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4.5 things I learned at my energy audit

As my family and co-workers will readily attest, I looked forward to my energy audit with disturbing anticipation after I made the appointment about a month ago. I was nearly giddy at the thought of having all my energy-efficiency questions answered: Should I replace my windows? Insulate? Wrap my water heater? Were there huge drafts […]

You can only manage what you measure

A decade ago, health-conscious consumers forced manufacturers to list nutritional information on food packages. We’ll soon be able to make buying decisions based on carbon content too - - taming our waistlines and “waste lines” at the same time.

Is the Congressional Budget Office trying to kill humanity?

Cross-posted from Wonk Room. Yesterday, Doug Elmendorf, the director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), testified before the Senate energy committee about the “comparatively modest” cost of a cap-and-trade system to limit carbon pollution. The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal blared “Congressional Budget Chief Says Climate Bill Would Cost Jobs” and “Cap-and-Trade Would Slow […]

Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) [UPDATED]

Chuck Grassley Sen. Chuck Grassley has dodged and weaved when asked whether climate change is a human-caused problem that needs to be taken seriously, as David Roberts points out. Grassley exhibited that same tendency in an email he sent recently to constituent (and Grist reader) Ben Thompson, who had asked the senator about his views […]

A new direction on research at the USDA?

Last week, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack gave a speech on the role of research at the USDA at the launch of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), the research arm of that agency formerly referred to as the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES). Vilsack had this to say in […]

Mountaintop Removal Hearings Get Tense

This week has seen some very tense and passionate hearings on mountaintop removal coal mining permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Local residents who support clean energy say they have been verbally and physically threatened at the West Virginia and Kentucky hearings so far. Here’s a video of the Charleston, WV, hearings, where […]

The American Farm Bureau goes all in

Check out the pitch on agribiz lobbying group American Farm Bureau’s (AFB) new anti-climate bill website: Activists claim there will be droughts, floods, loss of species, and more, if the Senate does not pass the Climate Change bill. But their bill wouldn’t even help the climate … The fact is politics is driving the need […]

Bloggers of all stripes grab a piece of the climate pie for Blog Action Day 2009

Maybe you’re a medical student in Hungary who finds release by detailing your daily life online. Or you’re an avid chronicler of the latest baby-name trends. Whatever your background or topic of choice, you’re a blogger — and you probably have an audience of at least one. Now multiply your blog times 9,000 others across […]

A Savage way to save the world

Blogging won”t save the world, nor will rowing across the ocean. But join Roz Savage and thousands of others on Oct. 24 for 350.org’s climate action day!Courtesy Roz SavageA million keyboards were singing on Wednesday as bloggers across the Internet drummed up support for action on climate change. The cynical move here would be to […]

The genesis of the climate change stalemate

This article by Michael Lewyn is part of a collaboration with Planetizen, the web’s leading resource for the urban planning, design, and development community. Some of my acquaintances believe that climate change may end human life (or at least civilization) and that the only way to save humanity is to massively reduce economic growth and […]