Latest Articles

Climate analyst, author of ‘The Honest Broker’ urges people “Please Read Climate P

UPDATE:  Roger Pielke, Jr. is a Senior Fellow for an organization that is dedicating all of its resources to killing any chance of either a national or international effort to avert catastrophic global warming and to spreading disinformation about Obama, Gore, Congressional Democrats, and the environmental movement.  My bad.  I keep forgetting how many people […]

Climate disobedience: Is a new “Seattle” in the making?

This guest essay was originally published on TomDispatch and is republished here with Tom’s kind permission. Research assistance was provided by Sean Nortz. Will climate disobedience heat up in the months before Copenhagen?In the early morning of October 8, 2007, a small group of British Greenpeace activists slipped inside a hulking smokestack that towers more […]

Dynegy out of the new coal business

This is the weekly post from Bruce Nilles, director of Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign. Three years ago Dynegy launched plans to partner with LS Power and become the largest new developer of coal-fired power plants.  Yesterday Dynegy officially terminated those plans, including selling its shares in a coal-fired power plant currently under construction Coal […]

The obvious advantage of organic food over conventional

A bit of nitrogen with those veggies? A recent literature review [PDF] by the U.K. Food Standards Agency concluded that organic foods offer no nutritional advantages to ones grown with conventional chemical agriculture. The report quickly bounced around the media and the internets and has congealed into received wisdom. For example, in a recent chat […]

Alaska legislature rebukes Palin, but Alaskans may still lose

The odd saga of stimulus money and the state of Alaska drew to a close yesterday, ending in what should have been a big win for efficiency, as the state legislature voted to override former-Governor Palin’s veto of efficiency money. Unfortunately, this may be a victory in name only, as the Department of Energy has […]

Just say no to disposable bags — here are alternatives

While Seattleites squabble over whether to impose a fee on disposable bags, we offer up alternatives for lugging your goods home from the store (and ideas for what to do with the plastic bags you’ve already accumulated). Fantastic plastic alternatives Nothing says cool like a Cap-sac.For smaller items: With Cap-sac, the neon fanny pack for […]

A policy framework for investment in energy efficiency retrofits

This post is co-written by Benjamin Goldstein, Reid Detchon, and Kurt Shickman and reprinted with permission of the Center for American Progress. Investments in building efficiency retrofits can simultaneously address the challenges of economic recovery, energy insecurity, and global warming by laying the foundation for sustained economic growth, driving demand in the construction and manufacturing […]

Like Cash for Clunkers? You’ll love feebates!

Photo: ThreatedThoughtsIt’s now fairly widely understood that Cash for Clunkers has worked great as a stimulus program but is negligible as an emissions-reduction program. That’s fine — it did what it was supposed to do. Now that we know how well people respond to cash incentives, though, it’s time to do some deeper thinking about […]

If the site is right, researchers could bring tidal energy to Puget Sound

The problem with wind power—one of them, anyway—lies in the phrase “fickle as the wind.” Ocean tides, by comparison, are a paragon of reliability. They come and go twice a day, like clockwork. Seasonally, they’re strongest at the solstices in June and December and weakest at the equinoxes in March and September. That predictability is […]

Child Bearing and Carbon Footprints

Kate Galbraith put up a post in the NYT Green Inc. blog about the carbon footprint of child bearing. According to a study done at Oregon State University: “…a hypothetical American woman who switches to a more fuel-efficient car, drives less, recycles, installs more efficient light bulbs, and replaces her refrigerator and windows with energy-saving […]