Energy

Anti-fracking activists demonstrate outside of Governor Cuomo's office this past August in Manhattan. Photo by Adam Welz for CREDO Action/CC by 2.0) 

Tensions are heating up between environmentalists and energy proponents as governor Andrew M. Cuomo prepares to release a decision on whether the Empire State will regulate the drilling technology known as hydrofracking. If it does, New York will join a handful of other states allowing some level of “fracking,” including Texas, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Virginia and several Midwestern states.

The horned puffin is among the numerous bird species that could be affected by an oil spill in Arctic waters. Photo: USFWS via Flickr

Royal Dutch Shell PLC is calling it quits for drilling in the waters off Alaska’s north coast—at least for 2013. The move comes as no surpise, given the series of setbacks the company has encountered.

Pacific black brant geese with goslings. Photo: Jeff Wasley/USGS

Birds, caribou, and oil companies will share vast Alaskan wilderness. “[It’s] a victory for birds, wildlife, and America’s future,” Audubon president and CEO David Yarnold said of the first-ever management plan for the 22.8 million acre reserve in northern Alaska. “It says that some places really are too precious to drill.”

America is at an energy crossroads, says Michael Levi, energy expert and member of the Council on Foreign Relations think tank. According to Levi, we are experiencing an energy-related climate crisis—global warming—in addition to localized environmental problems created by fossil fuels. Think the earthquake in Youngstown, Ohio, caused by a shale gas well drilled too close to a fault line.

We are also experiencing two energy revolutions: an oil and natural gas boom and the ascendance of renewable energy technology. With The Power Surge, Levi aims to help Americans understand every intricacy of this country’s energy scene, from energy independence to its economic significance to the environmental impact of oil, coal, natural gas, and renewable energy. [Photo: Courtesy of Oxford University Press]

The President made a clear call to action last night, urging a bipartisan effort to combat climate change. Yet there are steps Obama can take today to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, whether or not Congress acts.

President Obama days before the election as he toured the region hit by Hurricane Sandy. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

President Obama made the news for his silence on climate change for much of the 2012 presidential campaign. That changed in his inaugural address on Monday. In a move that heartened many environmentalists, he said that climate change is not a subject he can ignore in his second term.

The Kulluk on New Year's Day after it ran aground on an uninhabited Alaskan island. (Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Sara Francis)

Shell’s numerous Arctic drilling blunders have spurred the government to launch an urgent review that could hinder—or even halt—the company’s continuing efforts to open up waters off of Alaska’s coast to oil exploration.

Artwork: Mark Hobson

Seabirds befouled with black ooze are potent symbols of the havoc oil spills can wreak on marine and coastal ecosystems, but the ebony plumage of the bird in Mark Hobson’s “Pelagic Cormorants: Diving for Gobies” is entirely natural. Nevertheless, viewed in the context of the Art for an Oil-free Coast exhibit now touring British Columbia, the painting’s message is unequivocal: wildlife and petroleum products don’t mix.

In each issue of Audubon, the editors review a mix of narrative nonfiction titles, as well as art books and children’s books about nature. For ease, we’ve compiled the dozens of fantastic works we reviewed in 2012 in one place, and we’ve added a few additional books that we covered exclusively online.

Photo courtesy USDA

The lesser prairie chicken—known for its flamboyant courtship behavior, where the fellas display brilliant yellow eyecombs and red air sacs as they dance about—took center stage today when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife proposed listing it as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act. The bird has suffered an 84% decline in the five states where it lives: Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas.