Latest Articles
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NOAA: Warmest May, spring, and Jan-May on record
NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center has published its monthly “State of the Climate Report.” The combined global land and ocean surface temperature was the warmest on record for May, March-May (Northern Hemisphere spring-Southern Hemisphere autumn), and the period January-May. The warming in May is greatest precisely where climate science suggested it would be – the […]
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The talking points are better than the speech
Here are the key talking points the White House sent around with the speech: This economic and environmental tragedy underscores the urgent need for this nation to embrace a clean energy future. For years, there has been little more than lip service given to the need to end our reliance on fossil fuels. That failure […]
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Where Obama’s climate leadership is really lacking
If you ever want to know what the inside-the-beltway conventional wisdom is, look for Politico’s screaming headline. “Deadly silence on carbon caps,” is today’s tea-leaf reading article, which asserts that Obama “may have put the dagger into his long-sought plans for a cap on greenhouse-gas emissions by opening the door for alternatives.” Speeches, while important, […]
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Daily terror: We’re learning nothing from Gulf spill
The New Republic‘s Bradford Plumer has a post today — Why our reaction to the oil spill absolutely terrifies me — that’s, well, sorta terrifying. It’s about how the body politic seems just plain unable to deal with the Gulf oil leak in any sane way: What’s especially unnerving, though, is that the recklessness that […]
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How to be ‘Fast, Fresh, and Green’ in the kitchen [book review]
Like recycling, listening to NPR, and caring about the World Cup, everyday cooking has become a de rigeur activity for those with certain class and cultural aspirations. And that’s as it should be. We need more home cooks. If diversified, human-scale, community-directed farms are going to thrive, then a much broader swath of the population […]
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EPA: Without American Power Act, one percent chance of avoiding catastrophe
Cross-posted from the Wonk Room. The American Power Act may be President Obama’s last chance to pass comprehensive climate legislation and prevent catastrophe this year. The legislation, drafted by Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) — before Graham dumped his commitment to a cap on carbon pollution — is in […]
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PR lessons from a 1960 oil trade group [VIDEO]
The oil drilling and oyster industries both extract things from coastal waters, so it’s no surprise they’ve been interacting for decades. Here’s a cheesy 1960 video from the American Petroleum Institute that gives a fun look into that relationship, and the industry-funded science that keeps it humming: I don’t know the full background, but Louisiana […]
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The climate bill would cost you up to $146 extra a year; what does that mean?
Can we wipe out the worst of global warming?Yesterday, EPA released its long-awaited analysis of the American Power Act, Kerry and Lieberman’s Senate climate bill. What most journalists and pundits have seized on is this finding: between 2010 to 2050, the legislation would cost the average American household between $79 to $146 extra a year. […]
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Plan B
Oil spill got you down? Worried that Congress seems utterly incapable of rising to the challenge of climate change? Does the steady stream of big problems and limpid solutions have you seriously worried about the future viability of life on Earth? Well, good news, my friend: scientists have discovered Plan B.
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What Is Our "Right" to Opt Out of the Industrial Food System?
Slavery. Women prohibited from voting. No home schooling allowed. No interracial marriage. These were all official government policy at one time in America’s history, and have since been rejected by the courts. Now, the courts should break with another major taboo: restrictions on our access to food, most notably, raw milk. That’s the argument being […]
