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Gulf oil spill and Florida politics

There’s been a lot of discussion about what the Gulf oilspill means for federal clean energy legislation.  The same thing has been happening at the state level as well. Take Florida.  The Florida Legislature has debated clean energy legislation in the last several sessions, and has come heartbreakingly close to passage several times, only to […]

Ask Umbra’s Book Club: Live chat with author Anna Lappé

Editor’s note: The chat’s now over, but you can replay it in full. Anna Lappé, author of Diet for a Hot Planet:The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It, chats live with readers about the food system–climate change connection. Join the conversation!

Support Southern seafood with this Vietnamese-style caramelized catfish dish

The addition of spring greens makes this Vietnamese-style caramelized catfish a complete meal.(April McGreger photos) Recently I visited my family in Mississippi, where I dodged tornadoes and lamented flooded fields of corn and soybeans and the many farmers who’ve gone bust. The one thing that distracted us from the immediate crises in the northern half […]

Industrial meat comes with antibiotics and endocrine disruptors

A few years ago, scientists released one of the first studies to examine how diet can affect your exposure to toxic substances. In that case, researchers had a group of Seattle schoolchildren eat an organic diet for five days a week. Almost immediately, pesticide levels in the children’s bodies dropped to almost undetectable levels — […]

Where things stand on the Kerry-Lieberman climate bill

The Kerry-Lieberman (nee Kerry-Graham-Lieberman) climate and clean-energy bill is set to be introduced on Wednesday. Given all the chaos that’s surrounded it for the last few weeks, it’s worth taking a step back and taking a broad look at the current political dynamic and the chances for a successful outcome. Here’s the one-sentence summary: Chances […]

Elena Kagan, climate realist

Photo: White House / Lawrence Jackson Here’s the dirt on Earth-hating Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan: On more than one occasion she was so consumed by her work that she accidentally left her car running overnight, a longtime “friend” told the New York Times. But it’s worth looking beyond this personal eco-foul to examine Kagan’s […]

Criticizing Cap-and-Dividend by inventing something worse

Sean Casten’s  criticism of Cap-and-dividend[1] seems to indicate that he had a really bad day. Implying that former  former CEO Peter Barnes, and former software corporate executive Senator Maria Cantwell are Marxists is simply not a propitious way to begin a critique or proposal.  The substance does not seem any better. One of his criticisms […]

‘Love seats’ flirt with creating better bus times

Kadaver off the Record Copenhagen’s buses are introducing another way of getting around while you get around town: “love seats,” or “kærlighedssæder.” (Gesundheit!) A social experiment of Danish bus company, Arriva, these special spots aim to make things a little cozier for those would-be cuddlers who haven’t been feeling the love on public transit. “You […]

How environmental groups are protesting the oil spill

Since the scale of the BP catastrophe began to register, there have been a lot of questions swirling around the political implications of the spill. Will it help or hinder efforts to pass a climate bill? Should environmentalists seize upon the opportunity to galvanize public support like never before behind an aggressive shift towards clean […]

Senate climate bill is coming Wednesday

The big day is almost upon us. And the two amigos are confident about the Wednesday launch of their long-awaited climate and clean energy jobs bill. In a joint statement, Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) write: We are more encouraged today that we can secure the necessary votes to pass this legislation […]