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Worried About the Weather, and the Land

Summer has brought another rash of extreme weather around the world: relentless rain has caused flooding in Britain, India and Texas, and record-breaking heat has led to wildfires in Greece and in Utah – demonstrating, once again, how severe weather and climate change can quickly alter the landscape. But slower alterations in the earth’s natural features are happening, too, as a result of human activity, and some of these are far more drastic and lasting. The Op-Ed page asked four writers to report on how the environment is faring in their parts of the globe. Here are their dispatches. The Great Swiss Meltdown by Peter Stamm Winterthur, Switzerland SOME years ago, when a German critic accused me of “meteorological mannerism” because weather plays such a large role in my books, a friend came to my defense: “We happen to have a lot of weather in Switzerland.” Even our national anthem is full of meteorological phenomena: we sing of gray mists and dark clouds and sunshine’s cleansing power. My country’s diverse topography accommodates all kinds of climates, from Mediterranean to arctic. Forecasts roughly divide the country into two parts – the north and south sides of the Alps – but weather […]

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42 US Representatives Oppose Costly Liquid Coal Process

Forty-two members of the U.S. House of Representatives have expressed their opposition to an array of attempts to put government money into the wasteful, inefficient, and expensive process of converting coal into liquid transportation fuels according to energy experts. Led by Congressman Robert Wexler, D-FL, the Representatives sent a letter highlighting the numerous negative aspects of the process to Representative John Dingell, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce committee, and Sub-Committee Chairman Rick Boucher, both of whom have been working on liquid coal legislation. Reliance upon coal for liquid fuel would require more mining in places already devastated by destructive coal mining practices according to environmental experts. Already more than 1,200 miles of streams have been permanently buried and 500,000 acres of mountains have been flattened by mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia. Just to replace 10 percent of U.S. liquid transportation fuels with liquid coal would require a $70 billion investment. Below are statements of support for the sign-on letter from Congressman Robert Wexler and various environmental organizations. Elizabeth Martin Perrera, Climate Policy Specialist, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) “No liquid coal plants have ever been built in the United States. The few attempts made resulted in billions […]

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