Latest Articles

The defeat of Australia’s climate plan is not bad news for cap-and-trade

It may be tempting to view the Australian Senate’s defeat Wednesday of climate change legislation as a portent of things to come as the U.S. Senate prepares to take up a cap-and-trade bill. Queensland is Australia’s coal country. Its mines power the country and feed China’s demand for energy.Courtesy Wikimedia CommonsBut the rejection of the […]

10 green royals

What comes to mind when you think of royalty? Luxurious palaces, the Queen of England, and overused puns on Marie Antoinette’s infamous one-liner? How about chemical-free gardens, recycling, and sustainable seafood? Ruling families from around the globe are using their media magnetism and sovereign sway to draw attention to a variety of eco-causes, fighting climate […]

A civilizational tipping point

In recent years there has been a growing concern over thresholds, or tipping points, in nature. For example, scientists worry about when the shrinking population of an endangered species will fall to a point from which it cannot recover. Marine biologists are concerned about the point where overfishing will trigger the collapse of a fishery. […]

Gore’s group targets swing senators in new climate ads

New ads from Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection are pushing swing-vote senators to back climate and clean-energy legislation, touting the job-creation angle. The TV and radio ad campaign is targeted at moderate Democratic and Republican senators from fossil fuel–dependent, manufacturing-heavy Midwestern and Southern states: Blanche Lincoln (D) and Mark Pryor (D) of Arkansas, Evan […]

Mark Pryor (D-Ark.)

Mark Pryor Sen. Mark Pryor is a moderate who has voiced concerns in the past about passing climate policy, but has been relatively quiet this year. He is regularly listed among the Democrats most likely to oppose a climate bill. Pryor has expressed interest in increasing his state’s contribution in the biofuels sector, however, which […]

Ohio’s Sen. Brown calls for investments in clean energy manufacturing

Seeking to have an IMPACT on climate policy, Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) formally introduced legislation this week to strengthen America’s efforts to cut emissions and build a prosperous clean energy economy. The Ohio Democrat’s efforts to advance new investment in clean energy technologies and manufacturing are critical, and are consistent with the Breakthrough Institute’s recommendations […]

Will Allen talks about growing the ‘Good Food’ movement

This weekend I caught up with Will Allen who was keynoting the always excellent Northeast Organic Farming Association’s Annual Conference in Amherst, MA. He’s founder and CEO of Growing Power, the country’s premier grassroots urban gardening program, and also a MacArthur Genius Award Winner and former pro-basketball player. Growing Power demonstrates growing methods through on-site […]

The tragic hubris of the climate action delayers

Let’s assume we keep listening to the siren song of the deniers and the climate action delayers who insist human-caused global warming is not a dire problem requiring deep reductions in greenhouse gases as soon as possible.   So we ruin our livable climate for our children and grandchildren and countless generations after that. When they […]

Cargill, the National School Lunch Program, and antibiotic-resistant salmonella

 In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries. ———- Is antibiotic-resistant-salmonella-tainted beef what’s for dinner? Standard j-school-style journalism takes a lot of lumps these days–and justifiably so. To maintain an illusion of “objectivity,” traditional reporters write like above-the-fray observers merely recording “the facts”–as if choosing which facts to […]

Cap-and-Trade: A Fly in the Ointment?

For more than two decades, environmental law and regulation was dominated by command-and-control approaches — typically either mandated pollution control technologies or inflexible discharge standards on a smokestack-by-smokestack basis.  But in the 1980s, policy makers increasingly explored market-based environmental policy instruments, mechanisms that provide economic incentives for firms and individuals to carry out cost-effective pollution […]