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Pay no attention to footnote #5

UPDATE 12:35pm: I’m now hearing NAM/ACCF has indefinitely postponed their press call to release their bogus jobs study. Apparently they’re saying they need to “further analyze” the numbers. Does that mean “even with our thumbs on the scale, we couldn’t outweigh the benefits of clean energy, so we need more time to figure out how […]

Ask Umbra on smarter outlets

Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, I recently spent several months in New Zealand and was impressed with the simple energy-saving electrical outlets they used. Every outlet is equipped with a small switch allowing you to “turn off at the wall” whatever device you have plugged in. I want to replace my current […]

Shining the light on efficiency lies

I blogged last month on the deliberate misinformation campaign that the enemies of energy efficiency used to weaken several key policies in ACES, costing us all money. In the last couple weeks several news stories have continued to shine a light on the happenings. First, the Daily Green and Factcheck.org note where Representative Boehner and […]

Would you trade your car for a bike?

Would you trade your car for a bike? That’s what the folks behind the Tour de Fat want to know. New Belgium Brewing’s now-annual cycle celebration is pedaling to Seattle this Saturday — and they’ll be taking a car off the hands of one (lucky?) local driver and handing him a cool commuter bike in […]

Blame game continues as more details on forged letters to Congress come to light

Officials at the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) are claiming to be victims of the forged anti-climate bill letters sent to three members of Congress earlier this summer, but a background document released by the organization reveals that its leaders knew about the fake letters before the House voted on climate legislation. In […]

More gas contamination affects Pennsylvania residents

Pennsylvania environment officials are investigating another natural gas well leak, after residents near the town of Roaring Branch complained last month that rust-colored water was flowing from a spring and two small creeks were bubbling with methane gas. The incident is the latest in a string of more than 50 similar cases related to gas […]

The senator from Montana and the middle class

This morning, the Senate took its final step on climate change before its summer vacation—a hearing pulled together by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus from Montana on how carbon allowances are allocated under the Waxman-Markey bill. The main takeaway: Under the House bill, the middle class does the heavy lifting to pay for the […]

What if climate groups copied dirty industry tactics…?

If Big Coal or Big Oil can pay to generate fake grassroots opposition to climate and energy legislation, couldn’t green groups flip the tables and do the same? Grist got to thinking about what a pro-climate astroturfing campaign would look like… Got other ideas for pro-climate bill astroturfing? Drop ’em in the comments section below.

The good news about energy efficiency

Conventional wisdom has it that the effort to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions is going to be long, expensive, and painful for consumers; efficiency can at best defray the costs. It may not be visible to the casual news consumer, but that climate/energy CW is substantially shaped by economic modeling. I’ve argued in the past that such […]

Thoughts inspired by Pollan’s provocative piece on cooking

Where is everybody?Photo: Shindz, via FlickrWhen I think hard about what it would take to create a just and sustainable food system, two big obstacles spring immediately to mind: 1) we need more people growing food; and 2) we need more people cooking it, too. In his latest blockbuster in the New York Times Magazine, […]