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A gust of energy
Photo courtesy obrien26382 via Flickr The great hope for powering a sustainable world is renewable energy. The great barrier to powering a sustainable world is the cost and complexity of building a new national transmission grid that will transmit the carbon-free electricity generated by remote wind farms and solar power plants to population centers. In […]
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Continuing the Coal-Free College Push in 2010
Last Friday I had the pleasure of visiting Cornell University for the announcement of the school’s new combined heat/power gas plant. The school built the plant as the beginning of its mission to move away from coal – university officials estimate the campus will be entirely off coal in 18 months. This is the latest […]
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Cities get rebuilt more often than you think
When I hear folks like Alex Steffen talk about “remaking cities,” my gut reaction is that U.S. cities seem mostly permanent, like they’re already built and we’re stuck with them. (Quick reminder: The world’s cities cause 75 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions, according to several measures.) But then there’s this new slideshow at Slate, […]
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. takes on mountaintop-mining magnate Don Blankenship
On Thursday the University of Charleston in West Virginia hosted a debate between Don Blankenship, CEO of mountaintop-removal mining firm Massey Energy Co., and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., environmental lawyer and founder of the Waterkeeper Alliance. I kept up a running play-by-play that can be accessed by scrolling back through my Twitter feed, but I […]
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Why you should go see ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’
“I’ve got an idea”: Mr. Fox and friends fight the power. I’m writing a post that I shouldn’t have to write: a plea to get you, political-minded foodie that you are, to go to whatever lengths necessary to see Fantastic Mr. Fox. How do I know you haven’t? Because the box-office numbers stink: the film […]
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Let the era of solar wholesale distributed generation begin
David Roberts wants to see distributed generation taken seriously. He’s getting his wish. Let the era of solar wholesale distributed generation begin. Last Thursday, the California Public Utilities Commission approved a resolution to implement the auction portion of Southern California Edison’s Distributed Generation PV program. This is a big deal–the door is now open for […]
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Murkowski’s floor speech on EPA regulations was full of deceptions
This morning Lisa Murkowski took to the floor of Congress to introduce her joint resolution of disapproval, which would overturn the U.S. EPA’s endangerment finding deeming greenhouse gas emissions a threat to public health. It was one of the most spectacular displays of mendacity and misdirection I’ve ever seen from a U.S. senator, and that’s […]
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The Climate Post: Asian ice granted temporary stay of execution
First things first: A new U.S. senator and a blip in the post-Copenhagen U.N. negotiations may cause comprehensive global climate policy to melt away faster than the Himalayas-or will they? Surgeon General’s warning: Many points in the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report have been revealed to be wrong as scientists observe global […]
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The facts of cap-and-trade [VIDEO]
It’s a smidge belated, but the folks at Clean Energy Works have a smart video rejoinder to Annie Leonard’s December hit video on cap-and-trade. (Readers may recall me flying off the handle about Leonard’s video, here and here.) In The Facts of Cap-and-Trade, Nat Keohane, economist for Environmental Defense Fund, gives a thoughtful and friendly defense of cap-and-trade — why […]
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Tales from a D.C. school kitchen: What kids will do to avoid vegetables
Ed Bruske recently spent a week in the kitchen at H.D. Cooke Elementary School in the District of Columbia observing how food is prepared. This is the third of a six-part series of posts about what he saw. Read parts 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6. Cross-posted from The Slow Cook. And check out the rest […]
