Latest Articles

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 […]

Dems will let offshore drilling ban expire

House Democrats, out-stubborned by Republicans, will allow the 26-year-old congressional ban on offshore oil and gas drilling to expire on Sept. 30. Dems will not attach a provision to ban offshore drilling to a stopgap spending bill that’s expected to swiftly pass Congress and be signed by President Bush. The prez had made it clear […]

Chrysler to offer electric car by 2010, full lineup of EVs sometime after

Automaker Chrysler announced Tuesday that it too is jumping into the electric-car fray, aiming to roll out its own electric vehicle in the United States by 2010, followed soon after by a full line of electric and/or plug-in hybrid vehicles. If the company meets its intended deadline, 2010 will be a busy year for electric […]

EPA slipping up on pollution control from factory farms, report says

The U.S. EPA has failed to control pollution from factory farms and has also been sluggish in determining risks to human health from huge concentrated animal-feeding operations, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office. In recent years, the GAO said, consolidation in the livestock industry has spawned more and more factory farms […]