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Oops: Gas Industry Study on Industry “Economics” Omits Costs of Water Contamination

Despite spending massively to position itself as “clean,” the natural gas industry has a serious pollution problem it doesn’t want getting more public and regulatory attention. Not only is the industry’s climate disruption footprint potentially heavierthan coal, the hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) practice the current gas boom depends on is contaminating our water supplies. The industry wants you […]

Federal tax credits may handcuff clean energy development

This post originally appeared on Energy Self-Reliant States, a resource of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s New Rules Project. Clean energy advocates should cast aside their worries about increasing Republican scrutiny of energy subsidies.  The clean energy industry’s foolish reliance on tax incentives has already handcuffed its expansion. Unlike the leading nations in the clean […]

Gingrich scraps planned book chapter on climate change

If Newt Gingrich were backpedaling any faster on climate change, he might actually come full circle and turn into Al Gore. But what can the man do? He’s totally damaged his right-wing reputation by believing in science and giving a crap about the future survival of anything. What Republican can run with the hideous heart […]

‘Micro-lofts’ are luxury shantytowns for hipsters

Vancouver has come up with a unique solution to the outrageous cost of housing in the city: Murphy everything. A local construction company is building a block of tiny apartments, each the size of a one-car garage, and making them livable by turning their walls into the domestic equivalents of pop-up books. The “micro-lofts” are […]

Slum residents get a giant escalator for Christmas

If you had $7 million to use on behalf of the residents of your poorest slums, how would you distribute it? For Medellin, Colombia, that’s a no-brainer: Blow the whole wad on a MONSTER ESCALATOR. Wait, wait! It’s actually a good idea. The giant escalator helps slum residents get to their hillside homes from the […]

Panda caught eating meat on camera for first time ever

Pandas: Not vegetarians after all. Sure, they subsist mostly on bamboo, but these are BEARS, people. They may seem cuddly in the zoo, but in the wild, when they don’t think anyone is looking, super-secret cameras caught one feasting on the dead carcass of a gnu. Watch this video for the grisly evidence. Next time […]

Why Isn't There a More Massive, Activist Climate Movement?

Eight years ago I decided that I needed to change my life. The reason? The late summer heat wave which hit Western Europe in August, 2003, leading to 30,000 or more deaths.   I knew about the issue of global warming before 2003. Indeed, in 2002, during a Green Party of New Jersey campaign for […]

Friday music blogging: Pistol Annies

I’m not what you’d call a big country music fan, though my once-fervent hatred for the genre has softened a bit as I’ve grown older. It does seem — from this outsider’s perspective — that country is a little less uniformly bland than it used to be and there’s more room for iconoclasts and experimenters. […]

A Clean Air Christmas: Another Beyond Coal Victory to Close the Year!

Well, we certainly are closing out this year with lots of good news to report. Today, the Sierra Club and Audubon are announcing a legal settlement with American Electric Power/Southwestern Electric Power Company (AEP/SWEPCO) that will retire a dirty coal plant and bring us lots of new clean energy. If all you wanted for Christmas […]

Big Coal and Oil Play Dirty but EPA Mercury Ruling Proves We’d Rather Keep It Clean

Starting today, we can begin to breathe, eat, and drink a bit easier. The EPA begins enforcement of the Mercury and Air Toxics standard, a 20-year-old mandate that set limits on mercury emissions from coal and oil-fired power plants. These safeguards are not for show. They reflect a raft of highly credible research proving that mercury, […]