Oil palm concession in Indonesia. Photo: Hayden Potential good news for orangutans, tigers, and the climate: Indonesian palm oil giant Golden Agri-Resources (GAR), a subsidiary of all-round planet pulper Sinar Mas (palm oil, illegal logging, coal) is promising not to destroy forests and ultra carbon-rich peatlands for palm oil. Photo: Rhett A. Butler, MongaBayHere’s the skinny from Rolf Skar of Greenpeace, whose multi-year campaign targeting Sinar Mas seems to paying dividends: This move by GAR would have been almost unimaginable just a year ago, and -- if properly implemented -- could be an historic step towards full forest and peatland …

Last week the President unveiled his “Strategy for American Innovation” which details his approach to jumpstarting the American economy by investing in important areas such as clean energy, health care technology, and education.  This week he hits to road in an effort to get folks excited about   modernizing our infrastructure. As a climate champ, this all sounds great to us. More mass transit, more science, more education, healthier people, more clean energy—bring it on!  Yet, the President’s approach misses an opportunity to highlight a critical aspect to our economic and social wellbeing. To my surprise, the word “ecosystem” appears at …

I recently wrote a big-think piece for The Atlantic about how the federal government’s and New York City’s gassing of Canada geese in a misguided attempt to reduce the risk of bird-plane collisions actually represents the beginning of a new and disturbing era in Man’s relationship to the creatures of the sky. Particularly if you’re a bird lover, I think you’ll enjoy it. But in the course of researching the article, I came across some fascinating, simple advice from bird experts about the best way to reduce the risk of birds striking airplanes: grow the grass on runways higher. Probably …

In the context of an overall bleak 2010 for the planet, forests offer a bright point for some celebration -- showing this sector as the area offering perhaps the best hope for continued progress in fighting climate change. Towards that end, here are the world's top five forest stories of the year: Global decline in deforestation, showing that REDD+ is working: By far the most important story of the year was the significant decline in deforestation, particularly in the Amazon. According to a report by the Global Carbon Budget in Nature Geoscience, emissions from land use change have declined about …

UPDATE: The delegates at Cancun have approved a deal that makes important progress on forest protection, clean technology, adapting to global warming, measurement and verification, and the establishment of a Green Fund. While it doesn't commit countries to specific post-2012 cuts in pollution yet, it's an important step forward that could lead to a more comprehensive agreement in Durban, South Africa next year -- and show politicians in the United States that our global competitors are willing to take action. If we don't, we risk being left behind in the race to a low carbon economy.  The agreement was approved …

Deforestation causes more carbon pollution than all the cars, trucks, ships, and planes in the world combined.Photo: Helen LloydThis post was originally published on The Energy Blog, a project of Planet Forward and the National Geographic's Great Energy Challenge. The Cancun climate summit may be turning into a surprising opportunity for progress towards saving the world’s forests and other ecosystems, or Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) in the wonky parlance of the climate negotiations. Even as a comprehensive agreement faces challenges, there’s relative consensus that the parties to the Kyoto Protocol, the predecessor climate agreement to the one …

Richard Goldman.Photo: The Goldman Environmental PrizeThe planet lost a great and generous hero on Monday when philanthropist Richard N. Goldman died at the age of 90. Goldman is most famous for cofounding the Goldman Prize, $150,000 awarded annually to a grassroots environmental activist on each of six inhabited continents. It seems as if Goldman died happy. "I see this as the most meaningful philanthropy I've been involved in," he said at the 1994 Goldman Prize Reunion. "It has a future value, and really, if I died now, I’d die with a smile." The Goldman Prize quickly grew in stature to …

A new analysis of 2009 global greenhouse gas emissions published in the journal Nature Geoscience has found that increased coal use in the developing world, particularly China and India, boosted global greenhouse gas emissions to the second highest level on record. The result is particularly surprising because pollution in developed countries like the United States, Germany, and Japan actually declined significantly as their economies shrank in the wake of the global financial crisis. The one silver lining in the report is that emissions from deforestation have actually declined by about one quarter since 2000 in response to better law enforcement …

Obama’s solar panels: pre-election gesture or bright new beginning?Photo: The White HouseFacing withering criticism and the threat of a primary challenge over its lackluster environmental record, the Obama administration today announced that it will reinstall solar panels back on the White House roof by the spring of 2011 -- and approved major solar projects on public lands in California. The announcement follows a pilgrimage by environmental activist Bill McKibben and students from Unity College in Maine to the White House, where their pleas to reinstall the solar panels were originally perfunctorily dismissed. "By installing solar panels on arguably the most …

In a response to my call here at Grist for environmentalists to explore, after the midterms, a primary challenger to President Obama, the usually sage David Roberts wonders: Should environmentalists run a purely vindictive campaign the only "success" of which could be to unseat a president who has achieved more for progressives in the past two years than any president since Nixon? Tell that to progressives. My original post was entitled "Environmentalists need a new president," but could easily have been "Workers need a new president," "Gays need a new president," and on and on. Obama's stimulus didn’t create enough …