Latest Articles

Santa Barbara County officials give thumbs-up to offshore drilling

Santa Barbara County supervisors on Tuesday voted 3 to 2 in favor of allowing offshore drilling along their coastline — a move that has no practical impacts, but is rich with symbolism. The southern California county was hit with a devastating 3-million-gallon crude oil spill from an offshore platform in 1969; it coated beaches, killed […]

Energy is all the rage at this year’s gathering

As David has noted, the thing to know about being in Denver right now is that it’s a madhouse. There are more people and events here than one could possibly imagine. And things are spread out all over the city. I logged six miles on the bike I borrowed from Freewheelin just running around downtown […]

The 2008 U.S. Open goes green

The court is green, the ball is green, and now the tournament is green as well. United States Tennis Association officials announced Monday that they would implement “green initiatives” at the 2008 U.S. Open to make the tournament one of the first green sporting events in the tennis world. Partnering with NRDC, Evian, Lexus, IBM, […]

Major hurricane tracks to New Orleans on eve of Republican Convention?

That subhead is lifted from Drudge. Needless to say, he left out ” … and on the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, where both Bush and McCain were AWOL” (see TP’s “As Katrina hit, McCain celebrated 69th birthday with Bush“). Track the storm with the National Hurricane Center here. Best hurricane blog here. Readers of […]

Should you freak out at the lack of airtime for climate change in Denver — or Minneapolis?

Andrew Jones — former Rocky Mountain Institute colleague and systems-dynamic modeler extraordinaire at the Sustainability Institute — asks if I could write something “from a D.C. insider perspective” about why we shouldn’t be freaking out that climate change is getting so little airtime at the Democratic National Convention? Actually, Drew, getting people to freak out […]

Campaign calls on Brita to recycle water filters

With so many tons of disposable plastic being sent to landfills these days, six ounces doesn’t seem like a lot. Especially when you’ve bailed on bottled water in favor of a Brita pitcher and reusable bottle. But don’t you still hate throwing out that filter every three months? Beth Terry does. She wrote in her […]

Grist talks to the authors of a parody hailing the end of Bush’s reign

Many people are familiar with the children’s book Goodnight Moon. They might not be familiar with Goodnight Bush, the unauthorized parody hailing the coming end of the Bush presidency. In it, authors Erich Origen and Gan Golan, both of California, ponder the many things the Bush administration’s rule could have said “goodnight” to. “Good night […]

To solve global warming, we need to support every alternative transportation pathway

The following is a guest essay from Bob Rose, executive director of the U.S. Fuel Cell Council. This essay responds to Joseph Romm’s Gristmill post, “Flush! Department of Energy flushes $15 million down the hydrogen toilet.” —– Joe Romm’s recent post, “Flush!” disparages the Department of Energy’s award of a number of projects aimed at […]

Umbra on hybrid myths

Dear Umbra, Could you help me clear up a rumor about cars? I’ve heard that although hybrids reduce your carbon footprint because they use less gas, the process for mining the nickel in the hybrid batteries produces far more pollution than the process for regular car batteries. So are we really making a difference by […]

Energy efficiency alone is not sufficient

China’s power plant emissions have surpassed the U.S. for the first time and are slated to double in the next decade, despite efficiency improvements. Without major technological innovation it will be impossible to decrease the absolute quantities of CO2 in the atmosphere. This is why government involvement is so important; we need massive R&D and […]