Latest Articles
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Strategies to promote energy efficiency in buildings
My colleague Nick Zigelbaum posted this on his NRDC Switchboard blog. Nick is NRDC’s lead advocate on California building policy and has worked extensively on efficiency policies in China. He’s a fellow engineer and his blog is a great resource for thoughts on California and all things building related. I developed the following graphic for a […]
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SolarCity makes electric cars an even smarter investment
A Tesla Roadster gets a boost from a SolarCity charging station in SalinasPhoto courtesy SolarCityYou can’t get more California greenin’ than this. Peter Rive can charge up his Tesla Roadster electric sports car in his San Francisco garage with carbon-free electricity supplied by a solar array on his roof. Then, if he’s in the mood […]
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Gulf dead zone fix falls flat
It’s good to see a big Midwest “land grant” agricultural program that’s concerned about the Gulf Dead Zone, and upper Midwest farms’ large contribution to it. But this release about a study underway at Iowa State University aiming to reduce nitrogen entering the Mississippi River from farm fields falls flat when you realize it’s just […]
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Carbon poker
I had a dream about watching one of those high stakes poker games that you see on TV these days. There were bit players who you knew, from the few colored chips in front of them, would soon fold — but the two “whales” at the table were Barack Obama and Hu Jintao. They each […]
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Thoughts on irradiated food
In Checkout Line, Lou Bendrick cooks up answers to reader questions about how to green their food choices and other diet-related quandaries. Lettuce know what food worries keep you up at night. Dear Lou, Is food irradiation good enough that we could theoretically go back to having rare hamburgers, soft-boiled eggs and unpasteurized milk? I […]
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Young, Green, and Out of Work
by Rinku Sen & Billy Parish Last week, the Labor Department reported that youth unemployment stands at 18.2%, nearly twice the national average of 9.8%. The percentage of young people without a job is a staggering 53.4 percent, the highest figure since World War II. Looking deeper, the statistics for youth of color are terrible […]
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Jumpin’ Jack Verdi, it’s a gas, gas, gas
Cross-posted from TomDispatch. Oil and natural gas prices may be relatively low right now, but don’t be fooled. The new great game of the twenty-first century is always over energy and it’s taking place on an immense chessboard called Eurasia. Its squares are defined by the networks of pipelines being laid across the oil heartlands […]
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India’s 1.1 billion move to feed-in tariffs
Cross-posted from Wind-Works. The world’s largest single political jurisdiction to date, India, has made a strategic move to use a comprehensive system of feed-in tariffs to develop its renewable energy potential. China had previously announced feed-in tariffs for wind energy only. The country is expected to reveal feed-in tariffs for solar energy later this year. […]
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Economics of climate legislation deserve honest accounting
The debate over the Kerry-Boxer bill has picked up where Waxman-Markey left off: the economics of climate legislation. Perhaps empowered by the “death panel” misinformation campaign, climate bill obstructionists are reviving rumors of economic disaster in the hopes of panicking the public and eviscerating or blocking final legislation. Just as no one was every going […]
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New Cantwell climate bill is simpler and more equitable
Cross-posted from AlterNet. On Sept. 22, in a speech to 100 world leaders gathered at the United Nations to discuss climate change, President Barack Obama declared the U.S. “determined to act.” But at the same time, word began to circulate on Capitol Hill that the Senate might be equally determined not to vote on the […]
