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16 tips for avoiding climate burnout

Cross-posted from The Skywriter — 1Sky’s Blog. I have spent my lifetime face to face with some of the most brutal and inhumane acts ever committed, but nothing has been as traumatizing for me as trying to get action to tackle the climate crisis. As a long time human rights defender and prior Executive Director […]

Poll results on energy, climate, and offshore drilling are all over the map

More evidence that polls are to be taken with a thousand grains of salt:  A few days ago, former Obama pollster Joel Benenson released the results of a survey showing that 61 percent of those queried support a comprehensive clean energy bill that would charge energy companies for carbon pollution, and 39 percent said they […]

Library offers plug-in home energy monitors

Courtesy p3international.comSeattle Public Library now lets patrons check out Kill a Watt home energy monitors (retail $31 or so). Check it out, plug it into an outlet, and start learning about your home’s energy use: Library patrons can borrow a device with their library card, just as they would with books, DVD’s, etc. Plug it […]

Another reason why Elena Kagan might be a green Supreme Court justice

Conventional thinking is that there’s not much exciting about Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, either in her life story or in her legal area of expertise, administrative law. But there’s an interesting argument that Kagan’s drab-sounding expertise is precisely what environmental advocates need on the court. Climate-change overlaps quite a bit with administrative law — […]

[updated] Lisa Murkowski (R-ExxonValdez) opposes forcing oil companies to pay to clean up oil spills

On the Senate floor a few moments ago, Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J), and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) asked for unanimous consent to pass their Big Oil Bailout Prevention Liability Act of 2010, which would raise the liability cap on offshore drilling accidents from $75 million to $10 billion. Unanimous consent simply means the […]

Grass That’s Truly Greener

One good thing about snow is that it makes your lawn look as nice as your neighbor’s. But with most of the snow across the nation now melted away and lawn mowers emerging from their annual hibernation beneath rusting lawn furniture and pieces of an above ground pool in the garage, there’s one sure-fire way […]

Virginia’s AG slammed for ‘witch hunt’ against climate scientist Michael Mann

Ken CuccinelliVirginia’s attorney general, the climate-change-denying right-wing darling Ken Cuccinelli (R), is waging what many are calling a “witch hunt” against climate scientist Michael Mann. Cuccinelli issued a subpoena that would force the University of Virginia to turn over thousands of emails and documents Mann wrote while he taught there from 1999 to 2005.  Now […]

Kerry-Lieberman climate bill: The details

Editor’s Note: Please bear in mind that this is a “first read” of a very large piece of legislation. It was researched and written within 24 hours of the bill’s publication. The Kerry-Lieberman climate bill emerged yesterday mid-morning, weighing in at 987 pages. (Hey, changing the entire energy economy ain’t easy.) Like the Waxman-Markey bill that […]

Exposing the Financers of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining

This post was co-written by Mark Kresowik, Corporate Accountability and Finance Representative for the Sierra Club. The idea of corporate responsibility has come up repeatedly in recent weeks following the coal mine and oil disasters. That responsibility extends beyond profits to the health and well-being of our communities. By continuing to finance mountaintop removal coal […]

The first law of cow dynamics

Are mathematicians working on a grand unified theory of cow dynamics? It sure seems that way, according to a MIT Technology review post (hat-tip to Boing Boing): Today, the mathematics of animal synchrony takes a cloven-footed step forward with the unveiling of a model that describes the collective behavior of cows. Cows are well know […]