Latest Articles

The coming e-waste explosion

People should start paying attention to this: On February 17, 2009, television stations will throw the switch, and stop sending out analog TV signal in the United States. On that date, the millions of people who receive “over the air” TV signal (as opposed to cable or satellite subscribers) must have a TV capable of […]

EDF’s video contest will spur creativity and innovation around cap-and-trade

This is a response to Joseph Romm’s post “Happy thoughts and fairy dust.” —– Nothing like some good, old-fashioned back-and-forth to keep bloggers — and blog readers? — engaged. EDF is organizing a video/graphics competition to ask for help in explaining, “What is a carbon cap and how will it cure our oil addiction?” Joe Romm critiqued […]

Daylight saving wastes energy

You can’t save daylight by moving around the hands on your clock, of course. So daylight saving time remains as absurdly named as it ever was. As for saving energy, DST doesn’t do that either, according to most studies, as I noted earlier this year. An Australian study concluded "These results suggest that current plans […]

Corporate Watchdog radio interview

Wherein I discuss the two candidates’ energy and environmental positions.

Gross

In the wake of record-breaking profits, Exxon continues its fight to pay as little as possible to those scarred by its Exxon-Valdez oil spill.

What pollsters can learn from climate modelers

Pollster.com has an interesting piece on the confusing disparity among all of the polling being done for this election. In particular, "likely voter model design depends significantly on judgments that pollsters make about how to model the likelihood that any voter sampled will actually turn out and vote in the election." The author, Clark A. […]

The Senate and the union hall: Where American climate policy will succeed or fail

Democrats are salivating at the prospect of a 60-vote majority in the Senate, enough to override a veto and other procedural hurdles. They will almost certainly gain a commanding majority in the House. But environmentalists should realize the answer to their problems isn’t that simple. Sixty Democratic votes would not be enough to break through […]

The next president should use the Clean Air Act to control greenhouse gas emissions

This essay was originally published at Yale Environment 360. —– The urgency of the current situation cannot be overemphasized: The latest scientific research tells us that global warming is accelerating at a rate beyond previous expectations, and that the window for a timely response is closing quickly. Despite some political efforts to muddy the waters, […]

A few billions more

I’ll go out on a limb and guess that this is not the last such story we will read in coming years: Low-emissions coal-fired power technology, or so-called clean coal, probably needs a further $15 billion of investment and 10 more years of research and development to be ready for commercial use, Credit Suisse Group […]

Friday music blogging: Blitzen Trapper

It’s late, but it’s Friday, and a man’s gotta music blog what a man’s gotta music blog. Blitzen Trapper is an indie band out of Portland, Ore. Their critic-beloved hit of last year, Wild Mountain Nation, was a mix of rustic americana twang and LSD freakout, a little heavy on the freakout. This year’s follow-up […]