Latest Articles

Environmental champion Philip Clapp, dead at 54

Philip Clapp. Photo: National Environmental Trust Philip Clapp, a lifelong champion for environmental causes and an early, eloquent voice on global climate change, died in Amsterdam early this morning. He was admitted to the hospital there two weeks ago with a sudden and unexpected illness. He was 54. "This is such a shock," said Carl […]

Snippets from the news

• T. Boone Pickens puts hold on water-pipeline plan. • Grizzlies are thriving in Montana. • Seattle bag tax will be put to a vote. • Berkeley approves city-backed loans for solar panels. • Web sees rise of carpooling startups.

Do we want an economy that’s a bit more Belgian or Belgian Congo?

A simple syllogism to expose the flaws in our GHG debate: Fossil fuels cost money. When burned, fossil fuels emit CO2. Therefore, burning less fossil fuel saves money and CO2. The logic is impeccable (even if not quite as entertaining as Lewis Carroll’s syllogisms). And yet our entire GHG debate continues to be framed as […]

Incoming Yale student plans to ramp up her activism for the big leagues

For some people, life starts after college. For Karoline Evin McMullen, it began in middle school. Karoline Evin McMullen Age: 18 School: Yale University By the time she was 14, McMullen of rural Geauga County, Ohio, had already: written a textbook for elementary school kids; started a project with two friends to protect endangered brook […]

Still trying to make environmental sense of the massive bailout now underway

I like to think of myself as a reasonably cynical person, at least in matters of finance. When I started reporting on Mexico’s markets in 1998, Russia had just defaulted in billions of debt. Russia and Mexico had virtually no direct financial or trade relationship, yet large investors punished Mexico anyway. (To be fair, Mexico […]

Seven tips on green campus organizing from a Harvard pro

Leith Sharp. When Leith Sharp left her native Australia for a five-month tour of the U.S. and Europe in the late 1990s, she could hardly have guessed that she’d be gone for a decade. But that’s exactly what happened. Sharp had spent five years piloting eco-efforts at the University of New South Wales, in a […]

Immelt: yay RPS!

I’m on a conference call, listening to Jeff Immelt, CEO of GE, chat with Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, about energy. I don’t have a recording, but I tell you, Immelt sounds more and more like a standard greenie — he’s stumping for a national RPS, 10-year extension of renewable tax credits, and a price […]

A purely local approach would double or triple costs

This is one more attempt to kill a zombie myth: the notion that local generation of renewable electricity can substitute for long-distance transmission. I can see where this comes from — the sun shines almost everywhere, and the wind blows strong within a few hundred miles of most places where it doesn’t, right? If we […]

Physicists group urges U.S. to embrace energy efficiency

A group of some 46,000 physicists urged the United States on Tuesday to dramatically improve its energy efficiency in the interest of becoming more energy independent, saving money, and staving off climate change. The group, the American Physical Society, said of such a program, “the opportunities are huge and the costs are small.” Smart folks. […]

The automotive revolution: how fast?

Wall Street Journal senior editor Joseph B. White attempts to dump some cold water on the "automotive revolution" everyone’s all giddy about: This revolution will take years to pull off — and that’s assuming it isn’t derailed by a return to cheap oil. Anyone who goes to sleep today and wakes up in five years […]