Latest Articles

Just say no to disposable bags — here are alternatives

While Seattleites squabble over whether to impose a fee on disposable bags, we offer up alternatives for lugging your goods home from the store (and ideas for what to do with the plastic bags you’ve already accumulated). Fantastic plastic alternatives Nothing says cool like a Cap-sac.For smaller items: With Cap-sac, the neon fanny pack for […]

A policy framework for investment in energy efficiency retrofits

This post is co-written by Benjamin Goldstein, Reid Detchon, and Kurt Shickman and reprinted with permission of the Center for American Progress. Investments in building efficiency retrofits can simultaneously address the challenges of economic recovery, energy insecurity, and global warming by laying the foundation for sustained economic growth, driving demand in the construction and manufacturing […]

Like Cash for Clunkers? You’ll love feebates!

Photo: ThreatedThoughtsIt’s now fairly widely understood that Cash for Clunkers has worked great as a stimulus program but is negligible as an emissions-reduction program. That’s fine — it did what it was supposed to do. Now that we know how well people respond to cash incentives, though, it’s time to do some deeper thinking about […]

If the site is right, researchers could bring tidal energy to Puget Sound

The problem with wind power—one of them, anyway—lies in the phrase “fickle as the wind.” Ocean tides, by comparison, are a paragon of reliability. They come and go twice a day, like clockwork. Seasonally, they’re strongest at the solstices in June and December and weakest at the equinoxes in March and September. That predictability is […]

Child Bearing and Carbon Footprints

Kate Galbraith put up a post in the NYT Green Inc. blog about the carbon footprint of child bearing. According to a study done at Oregon State University: “…a hypothetical American woman who switches to a more fuel-efficient car, drives less, recycles, installs more efficient light bulbs, and replaces her refrigerator and windows with energy-saving […]

VIDEO Update: Coalfield Uprising Grows

This might be a first in the country: The failed West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection is emerging as such an embarrassingly pro-coal anti-mountain public relations nightmare for Gov. Joe Manchin that even retired coal miners have taken to the streets against the state’s environmental regulators, calling on the federal EPA and Office of Surface […]

Canada set to close important asset: its prison farms

In February 2009, Canada’s Public Safety Minister and the country’s Correctional Service announced a planned closure of all six of the prison farms owned by the people of Canada and operated by CORCAN – the branch of the Correctional Service that operates the farm rehabilitation programs which also provide employment training to inmates. The excellent […]

Key to climate bill, offsets have plenty of critics

America’s first major stab at tackling global climate change comes in the form of the American Clean Energy Security Act, a massive piece of legislation that would touch nearly every corner of the U.S. economy. The bill, often referred to as “Waxman-Markey” after its principal sponsors in the House of Representatives, contains provisions for clean […]

Renewable energy is more exciting than cap-and-trade!

I’ve long thought that the message framing around renewable energy is much more appealing (Let’s make clean energy cheaper!  Build the industries of the future!  Cool technology and jobs for everyone!  It’ll be like the dotcom boom all over again!  But without the dumb names!) than that of carbon cap-and-trade (Let’s put a price on […]

Bonn 3: Chairman raises stakes

I spend 2 weeks a year in Bonn – but I’ve never been here in August until this year. Bonn is the seat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and today starts the third major negotiating session here this year as countries try to build a new global climate framework by December. […]