Latest Articles

Health-care reform through green-colored glasses

President Barack Obama addresses a joint session of Congress Wednesday nightWhitehouse.gov With a summer of incendiary rhetoric and fabricated charges by the right-wing dominating the media headlines, President Obama took to the bully pulpit to sell his plan for what is now being called “Health Insurance Reform” rather than health care reform. President Obama and […]

Japan election a shot in the arm for climate talks

The change in governments in Japan could make Yvo de Boer’s job of shepherding a new climate deal easier.World Economic Forum via Flickr“If we continue at this rate we are not going to make it,” concluded a grim-faced Yvo de Boer at the end of the latest session of international climate talks in Bonn last […]

Wheego joins the ranks of electric car startups

Wheego is an Atlanta-based startup that plans to enter the electric car market with its Whip.Photo: Todd WoodyA traffic jam is developing on the electric highway. A decade after General Motors killed the electric car, big automakers and startups are revving up to put battery-powered vehicles on the road over the next couple of years. […]

A moment of truth for Appalachia, Obama and EPA on mountaintop removal coal mining

A moment of truth has arrived for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and President Barack Obama, who has promised “unprecedented steps” to rein in the devastating practice of mountaintop removal coal mining that is wrecking havoc across wide swaths of Appalachian mountains, valleys and communities. Anti-mountaintop removal activists are hoping President Obama and EPA […]

On eve of Senate showdown and COP15, the climate movement locks in

Photo: 1SkyAside from all the immense negatives, the recent Van Jones character assassination has done one very important thing for the climate movement: catalyzed our passionate opposition to dirty energy and politics as usual, while cementing our determination to achieve clean energy solutions this fall.   It’s as if you can hear the collective fist-clenching of […]

Dominoes Keep Falling for Clean Coal Coalition

Only a week after the nation’s third largest utility, Duke Energy, announced it was terminating its membership in the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), citing disagreement over clean energy legislation, another company has followed suit. Alstom Power is joining Duke for similar reasons. From the NY Times/Greenwire article: Alstom Power, a French company […]

Growing hope and fighting hunger on the Gaza Strip

Gaza gardeners, with harvest.Photo: Grassroots InternationalThis is the time of year when gardeners start to reap their rewards–fruits and vegetables that make for a healthy feast. But for the people of Gaza, gardens produce a serving of self-sufficiency, too. Urban gardens usually bring to mind savvy urbanites indulging in an organic lifestyle–witness Michelle Obama and […]

Arkansas’ Blanche Lincoln grabs Senate ag committee chair [UPDATED]

Blanche Lincoln: bully for industrial cotton growers; bad for climate change mitigation. [Note: This post has been updated to reflect confirmation that Blanche Lincoln will take the top Senate Agriculture Committee post. Additional updates at bottom of post–including information about Lincoln’s status as a favorite of agribusiness funders.] Late yesterday afternoon marked a dark moment […]

Joe Klein compares Van Jones to ‘white supremacist,’ ‘Nazi’

Cross-posted from Wonk Room. Joe Klein, the prominent Time Magazine liberal columnist, has embraced the right-wing assault on Van Jones, the White House green jobs advisor who resigned this weekend. Stung by a successful boycott for calling the president a “racist,” Glenn Beck led a campaign against Van Jones as a “self avowed communist” who […]

81-year-old Activist Leads Blockade, Courts Hear $85 Million Suit

Big Coal giant and mountaintop removal king Massey Energy is getting stripmined of its “Friends of America” rhetoric, and charged for sponsoring job-taking, water-polluting and land-destroying operations. Hours after the West Virginia state Supreme Court considered new arguments in an $85 million damage suit brought against Massey Energy, 81-year-old paratrooper-trained veteran and Christian activist Roland […]