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Umbra on biking in a skirt

Dear Umbra, I was really energized by your column on cargo bicycles. I still own a car, but I drive it less and less, mostly to haul stuff and to travel when I want to wear a nice dress. So, a cargo bike solves the hauling problem. The other problem is that my skirt gets […]

Time to kick the oil habit

This is the latest in a series on why it is important to push hard for climate legislation this year.

Over the past few months, I've made the case for passing climate legislation in 2008: We don't want to squander the current momentum, we simply can't afford to wait, and while we do, we only prolong a dangerous catch-22.

Now we're finally on the doorstep of Senate action on a comprehensive climate change bill. Floor debate over the Climate Security Act (S. 3036) will begin Monday, June 2.

If opponents of meaningful action have their way, the debate will be nothing more than a short, partisan fight over gas prices. You can already hear the predictable scare tactics: "Why would we want to raise gas prices now, when working Americans are already suffering at the pump?"

That's a phony argument -- but it brings me to another reason for passing a climate bill in 2008: It's time to kick our oil habit, and the best way to do that is with a cap-and-trade policy that reduces our dependence on fossil fuels.

Gas prices are at a record high because of growing demand from China and other developing nations. That's not going to change. The only solution is to end our addiction to oil.

The mag exalts Canada’s potential to become the Saudi Arabia of the north

This post is by ClimateProgress guest blogger Bill Becker, executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project.

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I consider Time to be one of the more forward-looking periodicals when it comes to the environment. But the editors messed up in this week's edition. The June 2 Time carries a breathless feature about the potential petroleum bonanza in Canada's tar sands.

The article's authors are so giddy with the testosterone rush of big-ass earth-moving machines that they forgot what a multifaceted disaster this "bonanza" would be. The magazine quotes tar men in Alberta as they marvel at their own ability to move mountains ... literally.

At one open-pit mine, a manager brags that his operation moves enough dirt every 48 hours to fill Toronto's 60,000-seat SkyDome. "A year from now, that mountain won't be there," he says, referring to a wall of black soil. Some of the biggest trucks on earth, 20 feet tall, carrying 320 tons of dirt in each load, crawl through the "stark landscape of jack pine, spruce and poplar forests" like Tonka toys built for Paul Bunyan.

How intense is the mining?

Listen as I talk green collar jobs on NPR

Interested in the promise of — and questions about — the growing “green collar jobs” movement? Listen Wednesday, May 28, at 11 a.m. EDT as I discuss it on NPR’s Radio Times, a popular call-in show from WHYY in Philadelphia, the station that also brings the nation Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Bracken Hendricks of […]

Childhood lead exposure linked to criminal behavior, violence

Childhood exposure to high lead levels leads to smaller brain mass and is linked to criminal behavior and violence, according to two new comprehensive studies. Researchers tracked kids from Cincinnati, Ohio, from before birth through adulthood and found that early exposure to lead resulted in a loss of brain matter of over 1 percent on […]

Zap a lobbyist

A lobbyist and a lie detector.

Club for Growth starts campaign to derail Lieberman-Warner

The Club for Growth — a conservative group “dedicated to helping elect pro-growth, pro-freedom candidates through political contributions and issue advocacy campaigns” — is already waging war on the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, slated to hit the Senate floor June 2. But instead of going after the bill itself, they’re targeting individual senators who seem […]

Obama’s commencement speech calls for service to the country, planet on climate front

David beat me to a post on Barack Obama’s commencement speech at Wesleyan on Sunday. The part about climate change and clean energy was good, but what I found most encouraging was at the beginning, when climate change was cited, along with hunger, war, and economic strife, as an area where our personal lives and […]

Snippets from the news

• Mosquito repellents without DEET show promise. • China gets ready to ban plastic bags. • Rising seas could swamp Eastern Shore. • OfficeMax and TerraCycle team up. • Americans drastically reduce driving.

McDonald’s Australia will sell certified-sustainable coffee

Starting next year, all coffee sold at McDonald’s in Australia will be certified sustainable by the Rainforest Alliance. The country’s 484 so-called McCafés make 5,000 cups of joe per hour; Mickey D’s pockets 20 percent of the more than $1 billion that Aussies spend on away-from-home coffee. The Rainforest Alliance certifies coffee farms that reduce […]