Latest Articles

Bank of America to stop financing mountaintop removal

The energy and climate news is coming way too fast and furious for me to comment at length on every story. So here is everyone’s favorite W.Va. reporter, Ken Ward Jr. on the story: CHARLESTON, W.Va. — One of the world’s largest financial institutions said this week it will phase out lending money to coal […]

This gift guide saves energy — and it’s recession-proof!

  Don’t get wrapped up in holiday stress. Giving green is easy!   OK, so gas prices have eased up a bit — but the economy’s still tanking. Wouldn’t it be oh-so-thoughtful to give your loved ones gifts that can help them save money this year? Gifts that also save energy, which helps ye olde […]

A review of The Big Necessity

Great non-fiction writing is like great fiction writing: It produces books that are hard to put down, that give you insight into yourself and others, and that change the way you look at the world. A young woman named Rose George has produced a great work of reporting and, for my money, has likely produced […]

How to green your giving

Give the gift of green. It’s a lovely thing, giving a gift. Whatever the tradition or religion, whatever the source of the custom, there’s no arguing that it’s a lovely thing. However, that lovely thing has been corrupted by our out-of-whack consumer society. No longer is sentiment enough — that sentiment must be expressed through […]

Hill briefing tries to stir support for a carbon tax

With more than a month yet to go before the new Congress is officially sworn in (and the old Congress still kicking around in lame duck session), some wonk-types were on the Hill today trying to stir up support for a carbon tax. Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), who last year introduced a carbon tax bill […]

Greens, labor leaders, and economists call for $900 billion recovery plan

Campaign for America’s Future today released a “Main Street Recovery Plan” [PDF], laying out wha the group hopes to see from the Obama team. The plan calls for investments of at least $900 billion over the next two years, including $100 billion in green investments. “Central to the plan should be investment in green technology, […]

Cap-and-trade bill will return GOP to power ‘in 2010’

The conservative movement stagnation has few leaders more frozen in the cement of denial than Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.). Greenwire ($ub. req’d) reports that he flew all the way to Poland just to warn “Democrats today that they will lose their congressional majorities in 2010 if they try to pass a significant global warming bill […]

GM’s Lutz: Wagoner is one of ‘the innocents,’ just ‘the mayor of a city hit by an earthquake’

GM Vice Chair Bob Lutz would be a hard man to like, even if he weren’t a global warming denier (see “GM is full of crocks“). He presumably thinks he and GM Chair Wagoner deserve the credit and the large salaries whenever GM is doing well. But when the company crashes — that is God’s […]

A remarkably uninformative statement from Obama about his meeting with Gore

The press pool was allowed in for a photo-op following the hour-long meeting between Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Al Gore earlier today. Here’s the official, remarkably uninformative statement they got from Obama: The purpose of this meeting today was to listen and learn from Vice President Al Gore on the extraordinary work that he […]

Amid climate talks, World Bank considers $5 billion loan for most carbon-intensive project ever

The race for Most Hypocritical Actor at the climate talks in Poznan, Poland is a crowded one, to be sure, but the World Bank, in one swift move, has taken a commanding lead. Late last week, as World Bankers in Poland were lobbying delegates over pierogies and pate, word leaked out of South Africa that […]