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A chat with Sen. Bernie Sanders on his new 10 million solar roofs bill

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)On On Thursday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced a bill aimed at getting 10 million new solar rooftop systems and 200,000 new solar hot water heating systems installed in the U.S. in the next 10 years. Cleverly titled the “10 Million Solar Roofs & 10 Million Gallons of Solar Hot Water Act” […]

Ask Umbra’s pearls of wisdom on Valentine’s Day

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 sparkly tidbits I culled from my past advice on lessening your impact on that sweet little romantic holiday, Valentine’s Day. Have any of your own sustainable loving […]

Iraq veterans hit GOP for aiding terrorists with oil money

Cross-posted from Wonk Room. In a series of hard-hitting television ads, a liberal veterans advocacy organization challenges Republican lawmakers for blocking clean energy legislation that would cut oil funds to terrorists. As part of a $2 million television ad campaign, VoteVets has released a national spot as well as ones targeting Senate Minority Leader Mitch […]

Fish for Thought

Editor’s Note: Anna wrote this post (and several others) before leaving on maternity leave. She gave birth to a healthy baby girl in December. To eat fish, or not? If you’re pregnant, nursing, or even thinking about becoming pregnant, it’s a Catch-22. Seafood is the best possible source of the long-chain omega-3 fatty acid DHA, […]

The Climate Post: In which it feels like everything has come to a full stop

First things first: President Barack Obama defended a market-based system to limit the pollution of heat-trapping gases, a core part of his legislative agenda, even as he acknowledged the Senate may pursue an energy bill without one. He spoke to a “town hall” meeting in Nashua, N.H., about the potential of Senators removing technology-and-jobs legislation […]

Do you ever use information you read on Grist to green your office?

Please take 2 seconds to help us out with a quick survey.  Then you can watch this funny video!!  

Bring back Van Jones

I miss Van Jones. A lot of us miss President Obama’s former green jobs visionary. That includes coal miners and residents on Coal River Mountain. If President Obama’s brilliant green jobs administrator hadn’t been hounded out of office in a bizarre witch hunt last fall, we would be engaged in an exciting discussion about pursuing […]

The dark side of nitrogen

Few people spare a thought for nitrogen.  But with every bite we take — of an apple, a chicken leg, a leaf of spinach — we are consuming nitrogen. Plants, including food crops, can’t thrive without a ready supply of available nitrogen in the soil. The amount of food a farmer could grow was once […]

Anti-jobs ‘California Jobs Initiative’ crew threatens suit over name change

This is funny. A group in California is working on a ballot initiative to suspend implementation of AB 32, the state’s global warming law, until California’s unemployment drops below 5.5% for four consecutive quarters. No big fans of green jobs, one presumes. Their proposed title? The “California Jobs Initiative.” The Luntzian nomenclature reminds me of […]

Feed-in tariffs legal in U.S. when certain conditions met

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has issued a long-awaited legal analysis of how states could implement feed-in tariffs and still comply with federal law. The January 2010 report, “Renewable Energy Prices in State-Level Feed-in Tariffs: Federal Law Constraints and Possible Solutions,” was written principally by Scott Hempling with the National Regulatory Research Institute (NRRI) […]