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Greening the South Bronx and empowering its community with Green Worker Cooperatives

    This is a guest post from my travel partner, Todd Dwyer, head blogger for Dell’s ReGeneration.org. —– After spending 35 years of her life punching the clock for someone else, South Bronx resident Gloria Walker is ready to start working for herself. Fortunately for her, there’s an organization in her neighborhood devoted not […]

Bogus offsets merely ease emitter’s remorse

I’m going to (try to) coin a new term here, “rip-offsets,” since I can’t think of a better word for the rip-off offsets the Chicago Climate Exchange is peddling to a gullible public and media. The Washington Post has a front-page story, “There’s a Gold Mine In Environmental Guilt Carbon-Offset Sales Brisk Despite Financial Crisis,” […]

Various and sundry smart people debunk the ‘clean coal’ nonsense

Lots of great stuff on The Enemy of the Human Race available today. Kate mentioned CNN’s segment on Coal River Mountain, where a crucial battle over mountaintop removal mining is playing out. Really a must-watch. Also on CNN, an excellent commentary from Jeff Biggers, making the point that Appalachians themselves have made peace with the […]

Ships must slow down where right whales hang out, says NOAA

Ships need to slow down when traveling in the hang-out spots of critically endangered right whales, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Wednesday. Ships 65 feet or longer must slow down to 10 knots (that’s 11.5 miles per hour for landlubbers) within 23 miles of major mid-Atlantic ports. Government scientists had originally suggested a […]

Why did McCain sell out to Big Oil? Ask Charles Keating

John McCain’s new coziness with Big Oil is in many respects just a replay of his old coziness with Charles Keating. In both cases, money and access bought influence. Let’s start with oil. Last month, Time reported that McCain tapped a “prominent Washington lobbyist,” William E. Timmons, Sr., to run his transition, should he win […]

Overrun by humans, Galapagos Islands crack down

The Galapagos Islands are totally hot right now. To tourists, the island chain 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador offers stunning biodiversity (blue-footed boobies!) that infamously inspired Charles Darwin to write The Origin of Species. To residents, the tourism-driven economy offers high wages, top-notch public schools, and a dearth of violent crime. But as […]

Why are you still reading this? Go buy Van Jones’ new book!

Watch this video: Now watch this video: Now go buy Van Jones’ new book!

The whole economy needs to be green collar

Bob Herbert lays out a strong argument for a focus on jobs in his column “A Fool’s Paradise”: The economy won’t be saved by bailing out Wall Street and waiting for that day that never comes when the benefits trickle down to ordinary Americans. It won’t be saved until we get serious about putting vast […]

New study shows the error of ICCAT’s ways

A new study in this week’s Science finds that the two distinct Atlantic bluefin tuna populations — those spawned in the Gulf of Mexico and those spawned in the Mediterranean Sea — meet during their juvenile years in the Atlantic before returning to their respective natal homes to reproduce. In addition to being fascinating (the […]

Is 450 ppm (or less) politically possible? Part 7

No, 450 is not politically possible today. Nor is 550. Nor is action sufficient to stave off 1,000 ppm and 6°C warming. OK, that was clear before because congressional conservatives can certainly block the necessary action and demagogue the energy price issue — and they obviously intend to. But I think the financial bailout bill […]