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Clark and Dean pump up a crowd that’s a little less giddy

I’m at Netroots Nation, watching speeches from Wesley Clark and Howard Dean. I must say — not to be a downer — that I don’t feel the same sense of giddy excitement in the room this year. There’s less of a sense of "wow, we matter!" and more of a sense of, "hm, what now?" […]

Blogosphere responds reservedly to Gore’s call for 100 percent renewable electricity

Al Gore stood up in Washington today to call on Americans to join a crusade for 100 percent renewable electricity use by 2018.

The blogosphere's response? A golf clap and general round of nitpicking ...

Some see the renewable energy goal as a touch impractical, and his beating of the carbon tax drum (1993 ... anyone? anyone?) irked plenty of conservatives -- no surprise -- and congressional Democrats on the grounds of poor timing as the American economy limps along.

A roundup of reactions:

Climate change and the null hypothesis

An excellent post by my colleague John Nielsen-Gammon, the Texas State climatologist, can be found here. An excerpt:

Snippets from the news

• Texas approves massive wind-transmission plan. • Australia will set up an emissions-trading scheme. • Hydrogen fuel-cell cars 15 years out at best. • Endangered condors make it through wildfires. • Mexico City will reduce emissions.

First statewide green-building standards adopted by California, natch

Photo: Patrick Dirden California has adopted the nation’s first statewide green-building standards in what is, according to ever-punny Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, “literally a groundbreaking move.” The new California Green Buildings Standards Code requires builders to reduce energy use by 15 percent beyond current standards, target a 50 percent reduction in water used for landscaping, and […]

The farm bill is over, so what happens next?

In a stuffy room on Capitol Hill last week, I joined a couple dozen activists and farmers to discuss the farm bill. Why would we bother to meet in hot-as-an-oven Washington D.C. to discuss the legislative mess that recently sputtered to an all too drawn-out end?

While the ink is barely dry on the new farm legislation, the campaign for the 2012 Farm and Food Bill has already begun. The group of grassroots advocates met in D.C. last week to wipe the sweat from their brows, roll up their sleeves, and begin to strategize a coordinated effort to ensure $14 billion of funding won in the new farm bill translates into real support for sustainable farmers, environmental stewardship, rural economic development, urban food projects, and other good food efforts.

The $14 billion worth of programs can grow and nourish sustainable food and agriculture efforts around the country and in doing so, build the power of the 2012 Farm and Food Bill movement along the way. One of the keys is getting the word out about these new programs so that farmers and organizations can benefit from them.

If you’re going to eat meat, you can’t shy away from the whole beast

Ready to meat its maker. A few months ago, I decided to force myself to confront issues surrounding meat-eating head on — so to speak — by attending a hog-butchering class. Taught by Boston chef Jamie Bissonnette of KO Prime and offered through the Chefs Collaborative, the class focused on utilizing the whole animal, from […]

Ugandan coffee endangered by climate change

Uganda’s coffee industry could be basically kaput in 30 years, according to a new Oxfam report. Uganda is Africa’s second-largest coffee exporter after Ethiopia, but the report direly predicts that if “average global temperatures rise by two degrees or more, then most of Uganda is likely to cease to be suitable for coffee.” In the […]

Watch the video of Gore’s speech today

If the summary and full text of Gore's speech have left you wanting more, here's the vid:

Ugly babies

“Ethanol is an ugly baby, but it’s our baby. I’m not against any fuel unless it’s foreign.” — oil billionaire and energy independence evangelist T. Boone Pickens