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New site tracks Calif. energy innovation

California's an incubator of energy policy innovation. Largest solar program in the nation. First to cap carbon. Electricity usage half the national average due to aggressive efficiency regulations. If you want to push the limits on green innovation, here's the place to try it. And people do. So much so, it's damn near a full-time job just to track what's going on.

Enter EPIC: the Energy Policy Initiatives Center at USD. Their website, tracking legislative and regulatory energy proceedings in Calif., is just what the doctor ordered.

Which way do you want emissions to go?

Here’s a question for you. You know global warming is a serious problem that will have substantial and growing impacts on our economy, health, and well-being. You know global warming is driven by human greenhouse-gas emissions. Over the coming decade, do you want emissions to continue rising, or to start falling? Up or down? Under […]

Green diswasher detergents compare well with conventional brands

After a long week of paper writing and spreadsheet wrestling, I've got a looot of dishes to do this weekend. Good thing Consumer Reports decided to issue their list of the best dishwasher detergents this week. And guess what? Two green brands -- Ecover and Seventh Generation -- made the grade. (Sorry, faithful box of Cascade. Time to go!)

Tips on being a green driver

I haven't had a car for 11 years. Not because I'm particularly virtuous, but because I moved to Manhattan where there's, um, no place to park one.

But my identity as car owner did not go gently into that good night. Before I left Texas for NYC, I fretted almost constantly about leaving my car stereo, my sunroof -- my freedom! -- behind.

And now -- well, now I'm fretting constantly about becoming a car owner again.

This one in North Carolina

I think you have to subscribe to the Wall Street Journal to see this, but I’ll excerpt the relevant bit: North Carolina regulators balked at a big power project fueled by coal, which furnishes half of U.S. electricity but is on the defensive over worries about pollution and global-warming gases. The state utilities commission gave […]

Slim

Continuing on the subject of what Dems should plan in terms of global warming legislation over the next two years, here’s some insight on what conservatives are planning: At the Conservative Political Action Conference yesterday, right-wing activist and anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist urged conservatives not to work to accomplish anything in the current Congress. “Get […]

Guess

… coal is the enemy of the human race!

Yippee

Tony Blair continues to go for the green in an attempt to salvage his legacy: Tony Blair will next week complete a British U-turn over green energy and support an ambitious 20 per cent mandatory target for renewable power as a share of European generation capacity. The British prime minister has overruled his industry minister […]

Get to stitchin’, bitchez

Yo-ho-ho me fellow lovers of the briny deep. I realized just recently that me li’l column be runnin’ for a whole year now. Remember that first arrrr-ticle? With the joking about poop decks and the promise to shiver ye timbers? (And speaking of that, we should get together soon, matey …) How the time flies […]

A new blog — just what the world needs

I get lots of requests along the lines of, "hey, I just started a new green blog, will you give me a mention and a link?" Before you send one … don’t. Why? Because the vast majority of blogs don’t make it past six months, and fewer still make it past a year. Starting a […]