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Nationwide, Coal Does Not Care

This week we’ve had a few too many reminders of how much coal does not care. First, while we all laughed at the parody “Coal Cares” website that the Yes Men created to look as if it was a Peabody Coal project, Peabody Coal’s response was quick reminder of that website’s true message about the […]

Jon Huntsman, once a climate hawk, now disses cap-and-trade like all the other Republicans [UPDATED]

He’s left China behind — and climate hawkishness too.Photo: saucy panA couple of months ago, I asked, “Is Jon Huntsman the greenest GOP presidential hopeful?” In 2007, as Utah governor, he brought his state into the Western Climate Initiative, a regional cap-and-trade program. And up through 2009, when he took the post of ambassador to […]

Digging deeper into that NYT Room for Debate on farm-animal cruelty

A horrific scene from a Humane Society undercover video.Photo: Humane Society of the United StatesI was privileged this week to participate in a New York Times Room for Debate discussion on the government’s vs. consumer’s role in “Preventing Cruelty on the Farm,” inspired by the paper’s coverage of the spate of ag-gag laws pending in […]

How community ownership can save wind power

This post originally appeared on Energy Self-Reliant States, a resource of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s New Rules Project.     Community ownership may provide the solution for increasing resistance to wind power in the United States. Wind power has expanded rapidly in recent years, but the new wind farms have a common characteristic: absentee ownership. These […]

We spend $76.6 billion a year on health care for kids made sick by toxic chemicals and air pollution

America spends a staggering $76.6 billion every year to cover the health expenses of our children who get sick because of exposure to toxic chemicals and air pollution, according to a recent study by researchers at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. That figure includes the cost of medical care and the […]

High, dry, and up against a wall: Why water and food justice are key to ending border conflicts

Not-so-great wall: Palestinian farmers say the real problem is the way water flows beneath this brutalist structure.Photos: Gary NabhanFor someone who lives within 12 miles of the infamous wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, it was an odd feeling to travel along the wall between Palestine and Israel last week just as Osama bin Laden’s death […]

Too chicken: Why and how to raise chickens in the city

No matter how broke you are, chickens can help you keep some dignity about you.Photo: Stu MayhewWhen last we fetched up, babydolls, Broke-Ass was waxing pedantic about the primacy of stocking the pantry as nutritiously and cheaply as possible. One alert soul commented: “Where are the eggs? Nature’s most perfect food with as many ways […]

Climate disasters: unlikely to be agents of progressive change

Disasters ain’t gonna do it.“Americans won’t wake up and get serious about climate change until there’s a disaster.” I’ve been hearing people say that for years, but more and more lately. There’s always an uptick after a political defeat like the failure of the climate bill. It’s delivered with “more in sadness than in anger” […]

Education leads to lower fertility and increased prosperity

This post was written by Brigid Fitzgerald Reading, staff researcher at the Earth Policy Institute. Data and additional resources available online at www.earth-policy.org. As the world continues to add close to 80 million people each year, high population growth is running up against the limits of our finite planet, threatening global economic and political stability. […]

The Pope gets down with climate change

Is climate change a serious problem that requires drastic action? Does the Pope wear a funny hat? Finally, these two questions go together for reasons beyond heavy sarcasm. The Vatican's scientific advisory panel, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, has issued a report calling for an urgent reduction in carbon emissions. "We appeal to all nations […]