Latest Articles

Urban hawk attacks

I received a strange phone call yesterday from my youngest daughter. “Dad, a hawk is eating Pinkfoot!” Pinkfoot was my daughter’s Bantam hen, which won Best in Show at the fair this summer. I raced home to find a fairly large hawk making short work of said hen and it had no intention of leaving […]

Snippets from the news

• Colorado adopts rules that protect wildlife from drilling operations. • Coal project moves ahead in Kentucky. • Pine beetle infestation may affect weather and air quality. • North Carolina experiencing gas shortage. • Northeastern and West Coast women chock full of mercury. • Pollution from Hurricane Ike could have been much worse. • Is […]

McCain and Obama campaigns trade jabs over who’s a bigger coal supporter

At a campaign stop in Ohio last week, a questioner with a camera asked Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden why, if wind and solar are doing well, the Obama-Biden campaign is supporting “clean coal.” Biden gave this confusing response: We’re not supporting “clean coal.” Guess what: China’s building two every week, two dirty coal […]

Solar-panel thievery taking off in U.S.

Solar-panel thievery, long a problem in Europe, has been gaining popularity recently in the United States courtesy of high energy prices, rising demand for solar, lax security measures to protect panels, and solar’s sexy chic. (After all, you don’t see anyone running off with your energy efficiency do you?) While no official statistics exist, solar […]

Debate debate

John McCain said he wants to postpone Friday’s presidential debate in light of the financial crisis. Obama says: no. Lots of political commentators are saying lots of things about this, and it’s outside my bailiwick, so I won’t add much except to say: it’s telling that McCain thinks electoral politics is something silly and distracting, […]

Duke Energy announces investment in wood biomass on first day of the Clinton Global Initiative

The fourth annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative kicked off today, bringing together heads of state, business leaders, and representatives from non-governmental organizations in New York City to discuss major initiatives to address the world’s challenges. “Energy & Climate Change” are among the four commitment areas the conference is focused on this year, and […]

Tree-sitting in Northern Calif. redwoods ends for now

For over 20 years, tree-sitters in Northern California have taken a stand for ancient redwoods by camping in their branches and acting as physical barriers to logging. But for now at least, the last trees-sitters have all descended from their perches, thanks to a promise from a timber company that owns huge swaths of redwoods […]

Methane releases from under the Arctic seabed could jeopardize GHG stabilization

The U.K.’s Independent reported today some pretty shocking news in “Exclusive: The methane time bomb”: The first evidence that millions of tons of a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere from beneath the Arctic seabed has been discovered by scientists … The Independent has been passed […]

Al Gore on the climate and financial crises

In this morning’s first panel discussion at the Clinton Global Initiative, former President Bill Clinton and his VP, Al Gore, talked about how the nation’s financial situation might have played out differently if we’d dealt intelligently with energy issues years ago — a theme Clinton has sounded several times this week. Gore said that the […]

A quick stop at Google HQ

During our travels in the Bay Area, Todd and I ended up near Mountain View and took the opportunity to make a quick stop at Google HQ. We were hoping for a tour and maybe a lunch at their super-sustainable cafeteria, but apparently the place is closed to the public so all we ended up […]