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McCain and Obama campaigns trade jabs over who’s a bigger coal supporter

At a campaign stop in Ohio last week, a questioner with a camera asked Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden why, if wind and solar are doing well, the Obama-Biden campaign is supporting “clean coal.” Biden gave this confusing response: We’re not supporting “clean coal.” Guess what: China’s building two every week, two dirty coal […]

Solar-panel thievery taking off in U.S.

Solar-panel thievery, long a problem in Europe, has been gaining popularity recently in the United States courtesy of high energy prices, rising demand for solar, lax security measures to protect panels, and solar’s sexy chic. (After all, you don’t see anyone running off with your energy efficiency do you?) While no official statistics exist, solar […]

Debate debate

John McCain said he wants to postpone Friday’s presidential debate in light of the financial crisis. Obama says: no. Lots of political commentators are saying lots of things about this, and it’s outside my bailiwick, so I won’t add much except to say: it’s telling that McCain thinks electoral politics is something silly and distracting, […]

Duke Energy announces investment in wood biomass on first day of the Clinton Global Initiative

The fourth annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative kicked off today, bringing together heads of state, business leaders, and representatives from non-governmental organizations in New York City to discuss major initiatives to address the world’s challenges. “Energy & Climate Change” are among the four commitment areas the conference is focused on this year, and […]

Tree-sitting in Northern Calif. redwoods ends for now

For over 20 years, tree-sitters in Northern California have taken a stand for ancient redwoods by camping in their branches and acting as physical barriers to logging. But for now at least, the last trees-sitters have all descended from their perches, thanks to a promise from a timber company that owns huge swaths of redwoods […]

Methane releases from under the Arctic seabed could jeopardize GHG stabilization

The U.K.’s Independent reported today some pretty shocking news in “Exclusive: The methane time bomb”: The first evidence that millions of tons of a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere from beneath the Arctic seabed has been discovered by scientists … The Independent has been passed […]

Al Gore on the climate and financial crises

In this morning’s first panel discussion at the Clinton Global Initiative, former President Bill Clinton and his VP, Al Gore, talked about how the nation’s financial situation might have played out differently if we’d dealt intelligently with energy issues years ago — a theme Clinton has sounded several times this week. Gore said that the […]

A quick stop at Google HQ

During our travels in the Bay Area, Todd and I ended up near Mountain View and took the opportunity to make a quick stop at Google HQ. We were hoping for a tour and maybe a lunch at their super-sustainable cafeteria, but apparently the place is closed to the public so all we ended up […]

Oregon’s capital far behind its bigger sister

From LoveSalem: So we were talking about keeping chickens as part of a scheme for implementing the "Food Not Lawns" ideal (Victory Gardening for The New Reality). Someone thought you could keep hens but not roosters. Someone else thought you couldn’t keep either. It all led to an inquiry to the powers that be, who […]

This year’s top 10 climate blogs

Last summer, I put together a list of the top 10 climate blogs. For the sake of objectivity, I used Technorati, which ranks all blogs by “authority” (the number of blogs linking to it). The lower the rank, the better. One of the blogs on that list, It’s Getting Hot In Here, has updated it […]