Latest Articles

Clean technology innovation: reaping the rewards

Business Week has a provocative article this week by Michael Mandel on innovation — or the collapse of it — in America. According to Mandel, many of our current woes stem from a failure to innovate over the last decade since the glory years of the late 1990s. While most Americans still take pride in our innovation, […]

Why do U.S. environmentalists remain irrationally committed to a losing strategy?

Watching the remains of a movement strain our every organizational fiber to advance a climate bill we know is a travesty reminds me of G.K. Chesterton’s observation about sex: the pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable. Waxman-Markey ought to be opposed by U.S. environmentalists for obvious and pragmatic reasons — street […]

Coming global warming limits in China?

News coming out of China provides some hints that they might adopt a domestic limit to reduce their global warming.  As China Daily is reporting: “China will put in place carbon dioxide emissions targets for its economic and social development programs, the central government has promised.It also signals that China may be considering national goals […]

That status of global warming negotiations in Germany

I’ve been participating since last Monday in the global warming negotiations in Bonn, Germany.  This is the second session of the year. There are 53 days of official negotiations before Copenhagen and Monday was day 17 (the first 10 days were held in the first session in Bonn in March — as I discussed here […]

Burning Embers design contest seeks new ways to illustrate climate change

Photo courtesy spike55151 via FlickrNow here’s a great idea: The student-driven not-for-profit Artist as Citizen has a new Burning Embers design competition, inviting student artists to find new ways to portray climate change trends, causes, and effects. The contest, open to undergraduate and graduate art students and recent graduates, invites work in any medium that […]

Should Wilderness Society strip Rahall of award?

“Something like a shadow has fallen between the past and the present, an abyss wide as war that cannot be bridged by any tangible connection, so that memory is undermined and the image of our beginnings betrayed, dissolved, rendered not mythical but illusory. We have connived in the murder of our own origins.” — Edward […]

Sierra Club, MoveOn call on House leaders to strengthen climate bill

The Sierra Club, MoveOn, and other green and progressive groups have sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) asking her to work to strengthen the American Clean Energy and Security Act when it moves to the House floor. The letter also went to Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the bill’s […]

Jane Lubchenco: “Ocean acidity has increased by 30%” thanks to human emissions

Global warming is a major threat to life in the oceans – and humans who depend on that life (see Ocean dead zones to expand, “remain for thousands of years”). As one recent study found: Global warming may create “dead zones” in the ocean that would be devoid of fish and seafood and endure for […]

Slideshow: The plug-ins and electric vehicles of 2009

Can’t wait until 2010 for the Chevy Volt (or Coda or Fisker Karma or Chrysler Circuit)? Check out these electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles that are either on the market now or will be by the end of 2009. In slideshow order: Aptera 2e Th!nk City Subaru Stella Toyota Prius extended-range hybrid Mitsubishi i-MiEV smart […]

A warming world means more destructive storms

Elevated global temperatures bring a number of threats, including rising seas and more crop-withering heat waves. Higher surface water temperatures in the tropical oceans also provide more energy to drive tropical storm systems, leading to more-destructive hurricanes and typhoons. The combination of rising seas, more powerful storms, and stronger storm surges can be devastating. As […]