When George W. Bush decided that the United States (and its "allies") were going to invade Iraq, there was some small amount of outcry. Opposition focused on three areas: speculation that Bush only wanted to open the country's oil markets, concern that an invasion would spark civil conflict, and some displeasure that the administration lied about Iraq's arsenal of weapons. (In retrospect, these critiques were pretty fair.)

So it's with some anguish and a sense that the cosmos has again rearranged itself that we report another hiccup in Iraq's already turbulent passage to stability. At the center of it: one of the oil companies for whom several hundred thousand American troops kicked open the door.

From the Washington Post:

With their opposing armies massed on either side of the contested border dividing southern and northern Iraq, leaders in Baghdad and the semiautonomous Kurdistan region are warning they are close to civil war -- one that could be triggered by Exxon Mobil.

Although leaders on both sides are negotiating a walk back from the brink, they also say their armies could easily be provoked into battle. ...

“The prime minister has been clear: If Exxon lays a finger on this territory, they will face the Iraqi army,” said Sami Alaskary, a member of parliament and close confidant of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. “We don’t want war, but we will go to war, for oil and for Iraqi sovereignty.”

ExxonMobil is not the first company to attempt to walk the line between Kurdistan and Iraq proper. Earlier this year, Chevron announced a deal with the Kurds and was black-listed by Iraq. Exxon's leases are closer to the informal border with Iraq, raising the government's ire.

Extremely good news for the world: Over the next five years, oil will fall from the top spot as a source of energy.

Extremely bad news for the world: Coal will replace it.

From The Guardian:

Coal consumption is increasing all over the world -- even in countries and regions with carbon-cutting targets -- except the US, where shale gas has displaced coal, shows new research from the International Energy Agency (IEA). The decline of the fuel in the US has helped to cut prices for coal globally, which has made it more attractive, even in Europe where coal use was supposed to be discouraged by the emissions trading scheme. …

According to the IEA, demand from China and India will drive world coal use in the coming five years, with India on course to overtake the US as the world's second biggest consumer. China is the biggest coal importer, and Indonesia the biggest exporter, having temporarily overtaken Australia.

According to the IEA's Medium Term Coal Market Report, published on Tuesday morning, the world will burn 1.2bn more tonnes of coal per year by 2017 compared with today -- the equivalent of the current coal consumption of Russia and the US combined. Global coal consumption is forecast to reach 4.3bn tonnes of oil equivalent by 2017, while oil consumption is forecast to reach 4.4bn tonnes by the same date.

The calculus, in brief: The U.S.'s natural gas boom has dropped demand for coal, making U.S. coal cheaper. That cheaper U.S. coal helps drive down costs for the fuel internationally, where it's already cheap and accessible. So in five years' time, we'll be burning as much coal as we do now, plus the amount of coal currently consumed by another Russia and another United States.

The following recipe appears in The Meat Lover’s Meatless Celebrations by Kim O’Donnel.

If you’ve never made a galette, it’s more rustic than either a pie or tart. I often like to describe it as a big Pop-Tart.

Kitchen notes: It’s always a good idea to read a recipe in entirety before cooking, but in this case, it’s particularly crucial. Playing with dough requires a bit of organization. Make the filling first.

You want it to be ready because the dough, once rolled out, waits for no one.

Blood oranges, which are typically in season from December through March, vary in size. You’re looking for a total of two cups of fruit for the filling. Don’t worry if your total amount of fruit falls short; you can get away with 1.75 cups of filling.

Because a galette is baked free-form without a pan, it’s important to shape and roll out dough on a silicone baking mat or parchment paper that will ultimately be transferred to a baking sheet.

Makes six to eight servings.

Blood orange filling

4 to 6 medium-size blood oranges
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour or cornstarch
1⁄2 cup granulated sugar, plus more to taste
Pinch of salt

Enlightened pie dough

4 tablespoons olive oil
1⁄2 cup water
2 cups all-purpose flour, at room temperature, plus more for dusting
1⁄4 teaspoon salt
1⁄4 teaspoon baking powder
4 tablespoons butter, cut into tablespoon-size pieces
2 to 3 tablespoons apricot or raspberry jam
Egg white wash: 1 egg white, beaten with 1 tablespoon water
1 to 2 tablespoons granulated or coarse sugar

As community solar grows in popularity, an innovative solar project by the Wright-Hennepin Cooperative Electric Association in Minnesota highlights the opportunity of merging local ownership with locally assembled solar panels. Earlier this fall, this cooperative serving communities just north and west of the Twin Cities metropolitan area announced Minnesota’s first community solar project.  The 40 kilowatt (kW) solar array will be located at the cooperative’s headquarters, with members allowed to purchase individual panels in the project for $869 per 180 Watt panel.   In exchange, members will receive a credit on their bill equal to the electricity production of their portion of …

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) pledged to always defend West Virginia. To that end, in an infamous 2010 campaign ad, the good senator (then governor) loaded up his rifle and shot a hole in the already-dead cap-and-trade bill.

In Manchin's mind, that's defending West Virginia -- halting policies that would demand coal companies incur the costs of their pollution. And what better visual metaphor than the gun? Blam. Shot dead.

But Manchin's had a change of heart. Now, it seems, he sees the error in that ad. No, not the part about how he was arguing against a policy that held coal to account. No, now Manchin thinks we need more limits on guns.

(click image to enlarge) As a mom, I can't imagine how scary it would be to watch your child struggle to breathe. That's why I'm so thankful that today the Environmental Protection Agency has announced new air quality standards for soot that will save thousands of lives and billions of dollars. Soot is one of the most deadly forms of air pollution, and these soot limits are especially important for kids, the elderly and people already suffering from respiratory ailments. Soot particles are released into the air by burning dirty fuels like coal. Soot is composed of dangerous metals and …

Twelve years ago, New York City residents created nearly four pounds of garbage per person per day. It was broken down as follows:

• 27 percent thin pizza crusts
• 20 percent tourists
• 18 percent surliness
• 14 percent unused Mets tickets
• 11 percent lox
• 6 percent rejected New York Post headline ideas
• 4 percent ticker tape

Today, good news: The figure has declined to less than three pounds a day, about 12 ounces of which is recycled material. That's an estimated drop from 32 million pounds of garbage a day to 25 million pounds.

Not that the city is all that happy about it. From The New York Times:

While that’s the lowest amount since at least 2000, the cost of collecting and disposing of the garbage has remained relatively constant, ranging from a low of about 70 cents [per person per day] in 2002 to a high of more than 80 cents in 2008. In 2012, the average cost per person daily was about 75 cents. The cost figures are all in 2012 dollars.

Refuse accounts for most of the garbage, but recycling, which is more expensive per pound, makes up nearly half the daily expenditure.

“We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now…. Over the bleached bones and  jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: ’Too late’.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The first public action of any kind, on any issue, after the November 6 election was on the issue of the climate; specifically, the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. On Nov 18 3,000 people marched around the White House behind a football-field long, mock pipeline on which was written, “no tar sands pipeline.” 350.org was the primary organizer of this action. At it, Allison Chin, President of the Sierra Club, …

The meat industry in this country has room for major improvement. As we’ve pointed out before, very few companies control the vast majority of the market. Big producers rely on CAFOs, where they feed the animals huge quantities of antibiotics to produce lots of cheap meat. Meanwhile, small ranchers and producers are often working with no support, and very little technology, while most consumers tend to see sustainably produced meat as a boutique option (and with prices hovering around five times that of conventional meat, how can we blame them?).

Enter Hack//Meat. Last week’s hackathon was much like events that allow tech industry experts to put their heads together in a concerted way to, say, develop a piece of software collaboratively. Only this one was focused on improving the meat industry. For 48 hours, a group of food movement leaders, entrepreneurs, and software developers met to tackle some of the most pressing issues faced by the sustainable meat industry. This is the third such event convened by Food+Tech Connect (it was also sponsored by the GRACE Communication Foundation and the Applegate company).

As Food+Tech Connect founder Danielle Gould sees it, hacking is a necessary approach to today's food landscape. As she writes on her site, "Like the first few generations of computer software and hardware industries, food and agriculture are highly proprietary, consolidated industries. And just as the hacking community seeks to understand how a technology works, people are increasingly looking to know [by whom] and how their food is produced."

Food+Tech Connect worked with nonprofit groups like Food and Water Watch and the Consumers Union to devise a series of challenges related to issues such as local meat distribution, slaughter, food labels, and antibiotic use. Food system experts then teamed up with software developers and other tech experts to generate ideas for solutions.

The winning idea was something called Carv, “an internet-enabled scale and label printer that captures and manages data about individual cuts of meat, which can be converted into reports and invoices for anyone in the value chain, including USDA and FSIS [Food Safety Inspection Service].”

By J. Matthew Roney World nuclear electricity-generating capacity has been essentially flat since 2007 and is likely to fall as plants retire faster than new ones are built. In fact, the actual electricity generated at nuclear power plants fell 5 percent between 2006 and 2011. In 2011, following Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, 13 nuclear reactors in Japan, Germany, and the United Kingdom were permanently taken offline. Seven new reactors, three of them in China, were connected to the grid.  The net result was a two percent reduction in world nuclear capacity to 369,000 megawatts by the end of 2011. …