Latest Articles

Snippets from the news

• Penguins will take a hit from climate change. • GAO investigating quick approvals of oil and gas drilling projects in Utah. • Salmon shortage threatens killer whales. • United Nations bashes biofuel subsidies. • These days, cleantech is where the venture capital is. • Forestry companies, green groups, and indigenous groups reach rainforest agreement.

The Green Theater Initiative aims to direct change

    Actor Gideon Banner cut his professional stage chops as a performer with Blue Man Group — and yes, that means he spent his evenings covered ear-to-ear in blue paint. But it seems that a nice shade of green is really more his style. Banner is the founder of the Green Theater Initiative, a […]

Some venues relocated to minimize eco-impact of Russia’s 2014 Olympics

Final venues have been approved for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia. Following outcry from environmentalists over the original proposal for a gigantic winter-sports complex adjacent to a national park, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin reared his head and suggested changes to mitigate eco-impact. Organizers have relocated some venues, as well as cutting a […]

Enviros cheer debate talk about climate and energy, but want more details

Say what you may about last night’s debate, but it was anything but boring for enviros. Even if the candidates largely recycled preexisting talking points on energy and climate, the mere fact that both issues got top billing in a presidential debate was an historic first. “What strikes me as important is that energy has […]

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 […]