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Democratic party platform outlines green goals

The Democratic Party released its national platform Thursday ahead of its upcoming convention in Denver. While the health-care section is Hillary-esque, most sections, including those environment- and energy-related, echo the calls that Barack Obama has made throughout his campaign. The section “New American Energy” declares that Dems will create up to 5 million jobs in […]

New England ISO’s forward capacity market

A guest post by a writer with more than 30 years in energy and the environment with government, private industry, and the nation’s leading think tanks. He currently works for the federal government and will be blogging in anonymity until he leaves public service. — One of the more serious structural flaws in energy policy […]

The two faces of Newt Gingrich

Here’s Newt Gingrich cuddling up with Nancy Pelosi, basking in the reflected glow of her credibility on climate change: Here’s Gingrich on C-SPAN, attacking the “Al-Gore-Hard-Left-Pelosi-Reid” Democrats for failing to vote on Republicans’ drilling-only bill:

The worst job in America

Many posts on Grist detail the negative environmental impacts of factory farming and the meat and dairy industries overall. Bottom line: There is probably no personal act more effective at benefiting the environment than reducing meat consumption. But a true environmentalist must also take a hard look at the social dimensions of sustainability; again, the […]

Air Force may abandon coal-to-liquids fuels program

Sure coal-to-liquid is a dead end — but dead ends never stopped the Pentagon before. Heck we now spend nearly $10 billion a year pursuing Star Wars weapons! But here comes the (potentially) amazing news from the Aug. 5 Defense Environment Alert ($ub. req’d): The departure of key Air Force officials is casting doubt on […]

Snippets from the news

• Obama opposes Bush endangered-species proposal. • Department of Energy gives $24 million to solar, $340 million to “clean coal.” • Pesticides pose a threat to salmon. • Frogs and honeybees in trouble. • “Dolphin-friendly” label called misleading. • Smog-related deaths set to soar in Canada. • Court declines to decide whether Exxon should pay […]

The food system as ‘largest quasi-public utility in the world’

Apropos of the recent debate on Gristmill sparked by James Galbraith’s polemic on free markets, I got to thinking about something I recently read in Paul Roberts’ book The End of Food (which I reviewed here): [D]uring the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Congress created a vast system of of support for food production: a […]

The media will not tell the public the real story on the energy clash in Congress

I’m not sure what’s more astonishing, the current political drama around energy or the utter and complete failure of the media to portray it accurately. Let’s recall what’s happened over this past session. Congress had some 13 chances to support renewable energy, as bill after bill was put forward by Democrats. Republicans blocked them all. […]

Urban gardening for the rest of us

  Photo: lucy and her dent via FlickrAbout a quarter of the U.S. population lives in apartments or condos, according to the 2000 census [PDF], and most Americans will live in one or the other at some point in their lives. But apartment dwellers don’t have to miss out on the joys of growing their […]

Journalists need to evaluate strength of scientific consensus

One of the biggest problems in the climate change debate is the fact that many people out there fail to understand the finer points of “scientific consensus.” For an example of this misunderstanding, see Ron Rosenbaum’s recent article in Slate. (h/t Dot Earth.) His article trots out one of the staples of the denial industry: […]