Latest Articles

America’s greenest mayor, laid off and looking on

Greg Nickels. It was a dark, dreary, drizzly November morning in Seattle when I visited Greg Nickels, the city’s lame-duck mayor and an influential national voice on the need for climate action over the last decade. Outside the LEED Gold-certified City Hall, a gray murk hung in the air, nearly obscuring Elliott Bay five blocks […]

Developing country action to reduce global warming pollution: Copenhagen (part 3)

“If only developing countries would take action to reduce their global warming pollution.” That is the refrain that was heard in capitals around the world for years. This was driven partly by a concern over competitiveness in some places (e.g., the U.S. and E.U.). And it was also driven by the reality that global emissions […]

The economics of renewable energy certificates

Tom Stoddard, cofounder of carbon offset firm NativeEnergy, sent along the following response to a recent blog post by Auden Schendler: Auden: In your post entitled “Why Buying Cheap Energy Certificates Worsens Climate Change,” you take the position people shouldn’t buy what are now relatively inexpensive renewable energy certificates (RECs) because $2 per megawatt hour […]

A quarter-century later, lessons from the world’s deadliest agrichemical disaster

Today is the 25th anniversary of the Methyl Isocyanate (MIC) leak at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India. The number of people affected, injured, and killed has been the subject of debate. But it seems clear that a half a million were exposed to some degree to MIC and other chemicals released and approximately […]

The American worker: An endangered species

To the iconic image of a polar bear struggling onto a crumbling ice floe, or that of a condor chick peering from its human-made nest, we must add another image: that of an American worker at his or her trade. Endangered species are a concern to all environmentalists, and the plight of the worker should […]

Why We Fight

We fight, even against insurmountable odds, because sometimes we win. As I get ready to head to Copenhagen this Saturday for the international climate negotiations, I’m thrilled to see the success of The Leadership Campaign and their efforts to have Massachusetts use 100% clean electricity by 2020. On Monday, Representative William Brownsberger will file their […]

The most inspiring climate and energy books of 2009

Not that we haven’t been informed.  That’s the message from an incredible year of new books on climate destabilization, dirty energy policies, bogus Big Coal campaigns, a vibrant anti-coal movement, a growing coalfield resistance to the tragedy of mountaintop removal, and the still big possibility of renewable energy sources to refresh our survival chances on […]

Conservative economist Randall Lutter to OIRA?

For a number of days now, we’ve been hearing rumors that Cass Sunstein, President Obama’s “regulatory czar,” was on the verge of hiring conservative economist Randall Lutter to join him at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). Few personnel developments could be more discouraging to those hopeful that the Obama Administration will fulfill […]

The culture wars become the climate wars

I’ve been wading through hate mail for the last week after referring to the governor of Utah’s “raging ignorance” on climate science in an AP news story. The mail doesn’t come from defenders of the governor, (he’s denying climate science in a state known for, and economically supported by, some of the best powder west […]

Cataloguing the errors in “The Story of Cap-and-Trade”

Just colossally ignorant. That was all I could think to say on viewing the latest eco-video web sensation, “The Story of Cap-and-Trade” by Annie Leonard and Co. No one does a circular firing squad like the Left and this contribution is a potential Hall of Famer. Leonard has a disarming Every Gal schtick, but it masks […]