Latest Articles

Chevy Volt not so revolutionary

For those of you who missed it, GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz hit the talk show circuit last week to talk up the latest incarnation of the Chevy Volt (more on his boneheaded climate change comments here and here). The marketing goal is to create the public perception that the Volt is an electric car […]

Friends of the Earth says anti-regulation approach causes environmental destruction

Friends of the Earth issued a statement today arguing against the Bush administration’s proposed $700 billion bailout of the troubled U.S. financial system. “This financial crisis has exposed the right wing’s anti-regulation philosophy as an abject failure,” said Friends of the Earth President Brent Blackwelder. “This hands-off approach to managing the economy has resulted in […]

Failing to address climate change could hurt industry, report finds

Failing to address climate change could significantly hurt many industries in the world economy that are together worth around $7 trillion, according to a report by the United Kingdom’s Carbon Trust. The report examined six different sectors of the world economy — aluminum, automotive, building materials, consumer electronics, oil and gas, and, uh … brewing […]

GM flack jumps into Huffington Post fray to defend exec’s climate-change skepticism

We posted last week about GM Vice Chair Bob Lutz expressing a little climate-change skepticism on The Colbert Report. Josh Nelson wrote about it as well over on Huffington Post, and thus began an online conversation with GM’s director of news relations, Tom Wilkinson, who defended both Lutz and the company’s environmental policies. “There is […]

Bad policy ideas in Michigan

Environmental pressures and economic slowdowns are admittedly hard for state governors to tackle. Even still, Michigan’s latest is a lousy idea. As noted here, the state legislature has just passed a bill which Gov. Granholm has promised to sign that would: Strengthen the utility monopolies, guaranteeing DTE and Consumer’s Energy at least 90% of the […]

Portland, Ore., tops sustainable-cities ranking

For the fourth year in a row, Portland, Ore., has been named the most sustainable of the 50 largest U.S. cities. The rankings by green org SustainLane, which take 16 economic and quality-of-life factors into consideration, “reveal which cities are increasingly self-sufficient, prepared for the unexpected, and taking steps toward preserving and enhancing their quality […]

The scoop on energy bills in Congress: offshore drilling, oil shale, renewable tax credits, and more

What’s really up with the energy bills in Congress? Will we see oil rigs off the coast of New Jersey anytime soon? Will Congress actually get anything done before it adjourns next week? As the clock ticks down on the 110th Congress, it’s not entirely clear what we can expect in terms of energy. The […]

Is the financial crisis more dire than the climate crisis?

Not even close. If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment. So warned IPCC head Rajendra Pachauri last fall when the IPCC released its major multi-year report synthesizing our understanding of climate science. And remember, […]

Ramblings on the financial crisis

Based on my own extensive analysis of the ongoing financial crisis, I’ve come to the following conclusions: Nobody clearly understands how we got in this situation. Nobody clearly understands what situation we are in. Nobody clearly understands what’s going to happen next. Despite all this, every single human being with access to a keyboard and […]

John McCain’s environmental record is as bad as climate change denier James Inhofe

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is an avowed climate science believer who comes from a state with enough solar resource to power the entire nation. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) is an avowed climate science denier who comes from a major oil patch state. So why has McCain voted with Inhofe and against clean energy and the […]