Latest Articles

Ecuador approves new constitution granting inalienable rights to nature

Ecuador approved a new constitution this weekend that, among other things, grants inalienable rights to nature, the first such inclusion in a nation’s constitution, according to Ecuadorian officials. “Nature … where life is reproduced and exists, has the right to exist, persist, maintain, and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions, and its processes in evolution. […]

Why the party that wrecked America can’t fix it

The Republican party has a problem. They have based much of their power, over the last several decades, on the idea of ever-expanding (almost exclusively white) suburbs. The thinking was, as those suburbs become less and less dense — as one wag put it, the further away the houses are from each other — the […]

Vegas may serve as hopeful proving ground

    This is a guest post by my travel partner, Todd Dwyer, head blogger for Dell’s ReGeneration.org. —– When you think of Las Vegas, a lot of things may come to mind, but sustainability probably isn’t one of them. The city is the fastest growing in the United States, and has built its reputation […]

Bailout fails in House

Listen Play “End of the World Party,” by Medeski Martin & Wood Looks like the bailout bill just now failed in the House, 205-228. The stock market is in freefall. Wheee! UPDATE: Apparently Republicans promised 80-90 votes and only came through with 66 … at which point nervous Dems started bailing. Some 90 Dems voted […]

Smithfield, Pilgrim’s Pride, and other meat giants get credit-crunched

As I’ve written so many times before, a very few companies essentially control U.S. meat production. Their business model is crude, but for years has been effective: You place lots of animals in a tight space (or "contract" with farmers to do so), stuff them with corn and soy (made cheap chronic overproduction mandated by […]

Umbra on shifting to vegetarianism

Dear Umbra, I recently became a vegetarian for environmental reasons. Everyone says I should start eating soy products and tofu. But doesn’t soy come from evil industrial farms in Iowa? I thought the idea was to increase biodiversity, not just eat the same thing 20 different ways. Also, can I keep eating eggs and milk? […]

New data: Green investment would produce about twice the jobs of Wall Street bailout

There’s been a bit of extremely stupid chatter in D.C. lately suggesting that somehow the financial storm could get in the way of action to combat the climate crisis. So I picked up my phone at Greenpeace and asked Robert Pollin and Heidi Garrett-Peltier of the University of Massachusetts to compare the economic effects of […]

Where does McCain get his claim that nuclear will create 700,000 jobs?

In this post, I questioned John McCain’s claim that building 45 new nuclear reactors between now and 2030 would create 700,000 new jobs. I couldn’t find any numbers to back the claim up, and plenty of numbers that cast doubt on it. I contacted the campaign, and they sent along a 2004 study called "U.S. […]

Avent v. Manzi re: global warming

Econ/placemaking blogger Ryan Avent (who, it turns out, also sings for Spoon) takes on everyone’s favorite Reasonable Conservative Jim Manzi on the subject of global warming, on BloggingHeads: Want to know why we’re doomed? Look no further than the first comment: I don’t think anybody is gonna do anything serious about gwarming anytime soon for […]

Northeast states’ first carbon auction goes smoothly despite financial crisis

Carbon allowances sold for $3.07 per ton in the nation’s first regional cap-and-trade auction, auction officials said Monday. The price was lower than futures markets had predicted but higher than the minimum price some had feared. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative auction held last Thursday sold all of the 12.6 million allowances offered in this […]