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Winter growers get some love from the USDA

It’s tempting to hear the news (and watch the video!) telling us that the USDA will study winter gardening and wonder why the USDA needs to study something that Eliot Coleman, a farmer in Maine, has been doing successfully — and writing about — for decades and something that Will Allen’s urban farming company Growing […]

Chicken or Egg – – Health Care or Climate Change?

President Obama, who will personally participate in the Copenhagen climate talks this week, said last Sunday that he expects to get a health care bill on his desk before Christmas. The barriers to meeting that deadline may revolve around the answer to an age-old question: which comes first – – the health care chicken or […]

A refreshing lack of green nagging in Copenhagen

For all the words, images, and video coming out of Copenhagen this month, I’m not sure anything is so clear and helpful as an op-ed in the Dec. 6 Washington Post, “To really save the planet, stop going green all alone.” If you’re going to forward one climate article to your sister in Dallas this […]

‘Transparency’ is a hot issue in Copenhagen — but what does it mean?

Sergio Barbosa Serra. Photo courtesy Brazilian governmentCOPENHAGEN — I just had a cappuccino with Sergio Barbosa Serra, Brazil’s ambassador of climate change and one of the country’s top delegates at the Copenhagen talks. We discussed what’s going to get hashed out over the next 36 hours of the U.N. climate conference. He boiled the challenge […]

Selling our future

In Chapter 1 of Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, I underscore important indicators of global stability and resource consumption.  The following are summaries of key datasets that inform these discussions. Each year, the Fund for Peace and Foreign Policy magazine rank 60 “failing states,” countries which on some level fail to provide personal […]

Atlantic bluefin tuna inches towards protection

Can we change our tuna?With the Atlantic bluefin tuna fishery on the verge of collapse and ICCAT, the entity charged with protecting it, ignoring its own scientists’ call for a fishing ban, the tuna’s last hope appears to be a March 2010 meeting of an international wildlife management group. Marine biologists and fisheries experts (along […]

USDA sustainable-ag czar Merrigan hits youtube

Way back in August 2006, I wrote a column arguing that farmers in northern areas could grow a lot more vegetables in the winter, if the USDA would invest in research and infrastructure for it. I wrote: If we wanted to make that vision come true for the nation’s northern climes, all it would take […]

Senate’s chief climate denier makes Copenhagen cameo

The great leader of the Copen-deniers, U.S. Sen. James Inhofe (R), showed up on the Danish island of Copenhagen for a fly-by press event here at the international climate treaty. Sen. Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican, speaking at an impromptu news conference in the media center at climate talks, said there is no chance of climate […]

For Wisconsin’s Doyle, it’s all about green jobs

When you think of renewable energy, the image that comes to mind is often a solar array in California, a windmill in Texas, or a cornfield in Iowa. Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle (D) wants you to think of Wisconsin first, which explains why he’s one of several governors attending the Copenhagen climate talks. I sat […]

Is the ‘climate debt’ discussion helpful?

I’m intrigued by this notion of “climate debt,” but before I get into it I want to make one thing clear: the transfer of substantial resources from rich to poor countries is necessary for a successful international treaty. It’s necessary for a successful attempt to address global climate change. Nothing below is meant to suggest […]