Latest Articles
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EPA releases mercury safeguard to protect Americans
We are happy to see the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today propose a critical air quality standard to protect Americans against life-threatening air pollution such as mercury and arsenic from power plants, which currently emit air toxics with no limits. According to EPA, each year this new protection will save as many as 17,000 lives […]
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This year’s Cleantech Forum: Less sexy, more efficient
Looking for new ways to get in the cleantech game.Photo: emilydickinsonridesabmxIt’s a rite of spring, the annual Cleantech Forum in San Francisco. Venture capitalists, startup entrepreneurs, and various hangers-on gather at an upscale hotel to network, pitch, and hopefully clinch some deals. There are scores of these green biz conferences, of course, and after awhile […]
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If Senate Dems ‘compromise’ with Rockefeller bill, EPA rules are screwed
Can Senate Democrats snatch a defeat from the jaws of victory? Yes, that was a rhetorical question. Politico has them bumbling around again, “scrambling” to react to an attack on EPA climate rules that has been telegraphed for months. I don’t know how much of this is genuine fecklessness and how much is Politico’s enduring […]
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Putting a price on a city’s streets
Streetfilms has dropped the latest in its “Moving Beyond the Automobile” series, this time explaining the economics behind congestion pricing for automobiles. The idea behind congestion pricing for automobiles is really pretty simple: “One of the most precious resources in a city is space, and that space needs to be priced.” That’s how New York […]
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House committee votes to deny climate change
Click for a larger version [PDF].Written with guest blogger Kristen Bartoloni, Researcher for Progress Central. Today, Republicans in the House energy committee voted not once, not twice, but three times [all PDFs], against amendments recognizing that climate change is real, despite the broad scientific consensus that “climate change is happening and human beings are a major reason for it.” They […]
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Koch-funded group mounts cut-and-paste attack on regional climate initiatives
Fresh off last year’s successful defeat of federal climate legislation in the U.S. Senate, the oil baron Koch brothers and their dirty-energy buddies are now bent on dismantling one of the nation’s last hopes for doing anything about climate change in the near term: regional climate accords. Today, a total of 32 states are active […]
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Poultry industry smothers immigrant farmers and abuses antibiotics
In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries. ——— Cheap shot: a sale currently in effect at Randall’s stores in Texas. The U.S. meat industry offers some of the biggest bargains you can find: stuff like “boneless skinless chicken breasts” for just two bucks a pound; or a […]
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To make local food more accessible, time to revive mid-sized farms
Today is National Agriculture Day. Have you hugged your farmer yet? To celebrate this special day, I’ve dug this column out of the archives, originally published three years ago this spring. It’s a tribute to mid-size farms, which don’t make nearly as much cash as their industrial-scale brethren and don’t get nearly the love lavished […]
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Disasters and Resilience: Why Clean Energy Can Save Us
Kaifukuryoku (回 復力) is the Japanese word for resilience. For many in Japan, resilience has become a a way of life, a goal that has driven one of the most advanced efforts at planning for disasters in the world. The word tsunami is also Japanese, originating in their long familiarity of living on the knife […]
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As in U.S., European food giants use shenanigans to continue marketing junk to children
Big burger, little bugger: Fast food marketing to small children knows no borders.Photo: (C) sean dreilingerI just returned from a two-day meeting in Brussels. I was asked to participate with other experts from around the world (mostly from Europe) to address the problem of cross-border marketing of unhealthy food to children. In the age of […]
