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Officials in three states pin water woes on gas drilling

This article was written by ProPublica’s Abrahm Lustgarten. Pat Farnelli, top left, Ronald Carter, bottom left, Richard Seymour, top right, and Norma Fiorentino, bottom right, live in Dimock, Pa. A year after Cabot Oil & Gas landmen knocked on their doors to sign drilling leases, they are finding that their drinking water now contains methane, […]

Internet Debate 101

(Photo credit: patries71 photo stream Flickr) Several years ago, the Easter Bunny brought my youngest daughter a pet rabbit. She immediately jumped on the Internet to learn about care and feeding. One site told her that rabbits were social animals and that they should be kept warm and dry in the house, preferably in the […]

Quit arguing with douchebags that everyone hates, part two

Following up a bit on my previous post, let’s make some more specific points. Point number one: Newt Gingrich is a douchebag and everyone hates him. Few figures in American politics (beyond Dick Cheney) are as discredited and unpopular as the bilious windbag Newt, whose renewed prominence as an “intellectual” on the right side of […]

Quit arguing with douchebags that everyone hates

Catching up with email and blog posts I missed while on vacation for a few weeks has been instructive. It appears to me, from this fresh perspective, that progressive bloggers, journalists, and activists are wasting a lot of their time. To understand why, we need to be clear on the current landscape. Right now, Republicans […]

Swine-flu outbreak could be linked to Smithfield factory farms

One flu east, one flu westThe outbreak of a new flu strain — a nasty mash-up of swine, avian, and human viruses — has infected 1,000 people in Mexico and the U.S., killing 68. The World Health Organization warned Saturday that the outbreak could reach global pandemic levels. Is Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork […]

Gore and Gingrich bump heads at House climate hearing

Debate on the House climate bill got heated on Friday as Al Gore and Newt Gingrich — two lightning-rod political figures — testified before the Energy and Commerce Committee. Gingrich came crying foul that Congress is poised to begin regulating Jacuzzis, while Gore – you guessed it! –testified to the urgent need to pass an […]

Chinese agribiz giant eyes Smithfield takeover

Want some Chinese dollar reserves in that ration? Like a pig pumped full of antibiotics, gorged on corn, soy, and industrial byproducts, and stuffed into a room with thousands of its peers huddled over a lagoon of their own waste, the U.S. meat industry is feeling a bit haggard just right now. Like many U.S. […]

Tennessee rep accuses Gore of trying to profit from climate bill

One of the more, uh, interesting moments from Friday’s climate hearings in the House was this exchange between Al Gore and Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who suggested that Gore would profit from a cap-and-trade bill. Here’s the video, via TPM, and a transcription follows: Blackburn: I think it’s really important that no suspicion or shadow […]

Policy chatter is on everyone’s lips at Fortune’s green-business conference

Fortune Magazine‘s annual Brainstorm Green confab in sybaritic Southern California locales brings together Fortune 500 types (naturally), green tech entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and environmentalists. As such it’s a barometer of sorts for the state of green in the Green State. At last year’s conference, the chatter was all about tech and the latest cool green […]

An interview with ‘Green Nobel’ winner Maria Gunnoe

Mountaintop, removed. Near Rawl, West Virginia.Courtesy of ILoveMountains.orgMaria Gunnoe.Tom DusenberyWest Virginian Maria Gunnoe won a prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize this week for her work fighting the devastating practice of mountaintop removal mining. It’s hard to think of someone more deserving of the prize, which includes a $150,000 award. Gunnoe, 40, has seen her family’s ancestral […]