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Why Biden is such an important pick for those who care about the climate

Catastrophic climate change is the primary preventable threat to the health and well-being of all Americans — as readers of this blog already understand and as pretty much everyone else will figure out in the coming years. Keeping total planetary warming as low as possible — ideally below 2°C, which it turn requires keeping atmospheric […]

Mark Warner talks to Grist about his energy vision and upcoming keynote address

Mark Warner. Photo: John Rohrbach “I’m a big believer that to get the American people to agree on transformative change, you’ve got to show bipartisan support,” Virginia Democratic Senate candidate Mark Warner tells Grist. “And I think if we’re really going to get the change in the energy field, it’s going to take that.” Warner, […]

Polar bears in open water prompt more worries about climate change

Ten polar bears were recently spotted swimming in open water off of the northwest coast of Alaska, federal officials confirmed on Friday. Polar bears were not often spotted in open water until about 2004, said Susanne Miller, who heads up the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s polar bear project. She and other biologists worry that […]

U.S. foreign policy: GMO all the way

About a week ago, The New York Times ran a brief interview with Nina V. Federoff, official “science and technology adviser” to the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Not surprisingly, Condoleeza Rice’s science czar has a special place in her heart for genetically modified organisms. In the Times interview, Federoff defends […]

Umbra on buying big cars

Dear Umbra, I’m in need of a new car. I’d love to get a Prius, but I often need more passenger seats than the Prius has. What is the most environmentally friendly and responsible choice for a driver who needs a larger car? It seems like the bigger hybrids (i.e., the Toyota Highlander) are expensive […]

Seven in 10 Americans reducing carbon footprint

The following post is by Ken Levenson, guest blogger at Climate Progress. —– At least 7 in 10 say say they are trying to reduce their carbon footprint. That’s according to a new ABC News/Planet Green/Stanford University poll released this month. Yes, this headline appears very much a result of higher gasoline prices: 59 percent […]

T. Boone Pickens airs his first television ad

T. Boone Pickens — the conservative billionaire oil baron turned wind activist — just released his his first TV ad. Pickens has said that “we can’t drill our way out” of our energy problem, and in the ad he says that wind should be the primary energy source to help break dependency on foreign oil. […]

NYT Magazine probes Obama’s economic thinking

If you read only one article about Barack Obama this week — hell, this campaign season — make it “Obamanomics,” by David Leonhardt, in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine. Little I’ve read about Obama has provided more insight into the way he thinks, not only about economics, but also about public policy generally. The framing […]

Carbon sequestration is a GM solution; we need a Honda solution

Vaclav Smil is a historian of technical advances — particularly in the field of energy — and a Distinguished Professor at the University of Manitoba in Canada. Over the years, Smil has written more than 25 books and many dozens of articles. In recent years he has been examining human uses of energy over past […]

Homemade garbage barge about to make landfall in Hawaii

Three humans, 15,000 soda bottles, and a Cessna plane body are about to make landfall in Hawaii after an epic 2,000-mile, three-month journey from the west coast to raise awareness about the mind-numbing amount of plastic fouling the world’s oceans and wildlife alike. Aching for cold beer and something other than sushi for lunch, these […]