Latest Articles

Higher gasoline taxes to boost efficiency would be ‘a mistake’

I couldn’t agree more with PEBO on Meet the Press Sunday: New gasoline taxes aren’t the way to boost energy efficiency. Remember, European gas taxes have long been more than $2 a gallon higher than ours, and as of 2002, the average fuel economy of European Union vehicles was 37 miles per gallon, which is […]

Ted Turner chats about his outsized environmental hopes and ambitions

  Ted Turner has always been — for better and for worse — a head turner. He revolutionized media with the first cable news station, CNN. He gave a cool billion to the United Nations. He won the America’s Cup. He married Jane Fonda. He bought the Atlanta Braves. He earned the moniker “Mouth of […]

Focus on renewables and efficiency regardless if ‘clean coal’ is clap or crap

A raging debate has emerged as to whether clean coal is claptrap or crap trap. On the one side are people who think that clean coal means coal plants with carbon capture and storage for the vast majority of the carbon dioxide they emit (or that coal isn’t clean under any plausible definition of the […]

Obama and Biden to kick it with Al Gore tomorrow

This just over the transom from Obamaland: Tomorrow, President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden will be meeting with former Vice-President Al Gore in Chicago to discuss energy and climate change and how policies in this area can stimulate the economy and create jobs. There will be a pool spray in the meeting and […]

Congress and Obama team signal that they will be ready for Copenhagen

In a letter from U.S. groups making the rounds here in Poznan, delegates are being urged to make the decisions needed in Poznan to keep us on schedule for making a final deal in Copenhagen next year, as promised in the historic consensus reached last December in Bali. While the December 2009 meeting in Copenhagen […]

Michael Moore on the Big Three and transit

“Transporting Americans is and should be one of the most important functions our government must address. And because we are facing a massive economic, energy and environmental crisis, the new president and Congress must do what Franklin Roosevelt did when he was faced with a crisis (and ordered the auto industry to stop building cars […]

Kansas governor says she’s not planning to take a post in the Obama administration

Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has taken herself out of the running for a cabinet position under Obama. She has been rumored as a top candidate for the head of Labor, Energy, Education or Agriculture. “Given the extraordinary budget challenges facing our state and my commitment to continuing the progress we’ve made in Kansas, I believe […]

Activists circulate last-minute petition to urge progressive farm-policy chief

The Obama transition team is reportedly going to announce the new USDA chief in the next few days. If the short list of candidates now being circulated is any indication, the president-elect is feeling serious pressure to make an agribiz-friendly choice. But just as pressure can be applied from above, it can also come from […]

Very warm 2008 makes this the hottest decade in recorded history by far*

The climate story of the decade is that the 2000s are on track to be nearly 0.2°C warmer than the 1990s. And that temperature jump is especially worrisome since the 1990s were only 0.14°C warmer than the 1980s (see datasets here). Global warming is accelerating, as predicted. The U.K.’s Guardian, on the other hand, believes […]

The Alliance to Save Energy plan

Part 1 reported that Obama and the Dems are planning a huge stimulus package with a big cleantech component and asked for ideas. Brian Castelli, Executive Vice President of the D.C.-based Alliance to Save Energy sent me their recommendations. Brian has been a cleantech leader for over three decades. I got to know him at […]