Photo by Truthout.org.

Cross-posted from ThinkProgress Green.

Ethical Electric, a new venture by progressive activist Tom Matzzie, aims to transform how Americans get power. It's an electricity delivery company that will provide 100 percent renewable electricity to its members, while also mobilizing them on progressive energy and climate action.

In an interview with Sarah Laskow for GOOD, Matzzie describes how he began working on Ethical Electric when his father, who had spent his life downwind of a coal-fired power plant, died of cancer in 2010:

I’d been a supporter of addressing climate change and clean energy as a progressive, but it became much more personal. I didn’t want to spend any more of my money on dirty energy. I wanted to only support 100 percent clean energy.

Cross-posted from ThinkProgress Green.

The Obama campaign is acting as if it is already in a general-election fight, against a Big Oil-Mitt Romney ticket. In a new ad, President Obama attacks “Big Oil” and Mitt Romney, pushing back against oil-industry campaign ads that accuse Obama of raising gas prices. The front group American Energy Alliance, secretly funded by Koch Industries and other oil giants, is running a $3.6 million ad campaign that criticizes Obama policies that don’t favor the oil-industry agenda. Oil companies have been profiting from American suffering at the gas pump, but they believe they would do even better under a Romney presidency, the new Obama ad argues:

Under President Obama, domestic oil production’s at an eight-year high. So why is Big Oil attacking him? Because he’s fighting to end their tax breaks. He’s raising mileage standards, and doubling renewable energy. In all these fights, Mitt Romney stood with Big Oil, for their tax breaks, attacking higher mileage standards and renewables. So when you see this ad, remember who paid for it and what they want.

Cross-posted from ThinkProgress Green.

As long-delayed rules to enforce the Clean Air Act against coal pollution go into force, the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign has launched Mr. Coal Guy, a new social-media campaign with satirical videos that parody the coal industry’s multi-million-dollar advertising campaigns. These videos feature Mr. Coal Guy, played by Mr. Show’s John Ennis, using iconic TV shows from the 1980s to portray coal as fun, hip, and totally safe. In one video, Mr. Coal Guy provides the voice-over to a clip of Bob Ross’ timeless landscape painting to promote mountaintop removal coal mining (“scrapey scrapey good-bye lakey!”):

Photo by Joe Crimmings.

Cross-posted from ThinkProgress Green.

Speaking at a high-dollar Chicago fundraiser hosted by Oprah Winfrey as the city basked in June-like weather last week, President Barack Obama admitted to being “a little nervous” about global warming:

Julian Robertson is betting than Romney really cares about the climate.

Cross-posted from ThinkProgress Green.

Mitt Romney's top individual donor is Environmental Defense Fund board member Julian H. Robertson Jr., who has given $1.3 million to the Romney super PAC Restore Our Future even though Romney has viciously attacked the climate cap-and-trade policies EDF supports. A spokesperson for the hedge-fund billionaire said Robertson is confident Romney would "do the right thing" if elected:

In terms of the environment and climate-change controls, which [Robertson] does believe is one of the most important issues the country and the world faces, he has confidence that Romney, once he’s in there, will do the right thing.

Photo by Dan Correia.

Cross-posted from ThinkProgress Green.

Rush Limbaugh continued his bizarre attacks on clean energy innovation Monday, claiming that the solar and wind energy sectors don't exist. Limbaugh was responding to a ThinkProgress Green post that noted his role in scaring American customers against the Chevy Volt. He has even claimed that GM is "trying to kill its customers." Attempting to justify his denigration of the extended-range electric vehicle, Limbaugh said that "all of Obama’s green energy" is a mirage (listen here):

Cross-posted from ThinkProgress Green.

In an address on energy policy at the University of Miami, President Barack Obama mocked the GOP drumbeat for a drill-baby-drill response to rising gas prices. Noting that "it's an election year," Obama alluded to Newt Gingrich's promise to deliver $2.50 gas with a return of drill-everywhere platform. Obama described the "three-point plans for $2 gas": "Step one is drill, step two is drill, and step three is keep drilling."

Photo by Andrew Nicholson.

Cross-posted from ThinkProgress Green.

The founder of Conservation Hawks, an organization of sportsmen dedicated to fighting climate change, will give up his gun if global warming is a hoax.

“If you can convince Conservation Hawks chairman Todd Tanner that he’s wasting his time, that he does not have to worry about climate change, he will present to you his most prized possession: a Beretta Silver Pigeon 12 gauge over/under that was a gift from his wife, and has been a faithful companion on many a Montana bird hunt,” Hal Herring writes at The Conservationist. “I know the gun, and I’ve hunted and fished with Todd for years. He’s not kidding. You convince him, he’ll give you the gun.” Tanner told The Conservationist:

Cross-posted from ThinkProgress Green.

Any morally acceptable pathway to prevent catastrophic global warming includes broad access to affordable birth control for the world's women. The conservative war on birth control is a war on women’s rights, and thus on the rights of us all. Human-made global warming is one of the most troubling symptoms of economic and social injustice around the planet, and the "countries in the developing world least responsible for the growing emissions are likely to experience the heaviest impact of climate change, with women bearing the greatest toll." Researchers have found that empowering women to reduce unplanned pregnancies is one of the most cost-effective ways to combat greenhouse pollution, as U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson discussed at the Durban climate conference last December:

Photo by Gage Skidmore.

Cross-posted from ThinkProgress Green.

Appearing on NBC’s Meet The Press this Sunday, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich attempted to shift blame away from oil companies for rising gasoline prices. Asked by host David Gregory how he would attack President Obama given positive news about the economy, Gingrich falsely claimed that the Environmental Protection Agency has a plan to “raise the price of gasoline by 25 cents a gallon”:

His policies have consistently, I think, weakened the country. He has an Environmental Protection Agency proposal that would raise the price of gasoline by 25 cents a gallon. There are very few Americans who want to see the price of gasoline raised by government to 25 cents a gallon.