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Taking on corporate America’s faves

Activists occupy Environmental Defense’s offices.

Bush policies cause U.S. GHG emissions to soar 1.4 percent in 2007

OK, this isn’t entirely news to readers (see here). But the Energy Information Administration’s just released final report [PDF] covers pretty much everything a climate junkie could possibly want to know about U.S. GHG emissions in 2007. The bottom line: Total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2007 were 1.4 percent above the 2006 total … […]

Long forgotten, chestnuts are coming back with a vengeance, and make a delicious holiday pudding

  Nuts about chestnuts.   I first learned about chestnuts from “The Christmas Song” (most likely, the Chipmunks’ version), not from tasting one. That happened much later. A couple of years ago, a farmer brought locally grown chestnuts to the back door of the restaurant where I worked. My coworkers and I were excited to […]

Time to slice up the tomato industry?

What happens when a few large buyers dominate a market? Anyone who keeps up with my posts — still there, mom? — knows what’s coming next: The buyers gain the power to dictate to dictate terms and conditions to sellers. For farmers, the results of concentrated markets are devastating. As a few giant companies like […]

Poznan: Least-developed countries present CO2 targets of 350 ppm

The big international climate conferences, at least the ones I’ve been to in Kyoto, the Hague, and elsewhere, are pretty much the same: caffeinated, adrenalized, endless, chaotic, and incredibly hard to read. Much goes on behind closed doors, and small signals from the big players at the last minute generally make the most difference. I’m […]

Green groups launch campaign highlighting falsity of ‘clean coal’

A coalition of national environmental groups, under the moniker “Reality Coalition,” today launched an ad campaign spotlighting the fact that “clean coal” doesn’t actually exist. The groups are spending several million dollars on print, broadcast, and online ads, as well as a website. The campaign is a shared effort of the Alliance for Climate Protection, […]

Some thoughts on the merits of regulating greenhouse gases via the Clean Air Act

Marc Ambinder considers something environmentalists have been discussing for months now: the possibility that Obama will create a carbon trading system via the EPA, using the Clean Air Act instead of (or before) going through Congress to get legislation. An Obama aide strongly suggested Obama would go this route this earlier this year, but backed […]

Note to progressives: Your guy won!

The following is a guest essay from Hal Clifford, executive editor of Orion Magazine. —– In the wake of Barack Obama’s victory, the relief was palpable, the excitement unprecedented. For a while. And then the nitpicking started. Not from Fox “News” or the Arizona country club where John McCain conceded. From the left: He’s just […]

The Big Three offer their restructuring plans to Congress

The CEOs of the Big Three automakers are back in the Capitol today (this time, they drove in hybrids rather than taking private jets), prepared to offer their revamped plans for restructuring to lawmakers. Their latest proposals contain considerably more promises to use a government bailout to make more efficient automobiles. Under pressure to prove […]

What should be done with the empty big box?

Last month, Circuit City announced that it would close 155 of its stores, most of them big boxes: those 50,000- to almost 300,000-square-foot warehouse-like structures, often built far from city centers. By one estimate, there are almost 3,000 vacant big boxes littering the American landscape, with more to come as major retailers falter. Makes Wal-Mart’s […]