Latest Articles

On working with the UNFCCC and making aerial climate art

500 marshmallows organize for climate action.Robert van Waarden / Spectral QFor better or worse, ours is the age of distraction. Texting while in lectures, talking while in the car driving, iphoning while going, well, anywhere really. The possibilities for connecting beyond our immediate environment can take 25 hours of the day, and those possibilities are […]

No, Washington Times: New Brookings study finds strong climate action would NOT hurt the economy

Less than a postage stamp a day. That’s what it will cost the average American to cut US greenhouse gases 83% in four decades and give the world a chance of avoiding catastrophic global warming while jumpstarting the transition to a clean energy economy. The right wing likes to take economic analyses that don’t model […]

The return of the uranium boom?

In a small community near a broad expanse of valley floor known as the West End, there’s a certain glow in the air. It’s the glow of progress, the glow of prosperity … and the glow of the uranium miners coming home from work? The Paradox Valley in southwestern Colorado.Courtesy U.S. Geological SurveyProbably not; we […]

Supreme Court rules against coal company accused of buying a West Virginia judge

After the Massey Energy coal mining company lost a $50 million verdict to a competitor, CEO Don Blankenship spent $3 million electing a friendly judge to West Virginia's Supreme Court of Appeals who went on to cast the deciding vote in a case that overturned the verdict. But yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court handed a setback to Massey, a company notorious for its reliance on destructive mountaintop removal mining throughout Central Appalachia, with a ruling that elected judges must recuse themselves from cases involving big campaign contributors.

Environmental groups urge Pelosi to toughen bill

Twenty major environmental groups sent House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a letter (here) urging that she make three key improvements in the Waxman-Markey bill and reject attempts to weaken it. The groups, which include the Sierra Club, the National Wildlife Federation, the National Audubon Society, Environment America, the League of Conservation Voters, the Natural Resource Defense […]

WSJ front-page shocker: U.S. Foresees a Thinner Cushion of Coal"

Okay, it isn’t a shock to long-time readers that the US Geological Survey sharply scaled back projections of economically-recoverable US coal (see “Are we approaching peak coal? Part 1” and “Part 2“). As I reported in January, the USGS concluded: The coal reserves estimate for the Gillette coalfield is 10.1 billion short tons of coal […]

Washington Post launches attack on clean energy and climate bill for promoting building efficiency

Memo to Washington Post: Please, please trade editor Fred Hiatt to the Wall Street Journal editorial page where his penchant for allowing unfact-checked crap into the paper – and for writing it himself – would no longer hurt the reputation of a (once) great newspaper. There are lots of reasons for progressives and the progressive […]

Will health care eclipse climate in Congress this year?

Halfway through the second debate of last fall’s presidential campaign, moderator Tom Brokaw asked the candidates what their top priority would be if elected. McCain hemmed and hawed, but Obama answered in plain language: energy is “priority No. 1” and health care “priority No. 2.” Fast forward. In an NYT Magazine piece this weekend on […]

At Bonn climate talks, it’s a dialogue of the deaf

Climate protesters march in Bonn on June 6.Courtesy Oxfam Germany via Flickr BONN, Germany — Beethoven’s birthplace stands just a few stops down one of Bonn’s speedy tramlines from the conference center hosting the latest session of the international climate negotiations. A modest yellow-painted house with dark green wooden shutters, it is now a museum […]

A closer look at problems with the sectoral approach to carbon offsets

Last month I went home to Barcelona to attend Carbon Expo, one of the major annual gatherings for professionals involved in the global carbon market. There were many interesting conversations and panel discussions over the course of the three-day conference, but one in particular focused on sectoral mechanisms as a way of sourcing international offsets […]