Latest Articles

The best part about climate change

On a recent work day at the JP Green House, volunteers came out of the woodwork.Leise JonesOne of the early effects of climate change was the demise of my marriage. I was living a comfortable, middle-class life that was all wrong for my politics, and my essential devotion to simplicity. At some point in my […]

How CBO budget scoring devalues efficiency … WITH PUPPIES!

The Congressional Budget Office is back in the news, after director Doug Elmendorf testified before Congress about the economic impacts of clean energy legislation. Opponents of that legislation rushed to hype a few of his comments out of context, and succeeded, as usual, in getting their voices amplified in the Washington Post. Elmendorf didn’t say […]

From Oslo to Copenhagen: Earning the Peace Prize

Could Barack Obama’s controversial Nobel Prize help bring about an effective global agreement to tackle climate change? Could the American president, by heading straight to Denmark after collecting his prize, actually demonstrate why he was the right pick for the honor within days of delivering his laureate address? It’s just a hop, skip and a […]

Entergy CEO warns of humanity’s extinction if climate legislation not passed

Cross-posted from Wonk Room. Last week, over a hundred CEOs of American companies broke with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to lobby Congress to “pass comprehensive climate change and energy policy legislation this year.” The U.S. Senate is now considering the Kerry-Boxer Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, which would set a market-based limit […]

Dispassion as the world ends: The absent heart of the great climate affair

Photo: Adam D. SacksIn “The Fallacy of Climate Activism,” I suggest that we as climate activists are not telling the unadulterated truth — which seems to worsen daily — to the public.  This is one critically important reason we’re making so little progress in changing behavior and politics commensurate with the drastic acceleration of global […]

Should the Department of Justice investigate Big Coal bedlam?

UPDATE: Every American — including the Army Corps of Engineers — must watch this powerful new 20-minute film by Chad Stevens on the real costs and consequences of mountaintop removal mining: Leveling Appalachia: The Legacy of Mountaintop Removal Mining. Now, the good news: on behalf of their children’s future, coalfield residents and miners calmly came […]

Jill Richardson’s apt critique of the redesigned Senate Ag Committee website

The entire top half of the page is now dominated by a picture of the many healthy foods that our government’s ag policy does not promote: red and yellow bell peppers, purple cabbage, tomatoes, broccoli, sweet corn, onions, and leafy greens. — La Vida Locavore’s Jill Richardson noting the irony in the new Senate Ag […]

WSJ reporter knocks own editorial page for Chamber defense

Today the Wall Street Journal editorial board published a typically dismissive editorial defending the U.S. Chamber of Commerce from the companies that have quit or criticized it over its position on climate change. The Chamber, to recap, opposes the clean energy bill in Congress and recently called for a “Scopes Monkey Trial” questioning the scientific […]

The risky plan to dump coal ash in an old Tennessee mine

Since a dam burst at its Kingston coal-fired power plant last December and dumped more than a billion gallons of toxic coal ash sludge into a nearby community and river, the federal Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has decided to change the way it stores its coal waste, transitioning from wet landfills like the one that […]

Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas)

Kay Bailey HutchisonSen. Kay Bailey Hutchison sent the following letter to Grist reader Blanca Estela in early October, responding to questions about the senator’s stance on climate legislation.  Hutchison says she opposes a cap-and-trade system, arguing that it would raise energy prices for average Americans and cause economic hardship.  She says she does want to […]