ice free during the summer. The region promises more than […]