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New Obama forest plan leaves roadless rule intact

The Obama administration will defend the Clinton roadless rule that has been ping-ponging in the courts for nearly a decade, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said in Seattle on Friday. If courts can’t resolve the forest-protection conflict, the administration will create its own roadless rule, he said. Vilsack laid out a broad vision for the […]

Solar wars

Note to utilities: solar is popular with your customers.  Earlier in the month in Colorado, Xcel proposed a scheme to charge their customers who install a solar installation an extra fee.  After 5 days of intense public outcry, they withdrew the plan.  For now. And in New Mexico, Public Service of New Mexico  (the largest […]

An ‘agri-intellectual’ talks back

Photo illustration by Tom Twigg / Grist A lot of folks have asked what I think of the essay “The Omnivore’s Delusion: Against the Agri-intellectuals,” by Missouri corn/soy farmer Blake Hurst, published in The American, the journal of the right-wing American Enterprise Institute. My first reaction is that I’m thrilled this debate is taking place. […]

Four Democratic senators call for delay on climate legislation

Four moderate Democratic senators — all considered swing votes on climate legislation — want a climate bill put off until next year. They say Congress should focus on passing health-care legislation. “The problem of doing both of them together is that it becomes too big of a lift,” Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) told Bloomberg. Sens. […]

New Study Finds $123 Billion in Savings From New Appliance Standards

The Appliance Standards Awareness Project (ASAP) and the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) released a new report highlighting the opportunities for saving billions of dollars and huge amounts of energy through updated federal appliance standards. The full report can be found here, executive summary here, and a press release is here. Add […]

JoBros, Miley Cyrus send on eco-message, and more

Photo: Mark O’DonaldWake up, America!Miley Cyrus, the JoBros, and other Disney mouseketeers tweensters want you to “send it on” — your love for the earth, that is. However, when it comes to this sugar-pop single, we suggest you only send it on to your worst enemies.                   […]

Solar is getting cheap

Much of the rhetoric against energy legislation of any kind—and at any level—centers on cost.  So advocates spend a lot of time explaining why continuing with the status quo is not a low cost option: clean(er) coal is not cheap, and nukes are really expensive.  To say nothing of terraforming Mars. The other half of […]

A debate about soil, organics, and nutrition

Inert medium for turning agrichemichals into food, or a teeming, diverse ecosystem? “The whole problem of health–in soil, plant, animal, and man–is one great subject.” — Albert Howard, The Soil and Health Ezra Klein and I are engaged in a little debate over the value of organic food. I’m honestly a little surprised to be […]

Lower your expectations for Copenhagen, says Foreign Affairs journal

Michael A. Levi of the Council on Foreign Relations, writing in the September/October Foreign Affairs, finds “vanishingly small” odds that December’s international negotiations in Copenhagen will produce a comprehensive climate treaty. From the journal’s summary (emphasis mine): “Government officials and activists should fundamentally rethink their strategy and expectations” for the December climate conference in Copenhagen, […]

NASA: Second hottest July on record

Fast on the heels of the second hottest June on record, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies reports that July is also the second hottest on record. NASA just quietly updates its data set (here).  NASS GISS is much more low-key than NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, which issues a major report on the climate […]