Latest Articles

Ask Umbra on offsetting work trips

Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, Lately I have been traveling a lot for work. This has made me seriously consider buying offsets for these trips. I know that it is better to not travel at all, but outside of quitting my job I can’t get around it. I have considered spending money […]

The Spanish solar collapse

There has been a lot of talk in the U.S. about the collapse of the Spanish solar market this year, commonly held to have been a solar bubble. However, few U.S. commentators seem to understand the Spanish market enough to go beyond the standard quip that the Spanish were simply throwing too much money at […]

The violent twilight of oil and a strategy to expose it

MaassPhoto courtesy Erinn Hartman/KnopfNew York Times Magazine contributing writer Peter Maass spent eight years following the flow of oil around the world, from fields in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Russia, Venezuela, Nigeria, and Azerbaijan to corporate boardrooms. His new book, Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil, uses stories from these locales to show why the […]

Sen. Lindsey Graham crosses the climate rubicon

Last week, I struck a hopeful note after GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham expressed interest in a climate bill compromise that included a carbon cap in exchange for support for some nuclear power and coastal drilling. But my expectations it would really happen remained low. Today, Graham made a deal all but inevitable. Final compromise language […]

Friday music blogging: The Avett Brothers

I was bummed to miss FMBing last week, because last Tuesday marked one of the most anticipated events of the year for me: the release of The Avett Brothers’ new album I & Love & You. I FMBd the Avetts almost two years ago, and my gushing then still applies. They play a brand of […]

At SEJ, doom and gloom without the sense of humor

It’s a wonder I continue to show up at Society of Environmental Journalists conferences when you consider how much of a downer some of these panels can be. And that’s doubly true about the ones on climate change. This afternoon’s session on global warming as a national security issue was an even darker affair than […]

Looking beyond Copenhagen, with no Plan B

MADISON, Wisc. — President Obama’s lieutenants put on their game faces as they fielded journalists’ questions Friday, but there was a palpable sense that they know the game is already over going into the global talks on climate change in December. I wish I could say something different, but that’s the sense I got as […]

The future of storytelling?

Recently, I had the good fortune to encounter some folks who may well be the next generation of great environmental storytellers: Benjamin Drummond and Sara Joy Steele. They’re producing short multimedia pieces that are just riveting. My favorite is a five minute story about the ways that climate change is affecting reindeer herders in Norway, but there are other gems too […]

National Institutes of Energy needed to fill energy research and development gap

Friday factoids time: The U.S. biomedical and pharmaceutical industry invests between 10-20 percent of revenues in research and development (R&D) and new product development, spending $58.8 billion on R&D in 2007. The U.S. government adds an additional $30 billion per year investment in biomedical R&D through the National Institutes of Health. In contrast, the U.S. […]

Meet your new national parks chief

New Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis: Friendly.Photo: National Park ServiceOne weekend this summer, my wife and I ferried across Puget Sound to Olympic National Park, chose a hiking route with the help of an awesomely smart and patient ranger, and set forth from the highest trailhead in the park. We crossed alpine ridges, dropped into […]