Latest Articles

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. […]

John McCain (R-Ariz.)

John McCain Sen. John McCain was, of course, one of the earliest congressional supporters of cap-and-trade, cosponsoring the first two pieces of climate legislation to come to the floor of the Senate in 2003 and 2005. During his campaign for president last year, he regularly touted his support for climate action. But McCain did not […]

More thoughts on cooking, Pollan, and Julia Child

Tool of oppression–or liberation? In his recent essay on cooking, which I commented on here, Michael Pollan basically argues that people need to cook–that they give up more than they gain from fleeing the kitchen. And he suggests that the current generation is really the first to shun cooking. Yet things might not be quite […]

Surprisingly popular Cash for Clunkers program raises hopes–and questions

This post was written by ProPublica’s Marcus Stern and Jake Bernstein. To supporters, the “cash for clunkers” program miraculously jolted the moribund car market back to life, engendering hopes that it might help revive the broader U.S. economy. Skeptics saw it differently: The automotive industry had hijacked an environmental bill and turned it into a […]

Reps take expensive trip to learn about climate, but still block action

What’s missing from this Wall Street Journal article about expensive taxpayer-funded congressional travel to exotic locations?  The fact that seven of the 10 representatives who spent about half a million bucks to go see climate-change-addled penguins actually voted against the House bill that seeks address the concern. Despite jetting to New Zealand and the South […]

How Barack Obama is like Marvin Gaye

“President Obama has lit a fire under people. He’s actively engaged in taking on big issues: energy; two wars; health care; the economy. 

I haven’t seen a brother take on so many issues at once since Marvin Gaye put ‘What’s Going On,’ ‘Mercy Mercy Me,’ and ‘Inner City Blues’ all on the same album.” — […]

Obama, Calderon, and Harper talk up vision for ‘low-carbon North America’

At a North American summit Monday in Guadalajara, Mexico, U.S. President Barack Obama, Mexican President Felipe Calderon, and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper released a statement on climate change: North American Leaders’ Declaration on Climate Change and Clean Energy We, the leaders of North America, reaffirm the urgency and necessity of taking aggressive action on […]

Our favorite green mustaches

For years, scientists have pondered the mysterious but persistent connection between ecological wisdom and the follicular phenomenon that is the mustache. Is it the ‘stache that produces the wisdom? Or does the wisdom push its bearer toward the ‘stache? Early research focused on Amory Lovins, the efficiency guru who pioneered the green ‘stache in the […]

Tally of interests on climate bill tops a thousand

This post was originally published on the website of the Center for Public Integrity and is reposted on Grist with CPI’s kind permission. More than 460 new businesses and interest groups jumped into lobbying Congress on global warming in the weeks before the House neared its historic vote on climate change legislation, a Center for […]

The thread on which civilization hangs

“Number one is that it [industrial agriculture] destroys soil. Absolutely and completely. The soil is the only thread upon which civilization can exist, and it’s such a narrow strip around the globe if a person could ever realize that our existence depends on literally inches of active aerobic microbial life on terra firma, we might […]