Latest Articles

Palm oil, healthy rainforests, and your kitchen

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. Just get rid of all this annoying rainforest stuff, and you can have all cookie shortening you want.Hi there,I keep hearing that the […]

Post/ABC poll shows oil-and coal-funded efforts to kill clean energy are failing

The Washington Post is reporting this morning that according to joint poll conducted with ABC News, a majority of Americans support Obama’s and Congress’ efforts to overhaul US energy policy, and that support includes passage of comprehensive climate and energy legislation. Says the Post: “Nearly six in 10 of those polled support the proposed changes […]

The Real FACES of Coal: Adfero’s shadowy GOP beltway astroturf operatives

Cross-posted from Wonk Room. A new “grassroots” fossil fuel front group, FACES of Coal, is employing a shadowy Republican-staffed company to spread its message. The Federation for American Coal, Energy and Security — a new pro-mountaintop removal campaign that refuses to reveal its “grassroots” members — is employing a GOP Beltway shop to promote its […]

A tasting of five organic olive oils

Yummy, with a chance of drizzles.Homer (the Greek scribe, not the cartoon dork) is supposed to have declared extra-virgin olive oil “liquid gold.” If by that he meant something to treat as if precious, things have changed considerably three millennia later and half a world away from the Mediterranean. TV cooking gurus evoke Homer’s gold […]

White House announces Gulf restoration task force amid criticism of Army Corps

In response to criticism that the Army Corps of Engineers has failed to take needed action, President Obama is creating a federal task force to overhaul management of coastal restoration efforts in Louisiana and Mississippi. White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Nancy Sutley made the announcement this week in an interview with Bloomberg News. […]

100 days before Copenhagen, here are 100 things you didn’t know about Copenhagen

We hope you already know that the most important climate meeting evah will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark, from Dec. 7 to 18.  If all goes according to plan at the gathering — known in wonk-speak as COP15 — world leaders will hash out a new global climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol. Now, […]

Meet the star of ‘No Impact Man’: No Impact Woman

In November 2006, Michelle Conlin began a year-long experiment in extreme sustainability, resolving to burn no fossil fuels, produce no trash, and eat only food grown within 250 miles of her Greenwich Village home. She gave up nearly all shopping and learned to use cloth diapers for her 2-year-old daughter. She took up bicycling and […]

Persistence stops a train — and global warming slowed

A massive new rail line planned to move millions of tons of low-grade coal from northeastern Wyoming to the Midwest has been stopped. For more than nine years Sierra Club and our allies have been battling plans by Dakota Minnesota & Eastern Railroad Corp. (DM&E) to build this new coal line, and late yesterday DM&E […]

California proposes new program for 1 GW of renewables

The California Public Utilities Commission issued a new proposal today designed to significantly increase the amount of solar energy installed in the state. It is kind of like a feed-in tariff, but different.  Call it a feed-in tariff v2.0. The proposed program would require utilities to purchase electricity from mid-size solar and other renewable energy […]

The Climate Post: A climate for monkey business

First Things First: The American “century” began 150 years ago today, when a salt water drill slipped into a crevice 69 feet below the surface, essentially striking oil for “Colonel” Edward Drake and the backers of his unlikely expedition. The find made Titusville, Penn., the first global capital of the oil industry. After Drake & […]