My train this morning usually continues to New York. Today it terminated in Philadelphia, a victim of the deluge delivered by Hurricane Irene. Amtrak explained: Most Northeast Regional service will operate south of Philadelphia, but no Acela Express, Northeast Regional or other Amtrak trains can operate north of Philadelphia to New York. As of early this Monday evening, about a half-mile of Amtrak right-of-way remained submerged near Trenton, N.J. As the water levels recede, Amtrak engineering forces will make repairs to the track and signal control infrastructure. Updates will continue to b...

No, this is not jihad or the last gasp of a d esperate despot.  Instead, it is a citizens group taking on the government and seeking to compel the completion of environmental impact statements (EISs) prior to the promulgation of regulations for the development of shale oil wells in the Delaware River Basin.  If they are successful, they will certainly delay the drilling of hundreds if not thousands of wells.  And as part of that success, the role of natural gas as a "bridging" fuel to ease us into a carbon-free world may be substantially diminished. Taking a page from the playb...

One of the more infuriating things about lawyers is that often, if they do their job right, their client wins and no one else benefits from it. This is what happened Monday before Judge Sand in the Southern District of New York in the closely followed green building case, Gifford v U.S.Green Building Council. The judge, in a short Memorandum & Order barely over seven pages (attached below) dismissed Mr. Gifford's case on procedural grounds. So we are left to wonder about the merits. Mr. Gifford and his co-plaintiffs are building engineering professionals. They assert that the USGBC's LEED...

Half a degree doesn't sound like much. And it isn't, if you are talking about a baccalaureate. But in a world of climate change, a half a degree increase in Baltimore's average temperature combined with average temperature increases in all the lower 48 states is confirmation of what the scientists are telling us:  the planet is warming.  Thus, the National Weather Service's release on Monday of revised 30-year average temperatures gives some satisfaction, or at least Schadenfreude, to those trying to lead (or push) their organizations into proactively managing climate change. O...