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Judge rules Navy must comply with sonar rules

A federal judge has ruled that the Navy must comply with earlier restrictions imposed on its use of sonar near the California coast despite a recent attempt by President Bush to exempt the agency from relevant environmental laws. The judge said that Bush’s Navy exemption last month was “constitutionally suspect,” but that she didn’t need […]

Green election news, Bush’s State of the Union speech, and more

Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: At Least He Recycles PastGen Doing the Waive The Consent of the Governator Soakin’ Up the Sunshine State John, But Not Forgotten As I Lei Dying Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: Is It Really Green? LP, I Need Somebody

Converting the permanent military economy to a green economy

In the 1960s, the silver-tongued leader of the Senate Republicans, Everett Dirksen, is reputed to have said, "A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you're talking real money." According to a recent article by Chalmers Johnson, "Going Bankrupt: Why the debt crisis in now the greatest threat to the American Republic," we may have to replace Dirksen's "billion" with the Pentagon's "trillion." By Johnson's accounting, the military is now spending over $1 trillion a year.

At the same time, Bob Herbert has been arguing for a serious committment to rebuild our physical infrastructure:

The country has been hit hard by lost jobs in manufacturing and construction. As government and political leaders are scrambling for ways to stimulate the economy in the current downturn, infrastructure improvements would seem to be a natural component of any effective recovery plan ... We appear to have forgotten the lessons of history. Time and again an economic boom has followed periods of sustained infrastructure improvement.

The way I see it, we need to understand three things: the nature of the military budget, the needs of the current infrastructure, and how infrastructure renewal could be used to create a green economy.

Jack Johnson’s new album is solar-powered

Grist has been all over Jack Johnson’s greenness (if you know what we mean …) for a while now, but this weekend, the Gray Lady got hip to him too. The laid-back surfer-songwriter’s upcoming album, Sleep Through the Static, drops tomorrow — straight from the all-solar studio where he recorded it. CNN takes a tour […]

Umbra on vinyl records

Umbra, I know that PVC is bad, and vinyl records are PVC (right?), but is there any harm in keeping the records I already have, or should I get rid of them? And if so, what’s the best way to do so? I’ve recently been trying to phase out any “bad” plastics, including anything that […]

Me in The Nation

At the beginning of the year, progressive magazine The Nation started a new guest blog on its website: Passing Through, which "will feature postings by some of the blogosphere’s most well-read and incisive political writers." The mag is hosting one guest blogger per month. January’s was the redoubtable Jessica Valenti of Feministing. This month, the […]

Stop

This is also bouncing around the tubes, and while I can’t think of a plausible green connection, what the hell, it’s pretty cool:

British military may obstruct planned wind farms due to radar fears

Echoing recent concerns of the U.S. military, the British Ministry of Defense has stepped up its opposition to some wind power projects due to concerns over turbines’ impact on radar installations. The Ministry of Defense has lately objected to at least four proposed wind farms claiming they’d cause radar troubles; wind farm proponents fear more […]

Where are the environmental messengers in the South?

Via Sam Smith, this important insight from "Facing South:"

Green sporting news for all you athletic supporters

Photo: Marco Scala via flickr Below lies another linky catchup post. I’m going to get more current in the future, I swear. (Current in the future? Is that even possible?) First, your Olympics roundup: Beijing 2008: Amid consistent concerns over air pollution, some 20 countries plan to hold their pre-Olympic training camps in Japan instead […]