Latest Articles
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NSIDC: Arctic melt passes the point of no return
The U.K.’s Independent reports on a study to be presented Tuesday to the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco by top cryosphere scientists: Scientists have found the first unequivocal evidence that the Arctic region is warming at a faster rate than the rest of the world at least a decade before […]
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Where does Interior pick Salazar stand on key environmental issues?
What does Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar’s likely appointment to head the Department of Interior mean for environmental and energy policy? A few episodes from his congressional career may shed some light. Salazar has only been in the Senate since 2005, so he hasn’t racked up a lengthy voting record. His lifetime score from the League […]
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Ring in the new with a ‘natural’ bottle of bubbly
Fewer chemicals in our sparkling wines? We’ll drink to that. Nothing says festive quite like the pop of a chilled bottle of bubbly. But while sparkling wine delivers a party in a glass, things are typically less thrilling out in the field. Like most wine, bubbly tends to come from grapes grown in large monocrops […]
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The Fair Food Foundation crumbles under weight of the Madoff Ponzi scheme
For a couple of years, there has been lots of buzz in the sustainable-food world about the Fair Food Foundation of Ann Arbor, Mich. Fair Food was founded recently by Oran Hesterman, under whose leadership the Kellogg Foundation became the key funder in the sustainable-food space. Kellogg has been pulling back from that space; Fair […]
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The lead environmental negotiator should be …
The Reality-Based Community blog proposes that Obama appoint a U.S. lead climate negotiator who is based in the office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Interesting.
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I still heart Seth Borenstein
One of the first blog posts I ever wrote bore the headline "I heart Seth Borenstein." Back then, Borenstein was the environment writer for Knight Ridder, and he distinguished himself by cutting through the typical he-said she-said haze to describe environmental dangers directly and forthrightly. Now he’s a science writer for AP, and he’s still […]
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Steven Chu is a progressive environmentalist because he’s a good scientist
I’ve been reading the discussion sparked by Chris Hayes’ latest piece in The Nation — "The Pragmatist," about Obama’s much-discussed pragmatism — with interest. Pragmatism is a subject dear to my heart, something I studied in grad school, though the kind you study there and what goes by the name in political discussion bear little […]
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Normally staid IEA says oil will peak in 2020
Fatih Birol, chief economist to the International Energy Agency, told the U.K.’s Guardian this week: “In terms of non-Opec [countries outside the big oil producers’ cartel],” he replied, “we are expecting that in three, four years’ time the production of conventional oil will come to a plateau, and start to decline. In terms of the […]
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Why the much-ballyhooed utility decoupling is inadequate
I meant last week to note the extremely promising fact that Dems are talking about using the stimulus to funnel substantial money to states for energy efficiency projects — and tying that money to utility decoupling. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), in comments to the Northwest Energy Coalition earlier this month, said this is how it […]
