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Ford Fusion Hybrid wins 2010 Car of the Year, no green spin needed

The Ford Fusion Hybrid. Photo courtesy Ford Motor Company via FlickrNo green spin necessary, the Ford Fusion Hybrid sedan was soundly voted the 2010 Car of the Year. While not the first-ever hybrid vehicle to win this award (even for Ford), it is notable that the 2010 North American Car of the Year (NACOTY) was […]

A water perspective on Copenhagen and beyond

How does improved water stewardship fit into cooling our planet? How well were the water-climate connections made at the recent Copenhagen climate deliberations? If you’re like me, you only have a lay person’s understanding of ecology — and global politics for that matter. But I do know that the CO2 reduction and carbon sequestration strategies […]

Seeking sustainability, finding skeptics at the American Farm Bureau meeting

Seattle, Wash. — Attending the American Farm Bureau’s annual meeting in the Emerald City on Sunday, I felt like a Red Sox fan at a Yankees game. It did nothing to calm my nerves when I heard Farm Bureau President Bob Stallman say this: A line must be drawn between our polite and respectful engagement […]

Industrial farming head just says ‘no’ to call for civility

For those of you wondering if we can have a more civil discourse over food and agriculture in this country, American Farm Bureau President Bob Stallman has an answer for you: Fat chance! According to Stallman [MS Word], the top challenge facing farmers isn’t the rising cost of seed, fertilizer, and pesticides. Or the alarming […]

Obama seizes the energy opportunity

During President-Elect Barack Obama’s transition, the Center for American Progress proposed a 10-point clean-energy agenda for the president and Congress that would speed the economic transformation to a clean energy economy. A review of these items today finds that all were adopted or are working their way through the process. This is a startling achievement […]

China powers the global green tech revolution

Forget Red China. It’s Green China these days — at least when it comes to making big renewable deals. eSolar power plant. Friday night, a Chinese developer and eSolar of Pasadena, Calif., signed an agreement to build solar thermal power plants in the Mongolian desert over the next decade. These plants would generate a total […]

Ask Umbra on water bottles, gas dryers, and tea lights

Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, Hey! This whole freakin’ deal about aluminum, steel, and plastic bottles is bewildering. I wanted to get a BPA-free Nalgene, but should I buy an aluminum instead? I don’t have or see the use to spend $20USD for a darn bottle. What’s the best way to go? […]

Community-Owned Clean Energy

When I was a younger man than I am today, I had a vision of the Great Plains transformed: buffalo roaming across great tracts of tallgrass prairie studded with wind farms that powered the whole Midwest. Tribal communities, farmers and ranchers and young people all working together to develop an economy that could sustain the […]

Gates Foundation throws its lot with agribusiness

The Gates Foundation has emerged as a kind of de facto USDA for Africa: a deep-pocketed funder with a focus on agriculture, in a continent that has seen ag-research funding plunge over the past several decades. For a while, the Gates Foundation sought to avoid a reputation as a cheerleader for biotech “solutions” to Africa’s […]

Friday music blogging: Todd Snider

Todd Snider has been around a long time, flying under the mainstream radar but beloved by fans who appreciate what Amazon’s editors aptly call his “signature wit and amiable pathos.” That wit and pathos are in evidence all over the singer-songwriter’s latest, the understated (and ironically titled) The Excitement Plan. If you like laconic, wry, […]