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Barack Obama selects Delaware Sen. Joe Biden as his running mate

Joe Biden. Photo: senate.gov Barack Obama’s running mate will be Joe Biden. Here’s a fact sheet on Biden’s environmental record. Grist interviewed Biden in August 2007, when he was running for president. He said this about dealing with climate change: To deal with global warming, you have to change the attitude of the world, particularly […]

What happens with a new president?

This is part of a short series of posts that explain some important but often overlooked policy issues in the Western Climate Initiative — the West’s regional cap-and-trade system. (Much to readers’ delight, this is the last installment I’m planning to write.) You can’t talk about regional cap-and-trade very long before someone brings up the […]

Some good news about high gas prices

I’m a bit late on this, but it’s still worth mentioning. Via The New York Times: Traffic deaths in the United States declined last year, reaching the lowest level in more than a decade, the government reported Thursday. Some 41,059 people were killed in highway crashes, down by more than 1,600 from 2006. It was […]

Notes on a recent trip to Mexico

In Mexico, a milpa is a garden patch, usually kept by several families, to grow a substantial portion of a year’s sustenance. Milpas are typically dominated by corn — first domesticated in present-day Mexico thousands of years ago — but also contain stunning agricultural and nutritional diversity. In addition to corn for tortillas, traditional milpas […]

From Hangover to Helmet

Hangover helper Yet another reason to down organic booze. As if we needed one. Swingers In a perfect world, there’d be no energy crisis because everyone would bike and bus. But it sure ain’t a perfect world, so we’ll settle for bike rack art and bus stops with swings. Finnish line We’re all about encouraging […]

Our right to know about fuel-efficient tires

I’m always fascinated by the “1 percent solutions” to energy. It seems to me that in order to address both climate change and fossil fuel dependence, we’ll need a few big structural changes, but we’ll also need a lot of 1 percent solutions — and maybe a bunch of quarter-percent solutions too. And the advantage […]

Snippets from the news

• Fracture in Greenland glacier concerns scientists. • U.S. Open talks up greenness. • Can veggie oil clean up toxic groundwater? • Ethanol losing its golden reputation. • Is plastic sickening lobsters?

Obama’s energy and climate advisors

Greenwire ($ub. req’d) has published a detailed list of who is advising Obama on energy and environment policies, which I am reprinting below the fold. Obama, an Illinois Democrat, has a notably deep bench of experts to help him answer key questions on energy prices, oil drilling and global warming I know most of them […]

Report identifies areas where natural disasters could hit hardest

Natural disasters made more severe by climate change will hit especially hard in regions with shaky political, economic, and security situations, says a new report from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and relief agency CARE International. Vulnerable areas include central Africa, the Horn of Africa, and the Sahel; Afghanistan, the […]

Pull the trigger, Barack!

Barack Obama could drop his VP announcement at any minute. Which is what we’ve been hearing all week, except now there are fewer minutes between the present and his big shindig in Springfield, Ill., tomorrow afternoon, when he’s supposed to appear with his new running mate. What we do know is that at some point […]