Latest Articles

Home tweet home: Twitter chooses the city over sprawl

I spent the last couple of days at a conference about climate, cities, and behavior. One topic that kept coming up among the municipal officials there — from places like New York, Denver, Vancouver, Richmond, and San Francisco — was the importance of walkable downtowns to attracting business and investment. Amenities like good transit, bike […]

China could start reducing energy use in the next 15 years

Just as U.S. emissions are sneaking back up to 2005 levels, greenhouse gas emissions and energy usage in China could be on their way back down, says a new study from the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. This analysis shows Chinese emissions peaking between 2025 and 2030, and energy use starting to drop as early as […]

Environmental regulations visible from space

We're learning a lot about space spiders and space bacteria from the nerd horde at the NASA tweetup, but somehow this one from Rachel Maddow writer Tricia McKinney is the most chilling. (She's citing astronaut Leland Melvin.) It's true:

DOE shocker: the future will be like the past, but more so

Last October, I had some fun looking at the Department of Energy’s historic predictions of natural gas prices and noting their consistent failure to, uh, predict. From 2004 to 2010, natural gas prices were massively volatile, ranging from $4 to $11 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) (on an annual, inflation-adjusted basis). Not only did […]

Nader: Obama’s guaranteed to win, so why not make him sweat?

Former Green presidential candidate — and former presumed Democratic spoiler — Ralph Nader doesn't plan to run again this time around. But that isn't keeping him from political machinations. Nader's plan for 2012: Obama's gonna win anyway, so why not put some pressure on him to move leftward? Obama's win is basically guaranteed, thanks to […]

Solar PV gets grid parity for 78 million Americans with 'balance of system' best practices

Cutting non-module solar photovoltaic (PV) costs with best design practices could make solar PV cost less than grid electricity for more than 25 percent of Americans. Half of the installed cost of a solar PV array is the solar module, but the other half (the “balance of system”) involves labor, assembly, and other components. With […]

New hot GOP thing: Voting for oil subsidies, then saying you oppose them

Three's a trend, so we're officially calling oil subsidy doubletalk the Instagram of this season's GOP. First John Boehner said oil companies "ought to be paying their fair share," until his handlers stepped in and told everyone he didn't mean it and oil companies definitely shouldn't do anything fair at all. Now two more representatives, Daniel […]

Is there a toxic mercury hot spot near you?

Chances are you’re near one.Image: Sierra Club/Google MapsDo you live around Clearfield, Penn.? The Shawville coal-fired power plant is spewing more than 1,500 pounds of toxic mercury into your air and water every year. Live near St. Louis? The Labadie coal-fired power plant emits more than 1,400 pounds of mercury every year. And if you […]

Why did environmentalists pursue cap-and-trade and was it a doomed strategy?

We’re starting to see pieces of counterfactual history on the climate bill in The New Republic and elsewhere based in part on a widely debunked “false narrative.” Since cap-and-trade has been so vilified by the entire right wing and even some on the left, I thought I would try to set the record straight on […]

Obama Has His First Opponent To Campaign Against: Extremism

In 2008, Americans were fed up. Wars, a terrible economy, dishonesty, a drift from our core beliefs. That November, Barack Obama said, “Change,” which may basically have meant, “Not that.” Not that direction for America. Not that economic policy. And it worked. America didn’t want that. America wanted something different. Now, reasonable people can debate […]