Latest Articles

Senate susses out climate plan positions

As attention focused on the climate and energy bill unveiled by key House Democrats on Tuesday, the Senate quietly held a couple of votes that reveal a great deal about where that chamber stands on upcoming legislation. The first was a measure sponsored by Environment and Public Works Committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). It inserts […]

Waxman bill threatens children and elderly, says very concerned power industry

Reactions to the Waxman energy legislation are going to be pouring in over the coming days and weeks. On an early read, environmentalists are enthusiastic. But who is looking out for society’s most vulnerable? Power companies, of course! Says Scott Segal, chairman of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council: … the bill’s silence on a method […]

How to solve renewables’ intermittency problem

This whole solar thing isn’t working out. I’m going to start Vote Lunar.

Oregon’s successful mileage tax experiment worked smoothly — and helped curb congestion

Recently I’ve been flogging the concept of a mileage tax, a system of per-mile road usage fees that over time can replace our dysfunctional gasoline tax as a way of funding transportation infrastructure. Although people have raised a lot of interesting objections, I’d like for now to skip ahead and simply describe Oregon’s successful experiment […]

‘Getting Green Done’ speaks hard truths about sustainable business

Corporate sustainability guru Auden Schendler lays out the problem with corporate sustainability gurus in his recent Getting Green Done: Hard Truths from the Front Lines of the Sustainability Revolution. In doing so, he pretty much dares the nation’s copy editors to title their reviews with the decade’s most played-out headline: “It’s Not Easy Being Green.” […]

Canadian eco-rap and other youth offerings in Vancouver

When Premier of British Columbia Gordon Campbell asked delegates at the World Conference on Sport and the Environment whether they had flown to the Vancouver event on Monday, hundreds of hands shot up. If any of them saw the irony of reaching an environmental conference through the carbon-intensive method of jet travel, they didn’t let […]

Responding to the “energy tax” attack

I’ll get more into the specifics of the Waxman/Markey bill in a bit, but first let’s address something lots of people have been asking me about these past few days: how to respond to Republican attacks that Dem energy/climate legislation constitutes an “energy tax” that will cost every American family 178 katrillion dollars every time […]

Enlisting sports fans in the green movement begins by understanding them

Near the end of the World Conference on Sport and the Environment in Vancouver yesterday, Kim Smither of marketing firm Octagon Worldwide displayed a series of photos of screaming, face-painted sports fans. “Imagine the power you’d have if you could harness this,” she said. Talk of “harnessing” the passion of sports showed up everywhere at […]

Seth Meyers jokes with NRDC

Saturday Night Live‘s Seth Meyers addresses a fancy NRDC fundraiser. Pretty funny:

Corporate sustainability guru visits Seattle

Corporate sustainability guru Auden Schendler lays out the problem with corporate sustainability gurus in his recent book "Getting Green Done."