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Bush signs off on $25 billion loan to Big Auto

President Bush on Tuesday signed a $630 billion spending bill that includes a $25 billion loan to the struggling auto industry. (Bush’s sign-off also marks the expiration of the offshore-drilling ban and keeps the federal government funded through Mar. 6, 2009.) The loan package — the biggest federal subsidy for Big Auto since the feds […]

Colbert parodies Big Oil greenwashing

Last night, The Colbert Report marked the expiration of the moratorium on offshore drilling with this brilliant parody of Big Oil greenwashing. “A lot of people talk about loving the earth. But how many of them actually penetrate it?” asked Colbert. Watch the Colbert sketch: Now compare it to a real ad from Chevron:

Who’s the ultimate climate-denying, Anti-Gore superstar?

The excerpt below originally appeared on The Center for Public Integrity blog Paper Trail under the title, “Auditioning to be the Anti-Gore,” by Nikola Horejs. —– Climate change deniers in search of their own, Al Gore-like figurehead have an unlikely candidate: Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, who is touring the United States this […]

An excellent report on energy efficiency

The American Physical Society has released a major study on the crucial role that energy efficiency must play to achieving energy security and reducing global warming. According to the APS, Energy Future: Think Efficiency “differs from other energy efficiency reports in its emphasis on scientific and technological options and analysis.” The report has three overarching […]

The Environment Report naively pushes Monsanto-related study praising rBGH

I don’t know much about Environment Report, a non-profit producer of radio reports about, uh, the environment. But I can’t say I’m impressed by its recent piece on recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), the genetically modified "feed enhancer" for dairy cows that Monsanto recently sold to Eli Lilly. In it (transcript here), reporter Shawn Allee […]

Farmland birds don’t seem to mind wind turbines, says study

The sights and sounds of wind turbines don’t seem to bother farmland birds, according to research published in the Journal of Applied Ecology. Scientists studied the effects of two wind farms in eastern England on 3,000 birds of 23 species, and found that only pheasants seemed to be disgruntled enough to move farther away from […]

Solar PV + waste heat

Cool. The pursuit of usable waste heat is one of the great unheralded stories of the green shift.

Attention Catholics

1. The pope is infallible. 2. The pope just had solar panels installed on the Vatican roof. 3. You must have solar panels installed on your house or you will go to hell. QED

Greenwashing our vegetable modifiers

A few weeks ago, I was having dinner at a renowned restaurant in San Francisco, when I noticed something a bit troubling on the menu. According to the description, the “Heirloom Tomato Salad” was made with a mix of Sweet 100 and Sungold tomatoes — both of which are hybrid varieties. OK, big deal, they […]

Cutting meat and milk consumption cuts CO2 emissions, study says

Happy World Vegetarian Day! Just in time for the festivities, a new study from the Food Climate Research Network finds that cutting down on meat and milk consumption can help cut greenhouse-gas emissions. The four-year study focused mainly on the U.K., concluding that dramatically cutting the average Briton’s weekly meat and milk intake could help […]