Latest Articles

Deliberate misinformation: Making saving money sound bad

The enemies of energy efficiency have unveiled their new tactic to keep you from saving money and energy: they’re just going to tell you ridiculous lies and hope you believe them. It seems that because they have had a hard time weakening the money saving efficiency provisions in the American Clean Energy and Security Act […]

Washington state may soon be home to world’s largest PV solar project

About four miles from the town of Cle Elum, Wash., there is a large, flat piece of land surrounded by a ring of 50-foot-tall Ponderosa Pines. The area has been repeatedly logged over the last few decades and is now relatively treeless. But it may soon be home to an entirely different sort of renewable […]

Global warming commitments at the G8 and the major economies forum in Italy

If you haven’t been in Italy you might not have realized it, but two events just occurred there in which leaders of the 17 largest-emitting countries tried to make progress in the run-up to the Copenhagen climate talks this December.  The first event was the annual Group of Eight (G8) meeting, which brings together the […]

Farm City author cuts the foodie-elite snobbery from urban farming

Food writer and urban farmer Novella Carpenter is everything the elitist, foodie stereotype is not: she squat-farms near downtown Oakland, Calif., dumpster-dives to feed her rabbits, and offers to show anyone who still thinks otherwise exactly “what urban farming smells like.” Novella Carpenter and cute baby animals today, dinner tomorrow.Photo: Courtesy of Novella CarpenterIn Seattle […]

Worldwatch gets $1.3 million Gates grant to look at sustainable ag in Africa

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been roundly criticized in sustainable-ag circles for throwing its considerable girth behind a “New Green Revolution for Africa.” According to critics (including me), the “green revolution” approach promotes high-tech, expensive solutions to Africa’s agriculture woes — ones more suited to the interests of a few agribusiness giants than […]

Rumor: Obama pondering big-ag man for key USDA meat-safety role [UPDATED]

Safe enough for ya?UPDATE at bottom of story. ———————————— I normally don’t write about rumors or inside information. I aspire to be like the late journalist I.F. Stone, who scorned the dubious allure of insider “access” and kept his nose in government documents, where useful information leaks out. Today — as in its own time […]

Climate-news poem: G8 edition

With deepest apologies to INXS. Congregate, heads of state, don’t be late, big G8Planet’s fate, cannot wait,Don’t stall debate or hesitate, designate your carbon rateA one world state, Italianate, on July 8, won’t abrogateA gentle trait, a balding pate, a girlish gait, pontificateWe’ll predicate our specs ornate, officiate, not deviateGreen groups berate, gesticulate, packed in […]

GOP Sen. Bond thinks climate policy is just too confusing

Missouri Sen. Kit Bond (R) is circulating this incomprehensible graphic that he says illustrates the “bureaucratic nightmare” of the Waxman-Markey climate bill that the House passed last month. Bond devoted the majority of his opening statement at Tuesday’s Senate hearing on climate policy griping that the bill is just too long for people to understand. […]

Justin Timberlake brings sexy back to green, and more

Photo: jurvetson via FlickrBring it on down to GolfersvilleJ Tee is bringing sexy back to green. The putting green, that is. And with eco-friendly practices par for this course, we’ll hold your wood any day, Mr. Timberlake.                            

Energy industry sways Congress with misleading data

This story was written by ProPublica’s Adam Lustgarten. The two key arguments that the oil and gas industry is using to fight federal regulation of the natural gas drilling process called hydraulic fracturing — that the costs would cripple their business and that state regulations are already strong — are challenged by the same data […]