Latest Articles

Policy fixes to unleash clean energy

Suppose you became King tomorrow and your first order of  business was to modernize the U.S. energy system — make it cleaner, cheaper, more reliable and more sustainable. What would you do? Now suppose you’re the King’s subjects, and he has just announced his plan per the above. What will you learn? Clearly, you’ll learn […]

Companies that invest in states like Massachusetts and California are going to prosper

Is Arnold a carbon girlie man?United NationsAs mudslides on the west coast and an epic blizzard on the east coast competed for news coverage last week, nothing could dim the glow of an economic report that contained a remarkable conclusion: Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick is trying to make California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger look like a […]

Car free in Boston, for all the wrong reasons

I’m currently in transportation transition. By the end of the month, I will have transferred my aging VW into my partner’s name, and canceled my own insurance. I will have tuned up my bike, spent a good chunk of money on a metro pass, and signed up with the local car-sharing business. But I’m not […]

The hidden costs and benefits of things we take for granted

Raj Patel has an interesting list of “things that aren’t as cheap as you think,” with an always-welcome reminder that many industries and social practices have costs that don’t appear in the sticker price. These “externalities” are offloaded to the public; they represent, in effect, enormous subsidies. Free marketeers hate market-distorting subsidies, right? For the […]

Michael Pollan video on Democracy Now

In “Chewing the Scenery,” we round up interesting food-related videos from around the Web. ————- Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman interviewed Michael Pollan yesterday. You may think you’ve heard all that Pollan’s got to say, as many interviews that he does. But Amy’s a great interviewer–she enforces a “no sound bites” policy–and the converation gets really […]

CBS News previews its no-holds-barred report on antibiotics in livestock

Update: Catch part 1 and 2 of the series. Oh, boy. This one has blockbuster written all over it. Tonight, the CBS Evening News is broadcasting the first in a two-part series on the use of antibiotics in livestock (some background here). Katie Couric previewed the report this morning — and it looks like a […]

Create jobs, reduce lung disease, and help solve the climate crisis at zero cost

As economic stimulus moves back onto the table, why not consider zero cost opportunities to create jobs, opportunities that would reduce lung diseases, and greenhouse gas emissions as a side effect? Create a federal agency with authority to issue federal infrastructure bonds, perhaps an infrastructure bank. Attach conditions that this authority can only finance projects […]

Are utilities’ plans for shoring up hazardous coal ash dams good enough?

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released action plans submitted by 22 coal-fired power plants to improve the safety of the massive dammed surface impoundments where they store toxic coal ash, but environmental advocates question whether the plans do enough to protect the public from disaster. That’s because in the absence of federal regulations treating […]

San Francisco sets the PACE

Today, San Francisco Mayor Newsom signed the final piece of legislation necessary to get the city’s PACE (municipal property tax financing for energy efficiency, renewables, and water conservation) program off the ground. My colleague Rosalind Jackson recorded the moment for posterity. By summer, if all goes as scheduled, 70-80% of California will have access to […]

A response to teabaggers

This morning, my piece on the Audi “green police” ad made its way onto the Drudge Report. Grist got crushed with traffic, and as always when my work drifts into the rightosphere, I got some choice emails. Most emailers objected to my use of the terms “teabag” and “teabaggers.” Appaaarently, there’s some sort of deviant […]