Which is good news only if you like this summer's oil spill, mountaintop removal mining, catastrophic climate change and the ongoing transfer of wealth from the U.S. to oil-producing countries.
If big sums are to be spent on cleaning up environmental disasters, it is better to spend them on unglamorous but pressing problems such as unsanitary water in Third World countries.
For five days, Barnes and his coworkers rode out the storm and its aftermath, providing live reports and photos from their refuge in the downtown offices of Zipa Hosting and DirectNIC.
The catastrophic earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan depressed global markets in March, and may have shaved a few tenths of a percentage point off America's growth.
But what did for both was imperial overstretch, a rotten economy and, like Russia's today, a mostly unaccountable ruling caste that led a proud country to disaster.