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Verizon sponsors climate-change-denying mountaintop-removal rally?

UPDATE, Sept. 2: The folks over at Credo Action are encouraging Verizon customers to communicate their displeasure with the company’s sponsorship — via Twitter, Facebook and Email. — Verizon Wireless needs to reconsider its “Friends and Family” feature–or, more pointedly, withdraw its support for Massey Energy’s outrageously bogus “Friends of America” rally on Labor Day […]

Four years after Katrina: Lessons from the Gulf Coast

Four years ago, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. As the Gulf Coast struggled to keep its head above water, the rest of us were glued to the news — astounded at first by the awful destruction, and then by the inadequate response to so much human suffering. 
 In those days, our TV sets became […]

Friday music blogging: Gomez

Gomez is one of those bands that for a brief moment in the late ’90s and early ’00s aaalmost reached the big time, and then … didn’t. But when their moment of almost-fame passed, they didn’t quit. They’ve soldiered on ever since as a solid second-tier draw, touring incessantly and releasing a modest-selling album every […]

Coal lobby claims their grassroots support is “more organic” than green groups’

“This is the truest form of grass-roots there is. We don’t charge people to be members of the Citizen Army, so if anything, it’s more organic than what some of the environmental groups do. We allow these people to express their own opinions on these issues.” — Joe Lucas, senior vice president for communications at […]

Climate plus security minus hyperbole still scary

The impact of climate change on national security has finally moved above the fold. And as the December Copenhagen climate change negotiations approach, politicians and experts alike are being forced to examine the complex effects of natural and social change on security. They must also walk a linguistic tightrope between hyperbole and uncertainty, working to […]

Could we replace the nation’s pavement with solar panels?

Solar Roadways A while back I mentioned Solar Roadways, a clean-energy idea that appears kind of kooky, at least on the surface. (See what I did there?) The notion is to replace paved surfaces with rugged, specially built solar panels. The Solar Road Panels would contain not just solar panels but LED lighting (to enable […]

Buy green, forget Congress — or not

Need or want?Courtesy soundfromwayout via flickrAmericans concerned about climate change are far more likely to shop green than to call or write a lawmaker, according to a new poll from Yale and George Mason University. Of those who say they are “alarmed” by global warming, 75 percent say they have rewarded and punished companies based […]

Top USDA official gets serious about local/regional food systems

Hope and fresh produce: Kathleen MerriganWith the climate bill gutted by Big Ag and stalled in the Senate, with health-care reform on the verge of collapse, prospects for real change in national politics are looking grim. Well, here’s some hope from what’s traditionally one of the executive branch’s most retrograde agencies: the USDA. USDA deputy […]

Oxfam activists dive into the 100 day countdown to Copenhagen climate talks at the London Aquarium

Living with climate change: a family affair?Zac Macaulay, MMIXI get to do some strange things working for Oxfam. On Wednesday night I watched as an average family — mom, dad and son — sat around with their dinners on their laps staring at the TV. Glasses of soft drinks and wine sat on the lounge […]

Coalfield uprising and heroes need national defense, green jobs

Now is the time for all good greens, rednecks, social entrepreneurs, hellraisers, Repower America and Al Gore to come to the aid of their fellow citizens in the Appalachian coalfields. While Big Coal Gone Wild continues to unravel in its bizarre P.R. campaigns this summer, coalfield residents and advocates from around the country have been […]