Latest Articles
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Policy fixes to unleash clean energy, part 2
In part 1, I outlined five questions that ought to be answered before we have any conversation about energy policy reform. Here is my answer to the first question: What are the primary existing regulatory barriers to the deployment of cleaner energy? They are legion. But they can be lumped into three broad categories: utility […]
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CBS Evening News report on antibiotics in livestock, part 1
Update: Catch the preview and part 2 here. Here is part 1 of the Katie Couric’s CBS Evening News report on antibiotic use in livestock. She pulled no punches. This first segment focused on poultry processing facilities in Batesville, Ark. and drug-resistant MRSA. As in the preview, Couric explicitly discussed the possibility of transmitting disease […]
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San Francisco commits $150 million to green homes
Monday night I was having drinks in downtown San Francisco with some seriously smart people — top-level IBM scientists and strategists involved in Big Blue’s Smarter Planet initiative. Given the room’s collective interest in creating smart electrical grids, smart water systems, advanced electric car batteries and other green technologies, the talk naturally turned to how […]
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Ask Umbra’s Change Agent: Hannah Salwen
What would you do with half? Half the house, half the lattes, half the TV watching, half the Tweets, half the email checking? More importantly, what would you do with the other half — the extra space, funds, and time? Dearests, meet 17-year-old Atlanta Girls’ School junior Hannah Salwen (you may have read about her […]
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10 races to watch in 2010
California House race, 19th Congressional District Richard Pombo is back! He antagonized environmentalists as chair of the House Resources Committee (he even removed the word “Natural” from the committee’s name) until 2006, when he got beat by a renewable-energy booster. For his comeback attempt, he’s carpetbagging from the 11th Congressional District, site of his […]
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Massive moisture-driven extreme precipitation during warmest winter in the satellite record —
Memo to anti-science crowd: Precipitation isn’t temperature! Another massive mid-Atlantic precipitation event, another piece of nonsense from the anti-science crowd. Kevin Mooney of the American Spectator actually wrote an article titled, “Snowmageddon” Versus “Overwhelming Scientific Evidence,” which asserts: This is the first time since record keeping started that two storms of such magnitude have […]
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N.Y. Times and Elisabeth Rosenthal Face Credibility Siege over Unbalanced Climate Coverage
UPDATE: Climate scientist Ken Caldeira has just sent me an email titled, “I can’t believe the New York Times has done it again …” that I’ll reprint in its entirety at the end. You can contact the NY Times public editor, Clark Hoyt, at public@nytimes.com. The NYT has published arguably its worst climate story ever, […]
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Progress from the Copenhagen Accord: A good start to global progress on climate safety
This past December, 192 countries gathered for the 15th meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen, Denmark. Ambitions for the Copenhagen meeting were high. UNFCCC members had agreed at their 13th meeting in Bali, Indonesia in 2007 that December 2009 would be the deadline to determine a course of action […]
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Obama plan would educate clean energy scientists and engineers
Last week, the Obama administration introduced a proposal that every college student and educator in the country should know about. It represents the nation’s first comprehensive federal program for clean energy education, and it’s a critical step toward regaining American leadership in one of the most important industries of our time. Over the past two […]
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Smart Growth even makes snowstorms better
Mixed land use is a tenet of Smart Growth development that has a lot of virtues. But the name is boring and not very descriptive. Here’s Matt Yglesias describing what it’s like to live in a mixed-use D.C. neighborhood: The building where I live turns out to be a really good place to pass a […]
