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Thanksgiving can reconnect families and revive traditions — like sweet potato rolls

Sweet potato rolls.Photos: April McGregerI remember the look on my grandfather’s face when I tried to politely explain that I couldn’t eat the giblet gravy or the dressing (known in other parts of the country as “stuffing”) that I had always relished. The reason, I informed him, was that I was a vegetarian; those old […]

Volkswagen Jetta TDI: 2009 Green Car of the Year

2009 Green Car of the Year: Volkswagen Jetta TDI At the L.A. Auto Show Thursday morning, the Green Car Journal jury voted the Volkswagen Jetta TDI the 2009 Green Car of the Year. The TDI "clean diesel" runs on ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel and uses a "common rail direct injection system" that decreases 95 percent […]

‘Show me a 50-foot wall, and I’ll show you a 51-foot ladder’

CNN is reporting that Janet Napolitano is Obama’s choice for secretary of homeland security. That’s great news for the imperiled wildlife and landscape of America’s desert southwest. Napolitano’s record shows that she’s the ideal candidate to fulfill Obama’s pledge to tear down (most of) the Bush administration’s border wall now dividing Arizona from Mexico. She’s […]

New business coalition calls for climate leg. with 100 percent auctions and focus on efficiency

Remember US-CAP, the business association calling for carbon legislation in the U.S.? Except the call is rather vague, and several US-CAP members lobbied to weaken policy proposals? And the whole thing smelled vaguely of concern trolling? Now a new business coalition has come on the scene: Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP), which […]

A chat with CARB chair and candidate for EPA chief Mary Nichols

On Wednesday at the Governors’ Global Climate Summit, we caught up with Mary Nichols, chair of the California Air Resources Board, a few minutes before she hosted the signing ceremony that culminated the event. As head of CARB since July 2007, Nichols has taken the lead in shaping and implementing California’s ambitious global warming program, […]

In a word, no

Late last year, I began to get the sense that green building fatigue was setting in. On my end, I sighed when a press release announcing a new LEED building landed in my inbox; that fact, alone, no longer seemed like news. But all over the country, the housing bubble was beginning to burst. I […]

Waxman to lead House panel that will shape any climate legislation

Breaking news out of Washington: Rep. John Dingell, the Michigan congressman who has used his position as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee to protect Detroit’s automakers from serious environmental mandates, has lost his bid to continue leading the panel. House Democrats today chose to install Henry Waxman of California at the committee’s helm. […]

NRDC says video games’ huge energy suckage easily cut

Video game consoles in the United States consumed some 16 billion kilowatt-hours last year, or about enough juice to power the city of San Diego for a year, according to a new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council. However, cutting down video games’ impact is relatively easy since the three most popular video game […]

Intelligence report stresses climate change a security threat

A new intelligence report released Thursday that’s intended to brief President-elect Barack Obama on future security threats mentions climate change as a major barrier to national security and international stability. The report echoes climate scientists’ predictions of increased drought and flooding, while also focusing on climate change’s impacts on world food supplies, U.S. military installations, […]

USDA close to approving relatively weak organic standards for fish

The U.S. Department of Agriculture this week inched closer to approving organic rules for fish for the first time that would let “organic” fish eat up to 25 percent of their diet from non-organic sources, a move which has irked organic advocates worried about sullying otherwise relatively strict standards for organic meat products.