Latest Articles

How the Senate can fix cost containment in the climate bill with ‘price collar plus’

The climate and clean energy bill that narrowly passed the House has three problems related to cost containment (CC) that the Senate should — and I expect will — address: Fence-sitting Senators (and industries) worry that its CC provisions aren’t hard-nosed and specific enough to protect the public and businesses from carbon prices that get […]

Cash for Clunkers pays for itself in oil savings while generating free CO2 reductions

Seth Borenstein, the AP science writer I admire greatly, has a long piece explaining that Cash for Clunkers is a very cost-ineffective way to save CO2. Duh*. “As a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, this “cash for clunkers” deal is probably among the least cost-effective uses of federal dollars one could imagine,” as I […]

NYT’s Revkin persists in selling spin from long-wrong deniers

Environmentalists assert that the reports by the panel are watered down by a requirement that sponsoring governments approve its summaries line by line. Some experts fret that the organization, charged with assessing fast-evolving science, has failed to keep pace with an explosion of climate research. At the same time, scientists who question the likelihood of […]

Unscientific America 2: Buy the book — and read it.

The fate of the next 50 generations may well be determined in the next several months and the next several years.  Will Congress agree to a shrinking GHG cap and the clean energy transformation?  If not, you can scratch a global climate deal.  But even if the bill passes and a global deal is achieved […]

Debunking the meat/climate change myth

Editor’s note: Eliot Coleman is one of the most revered and influential small-scale farmers in the United States, famous for growing delicious vegetables through the Maine winter with little use of fossil fuel. Eliot sent me the following letter as a response to my recent piece on the greenhouse-gas foorprint of industrial meat. At question […]

Forged climate bill letters a ‘blatant fraud,’ says women’s group

Among the forged anti-climate letters that found their way to Rep. Tom Perriello (D-Va.) earlier this summer was a message purporting to be from the American Association of University Women (AAUW). One can only assume that the coal-funded astroturfer who faked the letter worried that the etters he forged from minority groups wouldn’t get Perriello’s […]

Youth find new ways to fight climate change from the ground up

Timothy DenHerder-Thomas (left) and fellow “solutionaries.”Photo: Summer of Solutions blogFossils like Washington Post columnist George Will may think that “the Mall does not reverberate with youthful clamors about carbon.” But that’s because a growing number of young people are engaged in less-visible efforts at the grassroots level. It’s not their parents’ activism — with all […]

What’s the dish on farm-raised catfish?

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. ————- What’s up, cat?Dear Lou,My wife and I enjoy fish and like to eat a variety of types of fish. Living in Minnesota […]

Cash-for-Clunkers returns from the dead … until Labor Day

The Senate celebrated the imminent arrival of the annual August recess by confirming Sonia Sotomayor‘s Supreme Court nomination and ponying up an additional $2 billion for the highly successful (though dubiously green) cash-for-clunkers program. The vote was 60 to 37, with Democrats almost unanimously supporting the extension and Republicans nearly united in opposition. President Obama […]

Heath Ledger harpoons whaling, and more

Photo: Howie Berlin via FlickrNo jokerOscar-worthy performances and a waltzing Matilda definitely make the list of 10 things we love about you, Heath Ledger. Now we’re adding your grimm music video and devotion to animal rights.