Latest Articles

Obama’s green team to kick off summer of community service

President Obama wants you — yes, you — to participate in a summer service campaign that he’s calling United We Serve. “From June 22 to September 11, United We Serve will begin to engage Americans from coast to coast in addressing community needs in education, health, energy and the environment, and community renewal,” reads the […]

Factory farms get the ultimate handout

Since the beginning of climate change legislation this session in Congress it has been clear that big agriculture would not be a part of a cap and trade program.  Yet, while the Waxman Markey bill has been making its way through Congress, the EPA has also been pushing forward its own agenda of climate related […]

Friday music blogging: Deer Tick

One of my happiest musical discoveries of the past year has been Deer Tick, a band originally out of Providence, Rhode Island. The band is sui generis — no description quite works. There’s a definite tinge of backwoods Americana, but also some raggedy low-fi freak folk, a little old-fashioned ’50s rock-and-roll, doo-wop, blues … it […]

Can we be ‘green’ and eat tropical products, too?

In Checkout Line, Lou Bendrick cooks up answers to reader questions about how to green their food choices and other diet-related quandaries. Lettuce know what food worries keep you up at night. ———————- Is your green cred slipping? Dear Checkout Line,We try to buy local food whenever we can. Some things just seem doomed to […]

UPDATED: Never mind! Lead levels in White House soil “ridiculously low” for an urban garden

First Lady Michelle Obama hosts the Bancroft Elementary School for the garden harvest of the White House in Washington on June 16, 2009Offical White House Photographer Samantha Appleton [MORE UPDATES:] Obamafoodorama looked into the issue in depth. Now the story is there’s no story. Here’s an expert commenting on the 93 PPM figure: that number […]

National Solar Observatory, NASA say no “Maunder Minimum”

The sunspot cycle is about to come out of its depression, if a newly discovered mechanism for predicting solar cycles – a migrating jet stream deep inside the sun – proves accurate.  And that will add a small amount of warming in the next few years, which were already predicted to be record-setting by two […]

The New York Times sells its integrity to ExxonMobil

Please email the NYT at nytnews@nytimes.com about this egregious ad and/or email its public editor at public@nytimes.com to explain you are “concerned about the paper’s journalistic integrity.” Click image for full pic of the NYT’s June 16, 2009 front page. These are hard times for the newspaper business. The paper of record has taken to […]

Excellent National Wildlife Federation summary and “Toolbox Assessment” of Waxman-Markey

The National Wildlife Federation has done an in-depth assessment, Climate Action Toolbox, of Waxman-Markey’s American Clean Energy and Security Act. Unlike other summaries, this analysis breaks ACES down from the perspective of the key federal policy elements needed to solve the climate crisis and build a clean energy future.  It examines the legislation from the […]

Dems ‘very close’ to a climate deal, White House to intensify push for bill, floor vote

We are coming into the home stretch on the climate bill, and the key players are (finally) starting to step up their efforts. Politico reports: The Obama administration will make an intense push to pass climate and energy legislation next week, according to key lawmakers, aides and lobbyists. The “energy week” comes as the House […]

The Radioactivity of the Breakthrough Institute: lies, misstatements, and critically flawed analyses

Once again, The Breakthrough Institute (TBI) and its founders Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus are lying about President Obama and publishing very bad analyses designed to push their anti-climate-action, anti-environmental agenda.  Their statements and analyses should be seen as a radioactive by any serious journalist or policy analyst protective of his or her professional reputation […]