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[UPDATED] While the big cats cower, time to build robust food economies

Here, kitty, kitty, kitty! While the Democrats hide, time to grow our own jobs program.Photo: Kevin Collins via Flickr[UPDATE at bottom of article.] I have a big, strapping cat who’s infamous for darting under a couch and cowering when a dog, even the tiniest, enters a room. Well, a yipping toy poodle has entered the […]

Low expectations for Obama’s State of the Union speech

Barack Obama’s first official State of the Union speech is tomorrow at 6pm Pacific. Pondering what to say about it, I’ve become a bit nostalgic for Bush-era SOTUs. We’d all gather around the screen and wait for him to say the word “energy” or, in a few rare cases, “climate.” When he said the U.S. […]

Messaging that can save the clean energy bill

Frank LuntzI finally got around to reading through the latest polling and focus group results from messaging whiz Frank Luntz. Luntz, for those of you who don’t already know, is infamous in green circles as the author of a 1995 memo coaching Republicans on how to win the environmental messaging war. (See Amanda Little’s 2007 […]

The six Americas of climate change

Researchers at George Mason University and Yale broke down U.S. public opinion into six different categories [pdf], based on people’s belief in, and concern about, global warming.  For the nickel version, see the graphic below: Of course, I’m sure there are more than six ways of slicing this pie. It seems likely to me that […]

Congressional coal ash defenders ignore damages back home

With the Environmental Protection Agency expected to release its proposed regulations for power plant coal ash any day now, there is an intense behind-the-scenes lobbying effort by industry interests hoping to keep the waste from being declared hazardous and thus subject to the strictest federal oversight. President Obama’s regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein of the White […]

Did Jamie Oliver meet his match in ‘America’s Fattest City’?

When last we saw British superstar chef-turned-food-system-reformer Jamie Oliver, he was in the midst of teaching “the fattest city in America” how to cook. How did it go? Well, thanks to the miracle that is reality television, we’ll find out one episode at a time. The series — Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution — doesn’t premiere […]

Ask Umbra on toilet paper, dryer balls, and Twitter

Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, Is it more environmentally sound to throw tissue paper in the toilet or in the trash?  I’m disturbed by how much toilet paper is used by one family alone and wonder just what it takes to remove all that paper from the sewage system and from the […]

Study shows transmission costs for big wind are low!

Grist recently discussed the new National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) large wind study [pdf]. This study explores scenarios for supplying 20 percent to 30 percent of total electric energy consumption used by the eastern grid through wind power. (The eastern grid serves about 70 percent of the U.S. population.) Although it was not the main […]

Will Google’s fight with China stymie climate negotiations?

If any progress is to be made in the global fight against climate change — whether via diplomatic negotiations or cleantech partnerships — it will only happen through cooperation between the U.S. and China.  But the potential for collaboration of any kind took a big blow this past week thanks to the Google fracas.  Reports […]

Welcome to the Corporatocracy

Coss Posted from Biodiversivist.   Corporatocracy. Ever wonder why you can step across the Mexican border and instantly move from one of the richest countries on Earth to one of the poorest? It’s all about governance. Mexico’s government is hobbled by the corrupting influence of wealthy individuals. Politicians trapped in that system have no choice […]