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Ask Umbra on that new-car smell

Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, I have an old and dying Cash for Clunker-eligible SUV with well over 210,000 miles on it … My problem is I find the VOC offgassing of new cars intolerable. Is there any way to offgas a new car before I drive it so that I am […]

HSBC team outlines possible post-Kyoto compromise

Just three months from now, in the final days before Christmas, we will know — for better or worse — what happened at Copenhagen. Looking back at a year that was described to me, as it opened, as “arguably the most important in human history”, we will know whether the world has matched up to […]

LADWP asks public for input on solar plans

When it comes to sustainability, Los Angeles has its work cut out for it. Sure, they are world leaders in recycling … if you count dialogue. Or plot lines. But it is going to take awhile for the famously car-centric city to develop climate-friendly transit, and the utility is the dirtiest in the state. So […]

JBS: industrial meat’s new heavyweight champ

In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries. —— • Remember two weeks ago, when I warned that if JBS snapped up Pilgrim’s Pride, four transnational giants would dominate the U.S. meat market? (I hope you noted the fancy graphic. What, you didn’t? I’m reprinting it to the […]

The perfect market fallacy

Suppose you want to compete in the 100 meter dash. Your odds of breaking Usain Bolt’s world record are pretty slim. So should you bother training? If you did train but ended up losing in the Olympic quarterfinals, would you take that as proof that training was a waste of time? Now consider that you […]

If you can’t say something helpful, don’t say anything at all

Cross-posted from Warming Law. The Washington Post has been editorializing in favor of congressional action to address climate change for more than a decade, but an editorial Monday makes us wonder if they mean it. The piece, entitled “Regulating Carbon,” bears a menacing subtitle: The EPA is getting ready. Congress? Not so much. And that’s […]

The problem with unspoken assumptions

Steven Hayward’s OpEd in the Wall St. Journal this week (“No: Alternatives Simply Too Expensive“) annoyed me the first time I read it. But on re-reading it today, I’m struck by two things: 1. First, what he gets right: CO2 is fundamentally different, and can’t be treated in the same way we have dealt with […]

Lisa Murkowski’s bid to become a climate outlaw

Cross-posted from Wonk Room. Why is Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) behaving like an outlaw? It’s jarring to learn that Sen. Murkowski wants to take away U.S. Environmental Protection Agency authority to limit greenhouse gas emissions from oil refineries, coal-burning power plants and other smokestack industries. As reported in Environment and Energy Daily, Murkowski has filed […]

The courts weigh in: states win critical round in fight to slow global warming

With all attention focused elsewhere, a key federal court handed climate and clean energy advocates a major surprise victory yesterday.  In the case, State of Connecticut v. American Electric Power Co. [pdf], the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a group of eight states, three land trusts and New York City could sue some […]

MacArthur genius award winners include climate and ocean researchers

Some of the MacArthur Foundation “genius award” winners are doing work related to climate change. And they now they each have $500 grand, no strings attached. Neat-o: Climate scientist Peter Huybers mines “a wealth of often-conflicting experimental observations to develop compelling theories that explain global climate change over time.” Biogeochemist Daniel Sigman unravels “the interrelated […]