Latest Articles

President Obama is writing the climate legacy of his first term now

Al Gore's Rolling Stone essay highlighted criticism of Obama's climate record, but he still has time to improve.

New York City's massive solar opportunity

Solar power on New York City rooftops would provide half the city's peak power and lower residents' electricity bills.

A global ranking of the top 10 resilient cities [SLIDESHOW]

Following up on his list of the 10 U.S. cities that are most forward-thinking on climate change, Boyd Cohen of CO2 Impact goes global. Here, in reverse order, is his ranking of the top 10 cities around the world with the policies and the political will to best face the challenges ahead.

Are renewable portfolio standards worth it?

Renewable portfolio standards may increase ratepayers' electricity bills, but that's a small price to pay for moving toward renewable energy.

Climate models are creating a false sense of security, or at least insufficient terror

A commentary in Nature Geosciences has succeeded in ruining my Thursday by scaring the sh*t out of me. If you value your Thursday peace of mind, you should not read this post.

How wallaby farts could save the atmosphere

Scientists have long known that cows are big contributors to global warming. Livestock produce more than a quarter of the world's global methane emissions every year, and 20 percent of methane emissions in the U.S. It's a side effect of ruminant digestion, and aside from strapping your entire herd into carbon-filter diapers, there's no quick fix -- to cut emissions, you have to carefully manage cattle nutrition so they don't offgas as much. Or so we thought. That was before we discovered wallaby farts. 

Jerry Brown 2.0: friend or foe of farmworkers?

This week Jerry Brown vetoed the Fair Treatment for Farm Workers Act, which would have improved working conditions for California farmworkers.

A True Grassroots Victory in San Antonio

We’re still celebrating last week’s announcement by San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro that not only will the city shut down its 900 megawatt Deely coal-fired power plant by 2018, but San Antonio plans to replace the power with a combination of traditional sources like natural gas, renewable energy, including solar energy, and energy efficiency. In […]

In the worst drought in Texas history, 13.5 billion gallons of water used for fracking

Texas is experiencing the driest eight-month period in its recorded history. But in 2010, natural gas companies used 13.5 billion gallons of fresh water for hydraulic fracturing, and that could more than double by 2020. Where's all this water coming from? Oh, it was just lying around, in these aquifers! You guys weren't using it to drink or irrigate or anything, right? Guys?

We might have to geoengineer the planet to save ourselves from renewable energy

Mark Lynas, an author whose pop-sci books about climate change are scrupulous enough to get favorable reviews from the likes of climate scientist Eric Steig, proposed a funny little thought experiment on his blog: Could switching to renewables strip the planet of its sun-protective smog? And if so, will we need to replace it with artificial smog instead?