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Utah solves climate change by voting it down

This post is reprinted from Climate Progress.  Utah: still the right wing placeWhen you drive into Utah from Colorado, there’s a sign that says: “Utah: Still the Right Place.” For years, the sign has been edited with red spray paint to read: “Utah, Still the Right Wing.” New word from the Beehive State suggests the […]

Data highlights on the global food supply

World agriculture today faces pressure from many sources. On the production side, the amount of unused arable land worldwide has dwindled. Overworked soils are becoming eroded and degraded, and overpumped aquifers are being depleted. Meanwhile, as the global population grows and increasing biofuel production converts grain into fuel for cars, demand for food continues to […]

Obama administration celebrates clean energy investments, reaffirms support for cap-and-trade

On Thursday the Obama administration released its annual Economic Report of the President, which assesses the nation’s economic progress, the challenges ahead, and the administration’s domestic and international priorities. There is a meaty chapter on “Transforming the Energy Sector and Addressing Climate Change” (PDF). Its most striking feature is that it doesn’t back off, at […]

Ask Umbra’s pearls of wisdom on supermarket shopping

Dearest readers, Sometimes when I’m down in the stacks researching answers to your latest dilemmas, I enjoy taking a stroll down Ask Umbra archives lane. Here are some glossy tidbits I culled from my past advice on lessening your impact when it comes to grocery shopping. Have any of your own green grocery tips? Let […]

Show solar some love

My colleagues at Vote Solar thought that making a viral valentine (two words, by the way, that really shouldn’t go together) would be a great idea. Something campy, something funny, something that also makes the point that a relationship with solar — like one with a special Valentine — can have a lot of benefits. […]

The Climate Post: Snow is unequivocal

First things first: Attention turned this week to the Mid-Atlantic snowstorms and how to understand (and misunderstand) them, and also to how the climate science community-namely the IPCC-might prevent mistakes in process and print that have harmed its reputation in recent months. Three feet of snow have disabled the capital region. The federal government has […]

Policy fixes to unleash clean energy, part 4

Thus far, we’ve reviewed the five questions that ought to be answered before addressing any energy policy, identified the key regulatory barriers to clean energy deployment, and reviewed the political obstacles to good energy policy. Let’s now move on to the simplest — but potentially most controversial — question. What principles ought to guide good […]

Earthquake wake-up call in Chicago

Road damage following an earthquake. Photo: NASA Marshall Space Flight Center CollectionI wonder if anyone on President Obama’s new Interagency Task Force on Carbon Capture and Storage felt a slight rumble of concern when a 3.8-magnitude earthquake struck across Kane County in Illinois on Wednesday. The earthquake, minor compared to the 5.2-magnitude earthquake that shook […]

The 10 greenest and brownest things about Vancouver

Courtesy Ecstaticist via FlickrAll eyes are on are Vancouver this month — not just on the Olympics, but on the city itself.  Is the world’s biggest athletic circus making the city a better place to live in the long term?  A worse one?  Or is it just putting the global spotlight on strengths and weaknesses […]

Our other addiction: the tricky geopolitics of nitrogen fertilizer

Your food doesn’t come from here, but it starts here: an ammonia factory. We burn through more of it per capita than any other country; and our appetite for it can only be sated with massive imports. No, not oil — I’m talking about nitrogen fertilizer. With only 5 percent of the world population, the […]