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Dear media,

Today Obama’s people confirmed that your fake story from yesterday is in fact fake. Better luck next time.

Canadian Parliament suspended, PM Harper survives … for now

The situation in Ottawa has passed, for now. The Governor-General (representing Her Majesty Elizabeth II) has granted Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s request to prorogue (or suspend) Parliament, meaning that the confidence vote that had been scheduled for Monday will not happen for now. This is a day of firsts, as this is the shortest […]

What will make Obama a great president? Part 2

Future historians will inevitably judge all 21st century presidents as failures if the world doesn’t stop catastrophic global warming. If global warming exceeds 5°C (or even 3°C), then we will head inexorably toward an ice free planet with widespread desertification, sea levels rising 6 to 12 inches a decade for centuries, the oceans turning into […]

Bank of America will stop funding mountaintop-removal mining

In a big win for environmentalists, Bank of America agreed Wednesday to “phase out financing” to coal companies “whose predominant method of extracting coal” is mountaintop-removal mining. Green groups recently persuaded several BoA execs to visit ravaged Appalachian mountains. Ironically, the U.S. EPA just this week approved a rule change that makes mountaintop removal easier.

Biogas out of … can’t say

Here’s an example from the New York Times of turning doo-doo into gold: At the electricity-from-manure project here in Sterksel [Netherlands], the refuse from thousands of pigs is combined with local waste materials (outdated carrot juice and crumbs from a cookie factory), and pumped into warmed tanks called digesters. There, resident bacteria release the natural […]

Review of a converted 3Prong Power plug-in Prius

The world is waiting for the major car companies to offer electric vehicles. But you — you are accustomed to instant gratification. This is America, after all, and you want to plug-in now. Well, you don’t have to wait for the Big Three to get out of their corporate jets and get to work. You […]

CNN cuts entire environmental, science, and technology news staff

CNN announced yesterday that it is cutting its entire science, technology, and environmental news staff. Columbia Journalism Review takes a good look at the implications. The network has tried to assure folks that this doesn’t mean they’re axing their environmental coverage. “We want to integrate environmental, science and technology reporting into the general editorial structure […]

New policy would divest bank from mountain obliteration

In light of the crappy news from the EPA, which seems ready to make mountaintop removal coal mining easier by loosening restrictions on burying Appalachian streams with mining rubble (when’s the “protection” part of this agency going to speak up?), there’s this bit of hope in NRDC’s blog about Bank of America, which just revised […]

Youth delegates in Poznan stage mock ‘Jeopardy’ game to get message out

Photo courtesy David Wargert and Energy Action Coalition   It’s day four of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations in Poznan, but it feels like I’ve been here for months. I’m up before the sun rises and in bed after midnight; the action is nonstop in between. I am one of […]

The AP’s climate conference footprint fetish

“The AP writer couldn’t see the forest for the trees.” — Terry Tamminen “The fact is, we live in a glass house today, folks, and sometimes we become part of the story whether we want to be or not.” — Lex Alexander What a difference vision makes. Last week, CJR Observatory’s Cristine Russell wrote about […]