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Celebs to race Ford’s electric cars on Jay Leno’s new show

Jay Leno’s electric slide began long before the “Green Car Challenge.”Photo: Alan Light via FlickrOn his new show, which launched Monday night, Jay Leno will flaunt to the world his crush on electric cars. Leno’s show will feature the “Green Car Challenge,” wherein celeb guests race against each other in specially built Ford electric cars […]

Conservative French Government again proposes higher solar PV tariffs

For the second time within twelve months the French Government of conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy has proposed raising the feed-in tariff for solar PV in the coming year. The new provisions are contained in the specific regulations proposed in response to Minister for Energy and the Environment Jean-Louis Borloo’s announcement last November. The proposed regulations […]

Pollan says health-care reform will fail unless we change the way we eat

Michael PollanNPR’s Guy Raz: What if health care is overhauled and it doesn’t change the American diet in any way? Michael Pollan: We’ll go broke. If we don’t get a handle on these health care costs, the new system or the old system, we’ll go broke. And that’s why I think that really food is […]

The 2 billion ton test

Senators returned from their August recess with lots of ideas about how they would like to change the comprehensive clean energy and climate protection bill the House passed in June. This is a normal, and in many respects, healthy part of the legislative process. Some of these ideas, such as devoting more resources to building […]

When lobbyists cheer, the news can’t be good

As suspected, agribusiness is indeed turning cartwheels over the news that Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln is now chairman of the Senate Ag Committee. The public policy director for the retrograde American Farm Bureau told The Hill, “We couldn’t have handpicked a chairman better than this.” The giant sucking sound you’re hearing is agricultural reform rushing […]

Is the Dow Jones Sustainability Index worth a damn?

Recently, the web has been abuzz with stories about (and press releases from) companies ranked highly by the Dow Jones Sustainability Index review. The vaunted stock ticker-picker turned its eyes to green a full ten years ago to track the financial performance of “sustainability-driven companies worldwide.” Each year it releases a review of the companies […]

Ask Umbra on sex … chicken sex, that is

Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, Vegans don’t eat eggs because it’s an animal product like honey and milk and also because of how animals are treated. However, does eating an egg kill a baby chick that could have had a life? I am a vegetarian and people often argue that the eggs […]

Breaking: OSMRE Suit Cites Chronic Pizarchik Failure

Invoking an earlier promise to “use the best science and follow the letter of the law,” Lisa Jackson’s EPA, with a little help from her friends at the Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Interior, announced Friday that 79 pending mountaintop removal mining permits in the Appalachian coalfields were in violation of the […]

EPA turns the lights on mountaintop removal

This post originally appeared at TheNation.com. The Environmental Protection Agency made good on its promise today to assert greater scrutiny and “use the best science and follow the letter of the law” with regard to controversial mountaintop removal mining permits in the Appalachian coalfields. In a highly anticipated announcement, the agency declared that all seventy-nine […]

This 9/11, urban communities remember and serve

This September 11th, communities are honoring those who lost their lives eight years ago by participating in service activities. Churches, schools, and community groups are holding nearly 100 Green the Block service events in more than 24 states. All across the nation, people are choosing to act on encouragement instead of discouragement, on hope instead […]