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New report from Duke University pinpoints where green policies will create jobs

In his most concrete policy proposal since the November election, President-elect Barack Obama last week said his administration will “mark a new chapter in America’s leadership on climate change that will strengthen our security and create millions of new jobs in the process.” Obama said that will “start” with a federal cap and trade system […]

NBC nixes TV’s only global climate change show during ‘Green Week’

Greenwashing is universal, at least at NBC. Last year, I pointed out the uber-lameness of NBC’s "Green is Universal" week. This year’s was worse. The few NBC primetime shows I watch don’t even seem to bother anymore — if any readers actually saw any green programming outside of the news division, let me know. But […]

Solar baseload outshines ‘clean coal’ — and it always will

Concentrated solar thermal power — aka solar baseload — remains hot. The Daily Climate has a nice update: All told some 60 plants are either under construction or under contract worldwide — with most in either Spain or the United States — for a total capacity just north of 5,700 megawatts. Here is the world […]

Conservatives claim CAFE standards caused car companies’ woes

A key reason for Detroit’s woes is that for decades they successfully fought efforts to build the kind of fuel-efficient cars the public has increasingly wanted to buy. Virtually all independent observers acknowledge that fact, but no conservative leader can. After all, they provided the political support and the votes that blocked repeated efforts by […]

Avego makes ride-sharing a normal reality

The thing about energy-driven collapse is that it’s uneven — it’s not like the calendar flips back and we all return to having the things we had in the past. Rather, we’re going to have this huge overhang of technology from the peak period of affluence and abundance. Sometimes that’s going to be bad (buildings […]

LCV calls out Chevron hypocrisy

The League of Conservation Voters beat me to punch in trashing Chevron’s recent greenwashing ads, with "I Will Point Out Hypocrisy": In train stations, at bus stops, online, even on our coffee cups, Chevron ads are trying to convince us that the key to ending our energy crisis is individual action. Over pictures of everyday […]

I finally got to see Bill McKibben in action

I’ve read Bill McKibben’s work. I’ve admired Bill McKibben’s work. Hell, I’ve even been lucky enough to edit Bill McKibben’s work. But not until Friday did I meet the man in person. A featured speaker at Greenbuild, McKibben — tall, slight, and soft-spoken — held a crowd of hundreds in thrall as he outlined the […]

Greenbuild ends on a note of cautious optimism

When he took the stage for the closing session of this year’s Greenbuild, amid flashing lights and a thumping rock anthem, USGBC CEO Rick Fedrizzi got right to the point: “When people say green building is over, tell them there were 29,752 people at Greenbuild. That doesn’t sound like we’re at the end of the […]

Food sovereignty needs to be the center of renewed negotiations

With each new event or international conference in 2008’s saga of economic and food crises, there are calls to complete the long-running Doha Round of World Trade Organization negotiations. The international players all act as if achieving a Doha agreement, seemingly any agreement, will help solve one or more aspects of these crises. The latest […]

Carbon is forever

Nature reports that a quarter of CO2 emissions from fossil fuels hang around, essentially, forever. If humanity is to avoid sending the climate into a runaway chaos state, we have to emit far less carbon, fast.