Latest Articles
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Obama on the climate bill: “We will get it done”
Tell it, Obama.Photo: Pete Souze / White HouseA must-read article in The Hill details a classic rift among Senate Democrats: On one side are Democrats who want to use public anger at oil companies to pressure Republicans to support the American Power Act; on the other are “centrists” who want to be nice to Republicans […]
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Monbiot on “Beyond Petroleum,” circa 2006
“For a company that claims to have moved ‘beyond petroleum,’ BP has managed to spill an awful lot of it on to the tundra in Alaska. Last week, after the news was leaked to journalists, it admitted to investors that it is facing criminal charges for allowing 270,000 gallons of crude oil to seep across […]
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How we can end our addiction to oil
It’s time we moved on to something else, or this is going to kill us. Not only are world oil supplies running out, but what oil is still left is proving very dirty to obtain. We need to kick our oil addiction now if we expect to preserve any hopes of economic prosperity, or unspoiled […]
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Six ways BP’s oil spill is seeping into politics
Forget about Wall Street — there’s a new villain in town. Big Oil is, at the moment, the dark lord of corporate greed and evil, and, not surprisingly, it’s starting to take center stage both in political campaigns and Washington politicking. Here are six examples of oil creep: 1. Take his job and shove […]
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Obama’s free ride for oil industry appointees must stop
To shape the government’s long-term response to the Gulf oil calamity, President Obama recently formed an independent, bipartisan commission to investigate the origins of the leak and BP’s efforts to control it. Yet one of the commission’s two co-directors, former EPA chief William K. Reilly, sits on the board of directors of the oil giant […]
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California poised to approve deadly pesticide for strawberry crop
The continuing disaster in the Gulf of Mexico helps one see other regulatory controversies in a different light. Take, for example, the battle in California over the use of the pesticide methyl iodide, a chemical so toxic, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, “that even chemists are reluctant to handle it.” Methyl iodide, which according […]
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Louisianans take a break from oil-spill angst to celebrate local seafood
Seafood abounds at the Plaquemines Parish Seafood Festival.Photos: Emily PetersonThe sixth annual Plaquemines Parish Seafood Festival, held this past weekend, had the usual fixings one would expect at a South Louisiana festival: fried seafood, a solid lineup of live local music, and plenty of cold beer to beat the high humidity and 90-degree temperatures. One […]
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Leaving biodiesel Shangri-La for a farm amidst suburbia
January 2011 update: Many of the photos have been removed from this series so they can be published in a Breaking Through Concrete book, forthcoming this year from UC Press. By David Hanson A grease bus breaking down in Berkeley is like having a Mac glitch at Steve Jobs’ house during the Apple Chirstmas party. […]
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Does the Senate climate bill “gut” the Clean Air Act?
Zombie senators will gut your laws and eat your brains!kzamani via Flickr Creative CommonsDoes the Senate climate bill tie the EPA’s hands? You increasingly hear from progressives that the American Power Act — the energy and climate bill introduced by Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Ct.) — “guts” the Clean Air Act. Some […]
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‘Sex and the City 2’ is the greenest movie of the year
Forget earnest documentaries about corporatized food and natural-gas fracking and climate refugees. The greenest movie of 2010 chronicles the latest exploits of none other than Carrie Bradshaw. Yes, even though she’s a clotheshorse who once calculated she’d spent $40,000 on shoes. Even though, in the latest installment of the blockbuster franchise, Carrie and her trio […]
