Latest Articles

Our addiction to cheap stuff has become very expensive, new book argues

American retail is riddled with cheap, fall-apart merchandise. We know this. Sales are a ploy to get a shopper to spend, as opposed to a boon for penny pinchers. Right. And how much mileage do we get from that old, overused adage, “You get what you pay for”? More than we’d like to admit. So […]

News: Big coal juice down, plummets to 42.6%

This interesting news arrived from Appalachian Voices, the North Carolina-based organization that is one of most creative and effective national leaders in the campaign to get beyond Big Coal: THE DECLINING POWER OF COAL: DOWN TO 42.6 % ELECTRICAL GENERATION The coal industry and their associated front groups like to claim that coal provides more than […]

Sen. Arlen Specter says he won’t block debate on a climate bill this year

Addressing a crowd of liberal bloggers on Friday, Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) said he would not block forward motion on priority issues for Democrats, and also said he expects to support the Obama administration’s plan to address climate change. Specter shook up Congress in April when he announced his switch to the Democratic Party. But […]

Astroturf wars continue as more info comes to light on ‘Energy Citizen’ rallies

News broke on Friday that the American Petroleum Institute is urging member companies to recruit their employees, retirees, vendors, and contractors to attend “Energy Citizen” events across the country over the August congressional recess. Today, we have some updates to the story: It’s not just energy interests backing the astroturf efforts; major conservative and anti-tax […]

Removing roadblocks to the growth of renewables

On Friday, the U.S. Energy Information Administration released new monthly statistics for renewable energy output as well as output of traditional forms of power.  The good news is that renewable energy in May, the latest month for which statistics have been compiled, is at its all-time highest level, accounting for 13% of total power.  The […]

Sustainability conferences can be boring and terrible

If you’re reading this post, you know that sustainability conferences are now so ubiquitious that you can’t swing a cat without hitting one. This is so cool–because it means the word is getting out big time. But as is my nature, I find myself massively dissatisfied by most (though not all) events, which typically bore […]

Let’s (re)do school lunch

Are corndogs a vegetable? There has been a cultural revolution in this country over the last 50 to 75 years, a sort of intellectual cleansing that has removed from most people’s minds any understanding of food, of cooking, of the pleasures of the kitchen and table, and replaced it with the language of the drive-thru, […]

Ask Umbra on flying less

Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, Do we really need to fly less or do we need planes that are more fuel efficient? Am I assuming correctly when I say that planes have little or no emissions standards? I didn’t see that mentioned specifically in your previous article on planes and trains. So […]

The computer has spoken: Copenhagen will be a failure

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita uses game theory to predict all sorts of geopolitical and business outcomes. Don’t ask him about global warming…Courtesy NYUCancel your plans for flying to Denmark this December. Send the polar bear suits back to the costume shop, and quit boning up on all those U.N. acronyms (IPCC … UNFCCC … AWG-LCA […]

Caption needed! UPDATE: Caption found

When you discover a picture of Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack posing with Cookie Monster and broccoli, it’s caption contest time! Submit captions below in comments. Funniest idea gets a priceless Virtual High Five. UPDATE:  The winner of the Virtual High Five is … Ed Abbey! Scroll down to see the new caption. Thanks for playing! […]