Tim McDonnell

Climate Desk Associate Producer

Tim McDonnell joined the Climate Desk after stints at Mother Jones and Sierra magazine, where he nurtured his interest in environmental journalism. Originally from Tucson, Tim loves tortillas and epic walks.

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There's No Hiding From Tar Sands Oil

Keystone XL pipeline or no, America is awash with the dirty oil from Canada. Here's our interactive map revealing the refineries near you.

—By Tim McDonnell

| Thu Dec. 15, 2011 1:20 PM PST

An oil refinery in Edmonton, Alberta

Recent debate over the Keystone XL oil pipeline has turned a spotlight on Canada's controversial and oil-rich tar sands, which would be the source of crude oil flowing through the pipe to the Gulf of Mexico. Tar sands oil has faced stiff criticism from environmental groups, which say that it's far dirtier than its Middle Eastern counterpart despite claims from the Canadian government and industry groups that they keep a close eye on environmental impact.

But long before the Keystone XL became a cause célèbre, tar sands oil was already ubiquitous in America: It goes to fuel our cars and corporations' trucking fleets, and it's used in the production of products from aluminum cans to asphalt. Starting last year, San Francisco-based environmental advocacy group Forest Ethics launched a campaign to encourage American companies to boycott tar sands oil and, specifically, the refineries that process it (below).

[Read the full article]

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GOP Senators Want to Fast-Track Keystone XL

—By Tim McDonnell

| Wed Nov. 30, 2011 2:50 PM PST

A few short weeks after the Obama administration decided to put off a final decision on the Keystone XL oil pipeline, a batch of Republican senators introduced legislation today that would force the president to approve the pipeline within 60 days.

The North American Energy Security Act, put forward by Senator Dick Lugar (R-Ind.), would also put the kibosh on further study of the pipeline's environmental impact. Demand by environmental activists for a more thorough consideration of environmental impacts was one contributing factor to the pipeline's delay.

At the heart of the legislation is the oft-repeated claim that the pipeline would create 20,000 jobs, mostly in construction.

"We have a dramatic opportunity to create American jobs NOW!" Lugar said in an emphatic statement.

That figure, which comes from an estimate by TransCanada (the Canadian behemoth behind the pipeline), has become a mantra for pipeline supporters, despite having been widely debunked. In fact, a September study by Cornell University's Global Labor Institute found that the pipeline could actually kill more jobs than it creates.

Nevertheless, Lugar and co-sponsors John Hoeven (R-N.D.) and David Vitter (R-La.) have framed Obama's delayed decision as an affront to job creation, a move Natural Resources Defense Council spokesman Anthony Swift dismissed as "political theater."

The bill "is being used as a messaging piece," Swift said, adding that he thought the bill very unlikely to reach the Senate floor, much less pass into law (given Obama's recent decision to delay making a final call, it would be pretty surprising if he signed legislation mandating a rushed verdict).

"His decision to do an environmental review was an imminently sensible one, and I don't think he's likely to reverse it," Swift said.

Clogged! Obama Delays Keystone XL Pipeline

—By Tim McDonnell

| Thu Nov. 10, 2011 12:07 PM PST

Days after State Department officials agreed to reexamine their own report on the Keystone XL oil pipeline, the Obama administration announced this afternoon a 12-to-18-month delay on the deadline for the pipeline's approval. Originally expected by the end of this year, the administration will have until after the 2012 elections to give (or not) a final go-ahead, pending further study of the pipeline's environmental impact.

Bill McKibben, a Mother Jones contributor and founder of the environmental activist group 350.org, called the decision "an unspoken salute to the power of people who came together in the open to demand action" in a statement released this morning.

"We take courage from today's announcement," McKibben said, adding however that "if this pipeline proposal re-emerges from the review process intact we will use every form of nonviolent civil disobedience to keep it from ever being built."

The pipeline, which would carry oil from Canada's tar sands 1,700 miles to refineries in Texas, has faced stiff opposition from environmental groups over concerns about potential spills, the large carbon footprint of tar sands oil relative to other extraction methods, and possible conflicts of interest between the administration and TransCanada, the company behind the proposed pipeline.

[Read more in the Blue Marble blog]

R. Crumb on Album Covers, Charlie Patton 78s, and Occupy Wall Street

—By Tim McDonnell

| Mon Nov. 7, 2011 3:00 AM PST

Don't go bothering Robert Crumb. The renowned cartoonist and American expat lives somewhere in the south of France, but when I call him to talk about his latest book, he steadfastly refuses to tell me where: "I don't want people coming here looking for me," he says, "so I don't tell the name of this town." He won't elaborate on whom he might be hiding from, but it's easy to believe that Crumb, 68, has a cult following. Over his nearly lifelong career, this icon of 1960s underground comics has created beloved characters like Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural, was the subject of a Terry Zwigoff documentary, and even illustrated the book of Genesis. ("First I was gonna make a satire," he told me. "But the original text is so strange by itself you don't have to satirize it.") In 1991, Crumb was inducted into the prestigious Will Eisner Hall of Fame. Maus creator Art Spiegelman has called him "a monolithic presence, who rewrote the rules of what comics are."

But behind the overt sexuality and anti-establishment riffs that characterize Crumb's comics, his muse has always been old-timey American blues. He's a die-hard collector of 78 rpm records from the likes of Memphis Minnie and Robert Johnson. Crumb himself is an accomplished banjo player, and made a splash in the 1970s underground folk music scene with his Cheap Suit Serenaders. He began drawing album covers and cartoon portraits of musicians while living in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood during the 1960s, and has since created an extensive portfolio of illustrations of classic rock figures like Janis Joplin, his old blues heroes, and his own band. This week WW Norton releases The Complete Record Cover Collection, a compendium of Crumb's greatest music cartoons and album covers. I spoke with Crumb about trading records for art, Janis Joplin's fatal quirks, and getting the hell out of the United States.

To view a selection of art from the book, check out our slideshow.

[Read more in the Mixed Media blog]

Book Review: Blue Nights

—By Tim McDonnell

| Tue Nov. 1, 2011 3:00 AM PDT

Blue Nights

By Joan Didion

ALFRED A. KNOPF

In 2005, Joan Didion won a National Book Award for The Year of Magical Thinking, an account of her husband's sudden death while Quintana, their only child, languished in hospitals, stricken with a bevy of life-threatening diseases. (She died before the book was released.) Blue Nights is also about Quintana, but it isn't nostalgic. Didion interrogates herself ruthlessly about her own mortality and maternal abilities. What materializes is a heartbreaking portrait of the family's implosion. Of the church wall where her husband's ashes were interred, Didion writes: "There had been two spaces remaining, the names not yet engraved. Now there was one."