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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 […]

Nations gather in Ghana to talk shop on next climate-change accord

Some 1,600 delegates from 160 nations are moving forward on negotiations for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol as they gather this week in Accra, Ghana. The meeting is the third in a series of eight that will culminate in the adoption of a new global climate-change accord in Dec. 2009. “The negotiations need to […]

McCain’s carbon dioxide bill is about 10 times the average American’s

I’d estimate it’s about 150 tons of carbon dioxide, some 10 times that of the average American. But someone should ask Senator McCain. After all, he says he wants to require all Americans to cut greenhouse gas emissions 60 percent to 70 percent by 2050. As probably the whole country knows by now, John McCain […]

Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney talks to Grist

Cynthia McKinney. Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney sums up her energy policy with a simple, memorable rhyme: “Leave the oil in the soil.” “Right now we’ve got two energy policies in this country,” McKinney told Grist. “One is war, the other is drilling. And neither one of them works.” It’s a message she hopes […]

We waste a lot of food and a lot of water, says report

The world grows more than enough food to sustain the global population, but half of that food is wasted — and thus half of the water used in food production is wasted as well, says a new report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, International Water Management Institute, and Stockholm Water Management Institute. […]

Starting today the FDA will allow producers to use irradiation on lettuce and spinach

The better part of this summer seemed to be dotted with stories of continued salmonella and E. coli outbreaks. First, the FDA thought the problem was with tomatoes; but, it turns out peppers were the culprits that caused more than 1,400 people in 43 states to become sick with salmonella Saintpaul. This marks yet another […]

Why electricity is the energy carrier of choice

Our already substantial 120-year investment in an electric infrastructure in industrial countries, makes the transition to a electricity based energy economy less expensive. There are sound physical reasons why the three main contenders for the energy supply for transport turn out to be the three electron economies: renewables, nuclear, and coal CCS. We have determined […]

McCain stirs up tizzy in West with Colorado River comment

John McCain stirred up a tizzy last week with a comment about a Colorado River compact that allocates water among seven Western states. The compact “needs to be renegotiated over time amongst the interested parties,” McCain told Colorado’s Pueblo Chieftain. “I think that there’s a movement amongst the governors to try, if not, quote, renegotiate, […]

Athletes play down pollution concerns, Beijing gives in to weather

Not so bad. That’s what Olympic Canadian cyclist Svein Tuft thought of the air quality when he raced on Saturday, Aug. 9 (Air Pollution Index: 78) for six and a half hours outside of Beijing. As The New York Times reported, Tuft made short shrift of the pollution fears: The pollution concerns, he decided, “have […]