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Umbra on small steps with big impacts

Dear Umbra, This year my family is not in the position to make any major CO2-reducing changes. We will not be purchasing a new car, a smaller house, or more efficient appliances. And honestly, with two small children living in a suburb, public transportation is not a realistic option. Still, we’d like to reduce our […]

Reviving national service in a big way

This essay was originally published on TomDispatch and is republished here with Tom’s kind permission. —– Lately, our news has focused on tropical depressions maturing into monster hurricanes that leave devastation in their wake — and I’m not just talking about Gustav and Ike. Today, we face a perfect storm of financial devastation, notable for […]

Colleges given green grades

How green is your alma mater? Check out the 2009 College Sustainability Report Card, which grades 300 U.S. and Canadian schools on their green practices. The colleges are evaluated in areas including climate and energy, food and recycling, green building, student involvement, and transportation. Many pass those categories with flying colors, but in areas “like […]

Van Jones talks about the National Day of Action

Green-job advocates Green for All have just moved into a lovely new office space in Oakland, California. There’s plenty of natural light, beautiful bamboo floors, and lots of room to grow. Unfortunately, their charismatic founder, Van Jones, hasn’t had much chance to enjoy it. Jones is one of the faces at the forefront of the […]

Oilman learns a drill-only GOP hates alternative energy

Lobbying for his plan to sharply ramp up renewables, the billionaire oilman has been brought face to face with the Big Energy Lie — the absurd notion that either John McCain or the Republicans in Congress actually believe in an “all of the above” energy policy. In my interview with Pickens last month, he was […]

Thoughts on an ‘urban farm tour’ in Carrboro, N.C.

The Farm Tour culminates at Carrboro Community Garden. Photo: Maciek Kryzystoforski What’s a farm? I don’t want to get buried in technical definitions, but I’ll take a stab at an informal one: a substantial piece of productive land. When I step out my front door in Carrboro, N.C. — where I spend part of my […]

Former President Clinton talks about the financial crisis and clean energy on ‘The Daily Show’

Former President Bill Clinton was on The Daily Show last night talking about his Clinton Global Initiative, the financial crisis, and alternative energy — and how the nation’s financial situation might have played out differently if we’d dealt intelligently with energy issues years ago. Here’s the video:

GAO: EPA has seriously botched CAFO oversight

Is the EPA leadership incompetent or malicious? The agency’s steady stream of oversights, lapses, and rotten decisions — which I tried to come to grips with here —  demands a reckoning. The answer appears to be a kind of toxic mix of the two: a malicious desire to please industry interests over public ones, leavened […]

Northeast states’ regional carbon trading system goes live this week

The nation’s first carbon cap-and-trade program starts Thursday, when power plant owners in 10 northeastern states submit sealed bids to buy allowances to emit greenhouse gases. Two other regional programs are to follow, assuring that nearly half of the United States will be covered by carbon trading programs — with or without leadership from Congress […]

Republican oil guru says McCain doesn’t have a clue about drilling

If you follow peak oil — and if you don’t, you will be bitchslapped by reality — then you know of Matt Simmons. I was introduced to him several years ago by my former boss at the Energy Department. Back then, Simmons was merely one of the savviest financiers in the oil services business, who […]