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News tidbits from the presidential race

• The Salt Lake Tribune has an in-depth look at Barack Obama’s and John McCain’s records and rhetoric on energy, honing in on a number of specific issues, from renewables to oil shale to “clean coal.” There’s even a handy chart. • Washington Post columnist Andrew Freedman looks at how the presidential candidates might reshape […]

In video series, Grist tries to stump the candidates with tough climate questions

  Running Out of Gas?   When watching the presidential and vice presidential debates, ever get the feeling the candidates aren’t really answering the questions? Especially when it comes to, ahem, climate and energy issues? Grist took to the streets to find everyday citizens (if you consider Grist employees everyday citizens) willing to ask the […]

Recyclers of industrial batteries work to derail tougher EPA standards

Lobbyists for industrial battery recyclers charged over to the White House recently to crank up arguments against possible tough new regulations of lead, a key ingredient of automobile and other heavyweight batteries. The closed-door meetings were prompted by a court order requiring the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to act by Wednesday to update its 30-year-old […]

Bad data analysis by University of Alabama scientists set old myth in motion

Denier talking points are harder to kill than vampires. They keep rising from the dead no matter how many times scientists try to drive a stake through their heart. Sometimes they take on a slightly different form, like a relentless, indestructible liquid-metal android assassin from the future that constantly switches appearance in an effort to […]

How to green your Halloween

The economy may have gone to pot and the country’s future leadership may be wildly unclear, but there’s one thing we can count on: Halloween. Yes, October 31 is a holiday of certainty, full of ringing doorbells, sweet treats, and tiny ghosts and witches (or, more likely, Kung Fu Pandas and Hannah Montanas). But All […]

Environment America says McCain’s nuclear expansion would be ‘an economic disaster’

Environment America today released a new report looking at the environmental implications of John McCain’s plan to build 45 new nuclear reactors by 2030, and 100 over time. Their report concludes that McCain’s plan would be “an economic and environmental disaster.” Environment America, which has endorsed Democrat Barack Obama in the presidential election, found that […]

Why scientists aren’t more persuasive, part 2

In 2007, NPR broadcast a now-infamous climate debate on the proposition “Global warming is not a crisis.” In theory, this sounds like an easy win for the “nay” side — “crisis” is obviously the mildest of words to describe the greatest preventable existential threat to the health and well-being of future generations. But in practice […]

Cote d’Ivoire’s West African chimp population drops off dramatically

The population of West African chimpanzees in Cote d’Ivoire has declined 90 percent in the last 18 years, according to a new study published in Current Biology. In the 1960s, the West African country was home to about 100,000 of the apes; in 1989-1990, scientists counted 8,000 to 12,000, which they estimated to be half […]

The new dean of the Washington press corps advances the cause of economic illiteracy

If you’ll pardon me, I’m going to keep harping on this theme. This column from Dan Balz — the New Broder — is absurd for any number of reasons, but I particularly want to draw attention to this bit, which distills Very Serious conventional wisdom: Nor is it evident that [Obama] has dealt realistically with […]

Snippets from the news

• Northern Rockies wolves back on endangered list. • Could new technology make household lights obsolete? • Nestle throws fit about Florida tap-water ad. • Can green jobs save us? • Which marathon is the greenest? • Australia will go ahead with carbon trading despite financial crisis. • Suffragettes protest in the U.K.