Latest Articles

Bush appointee reportedly holding up transition efforts at NASA

Transition efforts at NASA are not going smoothly, reports Robert Block of the Orlando Sentinel: NASA administrator Mike Griffin is not cooperating with President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team, is obstructing its efforts to get information and has told its leader that she is “not qualified” to judge his rocket program, the Orlando Sentinel has learned. […]

Gore embraces 350 ppm target at Poznan

[This post is from Bill McKibben in Poland. For background on the science behind the 350 target and the challenge it poses see here and here.] Al Gore gave the international climate talks in Poznan a new set of marching orders this afternoon, declaring that old targets for fighting global warming had been made obsolete […]

Foodie lessons from Dwight K. Shrute

A brilliant blogger has assembled a list of food and frugality tips gathered from Dwight K. Shrute, assistant to the regional manager at The Office‘s Dunder Mifflin paper company. Below, a few gems: DWIGHT SAYS: “My grandfather left me a 60-acre working beet farm. I run it with my cousin Mose. We sell beets to […]

A carbon tax has efficient sticks, but what about carrots?

I’m finding the carbon tax vs. cap-and-trade debate unsatisfying, for several reasons. Here I’ll try to get at just one of them. In broad terms, you want greenhouse gas policy to do two things (well, more than two, but let’s focus): penalize the emission of GHGs and reward the prevention of GHG emissions. Sticks and […]

Will the Obama administration be the first to seriously regulate genetically modified food?

  Will Obama buck the trend and regulate GMOs?   On Nov. 11, Austria’s Ministries for Agriculture and Health released the results of a long-term study [PDF] of genetically modified organisms. A widely used strain of GM corn, they found, appears to decrease both birthrates and the size of offspring in mice — and the […]

Study: Common pollutant may lead to obesity

Ever heard of tributyltin? Probably not, but odds are you’ve been exposed to it. The chemical is used as a biocide in industrial water systems, breweries (gulp), and in wood preservatives; and as a pesticide on so-called "high-value" food crops (think fruits and vegetables). Its residues are also found in fish and shellfish. And … […]

From Carols to Condoms

Jingle bells, clean coal smells Click here. Discover wintry-clothed, googly-eyed coal carolers. Hear frosty lyrics like “There must have been some magic in clean coal technology, for when they looked for pollutants there was nearly none to see.” Vomit. Repeat. Buckling under pressure On the heels of the economic downturn, seems NatPo’s vegan Mary Janes […]

Al Gore calls for 350 ppm goal at Poznan climate summit

In a speech at the U.N. climate summit in Poland today, Al Gore argued that older targets for reducing global-warming pollution are out of date, and that world leaders should aim to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million. “Even a goal of 450 parts per million, which […]

Enviro coalition offers up green recovery plan

A coalition of 17 environmental groups on Thursday offered their plan for an economic-recovery package, one that would direct nearly $171 billion to green programs over the next two years. The plan covers a variety of sectors, calling for investments of nearly $12 billion for energy efficiency, $47.5 billion for renewable energy, $59 billion for […]

Inhofe recycles long-debunked denier talking points

Who will the media believe this time: The Senate’s leading climate denier, James Inhofe (R-Okla.), or their own lying eyes? Deniers like Inhofe have a serious media problem — an ever growing number of studies, real-world observations, and credible scientific bodies all point to human-caused emissions as the increasingly dominant cause of planetary warming and […]