Latest Articles

Virginia OKs uranium mining study

A proposal to mine uranium in south-central Virginia advanced this week when a key state body approved a study of the matter. The targeted site is in Virginia’s Pittsylvania County just north of the city of Danville and close to the border with North Carolina’s Rockingham and Caswell counties. A subcommittee of the Virginia Commission […]

Climate change legislation, beyond party and faction

Despite passage of the Waxman-Markey climate bill out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, this year’s effort to pass climate change legislation could easily succumb to the same kind of partisan political games and failed leadership that killed the Lieberman-Warner bill last year. Much of the blame for this troubling prospect rests with Republican […]

Of cow burps, beef, and methane

My climate for a cow fart? Dear Checkout Line, I read recently that meat is a huge emitter of greenhouse gas–more than even cars! It got me to wondering–does that mean all meat, or just from animals grown on factory farms? For example, I know that cow farts and burps contribute lots of methane. But […]

Fighting Coal in the Rockies

Fighting for the Waxman-Markey climate bill may be sexy and hip (and worthwhile), but here in the Roaring Fork and Vail Valleys of Colorado, without much fanfare, we are engaged in some trench fighting to solve climate change. A view from one of the ski lifts at Vail in Colorado.Courtesy Pravin8 via FlickrThe battle: trying to elect […]

Can the Internet help small farms act big?

Wired Science has a good piece on the potential for tech startups to play a “disruptive” role in commercial food distribution. The post looks at several web services that are trying to replicate the restaurant supply chain system dominated by produce distribution giant Sysco and its ubiquitous trucks via a network of small farmers, iPhones […]

A climate-news poem for the week of May 18

This week’s entry too short? Spend some time with last week’s rhymes. Two brave warriors Stand triumphant with their bill Battle’s just begun  Waxman and Markey have a long way to go.  

The folks behind the Nano take their vision to suburbia

On paper, the biggest U.S. export is capital goods–aircrafts, semiconductors, medical equipment, and such. But we’ve been exporting something else in force to developing countries: the suburban lifestyle. From American Village in the Kurdish area of Iraq to “Napa Valley,” a development outside Beijing, the McMansion and its watered lawns are making their way around […]

AFL-CIO’s John Sweeney endorses approach of Waxman-Markey climate and clean energy bill

For those who know the history, the relationship between the environmental movement and the labor movement has been cool, at best, for a long time. But the two groups have been talking to each other much more in recent years and have come to a better understanding of how to work together.  The environmental movement […]

Biotech industry group alights on La Gloria to test backyard pigs

Hogs in a CAFO. The good news is that bloggers and other hysterics aren’t the only ones taking seriously La Gloria, Mexico, as the possible origin of the swine flu pandemic. From an extremely interesting AP article: Scientists are returning next week to La Gloria, a pig-farming village in the Veracruz mountains where Mexico’s earliest […]

House committee approves landmark (bipartisan!) clean energy and climate bill

NOTE:  Unexpectedly, Rep. Bono Mack (R-CA) voted “yes” — and the bill passed 33-25!  She later said, “While I still have significant concerns about this bill, particularly with regard to its cost and its failure to recognize innovative technologies like advanced nuclear energy, I believe this is the right direction for our district, for our […]