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Brian F. Keane, renewable-energy marketer, answers questions

Brian Keane. What’s your job title? I’m president of SmartPower. What does your organization do? SmartPower is a national nonprofit marketing campaign that promotes the use of clean, renewable energy as a safe, readily available alternative to coal, oil, and other limited sources of power. In short, we’re the “Got Milk” people for wind, solar, […]

Champion of ‘social ecology’ dies at 85

Murray Bookchin, who championed a democratic and anti-authoritarian vision of environmental politics, died last week in Vermont at 85.

Bookchin has for years been on my must-read list. I write and work from within a tradition he helped shape. As Brian Tokar recently put it in his obit on Counterpunch, Bookchin sought to "reclaim local political power, by means of direct popular democracy, against the consolidation and increasing centralization of the nation state."

If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Cut ‘Em

Group tries logging forests to save them In order to save logged-over areas from development while improving wildlife habitat and creating jobs, the Virginia-based nonprofit Conservation Fund plans to … log them more. It’s a counterintuitive approach that’s raising some hackles in the environmental community. The group has been acquiring thousands of acres of less-profitable […]

New report documents water pollution

It's hot. Not "well, duh, it's August" hot -- I mean really hot. I mean having a barbeque in Zimbabwe hot. But this isn't a global warming post; I leave that to the more-than-capable climate bloggers. I'm an oceans guy and this post is about the oceans, or rather, the beaches.

If you're like me, you endure the baking temperatures by reminding yourself that the beach is only a work week away. The thought of a dip in the Chesapeake Bay helps me feel a little cooler (but just a little). So it's no surprise that last week's Washington Post article on the Bay's pollution caught my eye.

Forsmark and Several Fears Ago

Sweden shuts down four nuke reactors after near-meltdown of one The near-meltdown of one of Sweden’s 10 nuclear reactors has resulted in the closure of three additional reactors over safety concerns. It’s also fueled a raging debate in the country over the future of nuclear power. After a short-circuit of the national grid kept power […]

Umbra on running and pollutants

Dear Umbra, I am a runner, and in the summertime it is difficult for me to run during the day because of the heat. Unfortunately, it’s a no-no for me to run in green spaces late at night because they are dark, deserted, and thus quite unsafe. So this leaves me the option of running […]

‘Tis the Season (for a long, pointless discussion in the dark …)

When I lived in North Cambridge in the early 90s, we lost our electricity with depressing regularity during the summer. Suddenly we would be plunged into inky darkness and, with the silencing of fans and air conditioners, radios and TVs, the neighborhood would become eerily quiet, except for one sound. My neighbor had a battery-operated cassette player and, apparently, only one cassette: Madonna's songs from the soundtrack to the movie Dick Tracy. He played it relentlessly, and the tunes wound their way between the houses and down the street until finally even he couldn't take it any more.

Sometimes, in an effort to take our minds off the heat, the darkness, and our neighbor's taste in music, my housemate and I would engage in long, rambling discussions about nothing in particular. One topic we lighted upon was: if forced to choose between the following foods, which would it be?

Round One: tomatoes or chocolate? Round Two: Bread or cake?

A dispatch from Matt Petersen, head of Global Green

Global Green USA -- in partnership with Brad Pitt -- has been running an architectural contest. People from around the world are competing to design the best, cheapest, most efficient, most sustainable 12-unit apartment building, to be built in post-Katrina New Orleans. Hundreds of entries have been winnowed down to six finalists.

Vote for your favorite.

Global Green head honcho Matt Petersen sent us this dispatch, discussing the contest and his latest trip to New Orleans. Enjoy.

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I returned to New Orleans last week to meet the six finalists selected by our design jury (with guidance and stringent review from our technical jury, made up of representatives of Global Green USA, AIA, and the U.S. Green Building Council).  

It was exciting and edifying to meet the teams. They dedicated so much time and energy to coming up with innovative ideas for the design, meeting aggressive green-building and affordable-housing goals. Some had ideas like a solar barge or river turbines to power the buildings, as the site is adjacent to the Mississippi River.

Now they have to prove that their designs and green features are feasible and affordable.

Batteries gone wild

Looking for some hot entertainment? Try shorting out a lithium battery. Apparently, exploding laptops are not all that uncommon. Imagine this happening to the hundred pounds of lithium in your plug-in hybrid after a fender-bender.

I have been following the development of a new kind of lithium based battery (nano-phosphate) over the past year that is inherently safe (they won't explode or burn) and of course environmentally friendly (no heavy metals). It can also be recharged ten times more often than other batteries, faster than other batteries, and is designed for high power applications (power tools instead of laptops).

Ahead of the Times

Long have I suspected that New York Times staffers sit around trolling Grist. At last, here's the evidence. Earlier this week, Daily Grist covered Schwarzenneger's meeting with Blair; later, I added a few details about upcoming global warming legislation in California. Now, after digesting all this good stuff, NYT editors summed it up nicely in Saturday's paper for the rest of America. The only quibble I have with their commentary:

A bill like this would not only help California meet its targets but could also help jump-start clean-coal technologies that will be essential to reducing carbon dioxide emissions in countries like China and India.

Hmmm. "Clean coal" technologies like carbon sequestration are certainly better than dirty coal, but they might have unintended effects, mainly leakage of toxic trace metals and possible CO2 escape. Surely these NYT folk have not missed Grist's coverage of wind and solar power?