This weekend, The New York Times Magazine ran as its cover story an article entitled "Why Isn't the Brain Green?" (i.e. why humans don't generally make environmental choices automatically, even though it's good for us in the long term). And a front page Monday story in The Washington Post, chronicled how "going green" could lead to discord in families as, for example, one spouse wanted the heat on and another wanted to shiver for the planet. "You're kind of in a perpetual state of feeling like you're not measuring up," said Janet Tupper, 50, of Cheverly, who is still happily …

This is a guest post by John Hocevar and Jeremy Jackson. Jeremy Jackson is the William E. and Mary B. Ritter Professor of Oceanography at the Scripps Institution. John Hocevar is a marine biologist and the director of Greenpeace’s oceans campaign. If you like seafood, you’ve probably eaten Alaska pollock, the tender white fish used in most frozen fish sticks, McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish sandwiches, and the imitation crab meat found in California rolls. But the pollock – the world’s largest food fishery – is on the verge of collapse. The most recent data from the National Marine Fisheries Service show the …

Last week, the House GOP leadership proposed a budget outline that provides an alternative to President Obama's. Here's Citizens for Tax Justice's [PDF] analysis of how it compares to President Obama's plan: Over a fourth of taxpayers, mostly low-income families, would pay more in taxes under the House GOP plan than they would under the President's plan. The richest one percent of taxpayers would pay $100,000 less, on average, under the House GOP plan than they would under the President's plan. The income tax proposals in the House GOP plan, which is presented as a fiscally responsible alternative to the …

60 Minutes had an extraordinary piece by Bob Simon this weekend on how U.S. poison manufacturer FMC is exporting Furadan (banned in Europe and strictly controlled in the United States) to Kenya, where it's being used to poison lions, leading to an 85 percent drop in their population: Call FMC at 215-299-6000 to let the company know what you think about how it continues to manufacture such a dangerous poison, or email them here.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a right-wing think tank, has announced it is holding a counter-protest to the Capitol Climate Action, the biggest civil disobedience on climate issues in U.S. history. They're calling it the "Celebrate Coal! and Keep Energy Affordable" rally. A better name might be the "Celebrate 24,000 Dead Americans!" rally, because that's how many people toxic pollution from coal-fired power plants kills every year, costing Americans $167 billion in additional health care costs. Other titles CEI could have chosen: Celebrate Unemployment! Coal kills jobs. Investments in energy efficiency create more than twice the number of jobs as investments …

"All my life, I've had the choice between love and hate. I chose love. And now I'm here." -- A.R. Rahman, winner of two Academy Awards for his music in Slumdog Millionaire

It was not so long ago that the coal industry could just issue propaganda without reference to coal's problems. Coal was "reliable, affordable, and increasingly clean" and it powered green, useful things like Washington, D.C.'s Metro system. So imagine my glee when I woke up this morning and pulled the latest Southern Company insert from my morning newspaper. Here it is: I think the androgynous yuppie happily contemplating the radioactive turd is supposed to convince us that said turd is actually a piece of coal that has been magically "greened." I was smiling, of course, not because this insert represented …

At the beginning of the week, I wrote over at Huffington Post about how the State of Virginia could be poised to take significant action to bolster the economy and help the climate by passing an energy efficiency bill introduced by State Senator Donald McEachin. Psych! As reported by Lauren Glickman at the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Democratic Majority Leader Dick Saslaw from the Northern Virginia suburbs cast the tie-breaking vote to keep green jobs out of his state. For Saslaw, Virginia is apparently for unemployment ... and pollution. Not surprisingly, Saslaw has received more money from Dominion Power, the …

Even as it begs for a big taxpayer bailout, GM is still spending billions on marketing, peddling its giant gas-guzzlers to Americans who want them less and less. It has even got the cash to try and enlist college students in its efforts to greenwash. My intern, Meg Imholt, is also the president of EcoSense, American University's environmental group, and happened to be the target of GM's latest cynical marketing attempt, which she chronicled on Greenpeace's StopGreenwash.org blog: Usually filled with listserv emails, notes from Mom, and reminders from professors, rarely anything stirring appears in my Inbox. However, Saturday brought …

CNN is reporting that Janet Napolitano is Obama's choice for secretary of homeland security. That's great news for the imperiled wildlife and landscape of America's desert southwest. Napolitano's record shows that she's the ideal candidate to fulfill Obama's pledge to tear down (most of) the Bush administration's border wall now dividing Arizona from Mexico. She's long opposed the border wall as a counterproductive way to deliver border security. Here are her remarks on the topic from a 2007 address to the National Press Club [PDF]: I've prosecuted the illegal immigrants and the smugglers; I have also vetoed eight bills from …