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Mere $45 trillion needed to tackle climate change, says IEA

A G8-backed goal to halve greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050 would take a global clean-technology investment of merely $45 trillion, the International Energy Agency said in a report Friday. That’s about 1.1 percent of the world’s average annual gross domestic product through 2050; more overwhelmingly, it’s also about three times the size of the current U.S. […]

Why mow the grass when you can harvest salad greens?

Lawn grass is the largest irrigated U.S. crop. “Even conservatively,” notes NASA researcher Cristina Milesi, “I estimate there are three times more acres of lawns in the U.S. than irrigated corn.” Wow, that’s a lot of ornamental grass — about 128,000 square kilometers worth, roughly equal in size to the state of Wisconsin. According Milesi, […]

Neve Campbell’s eco-flick won’t air in the U.S.

Neve Campbell. Burn Up is the (totally and completely fictional) story about a clash between Big Oil and Big Green. The Canadian/British miniseries features Party of Five star Neve Campbell as an environmentalist hired to work for an oil company (as a greenwash decoy, of course, though she doesn’t realize it until too late … […]

When the benevolent seed giant declares it’s going to save the world, why be skeptical?

Do you worry about where your food comes from? Are you concerned that farmers might use too many toxic chemicals, or that health and safety agencies of the U.S. government might not be looking out for your best interests?

Well then, you suffer from too much skepticism. You probably need to learn to trust what you are told more often. Maybe you should consider some pharmacological support for your worry problem. I know. My name is Claire and I'm a skeptic.

I thought all you other skeptics out there might like to know that the latest word on our problem comes from a company who knows a lot about food, farming, and chemicals. This week, the CEO of Monsanto Corporation, Hugh Grant, told Public Radio International's Marketplace that he expects people to be skeptical about what Monsanto says but also, given the food problems the world is facing, "skepticism is a commodity the world can't afford right now."

Vermont-sized area of Amazon may be protected

Brazil’s president has unveiled plans to protect a large area of the Amazon rainforest, after weeks of mutterings that the country has insufficient protections in place. The proposal by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva would create three protected reserves for a total area the size of Vermont; the plan still has to be approved […]

Top Senate recipients of fossil-fuel money behind climate-bill stall tactics

The good folks over at Muckety.com (maybe we’re long-lost cousins …) put together an awesome interactive map detailing the connections between the fossil-fuel industries and some of the folks behind the death of climate legislation in the Senate this week. Check it out: Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the Senate’s leading climate-change denier, is also a […]

Is NYT’s Revkin pushing unjustified ‘balance’ in the Senate climate debate coverage?

I like and respect Andy Revkin a great deal. He is one of the best reporters on climate and certainly the most prolific climate journalist now that he has his Dot Earth blog. But I must take exception to his recent posting, "Climate Debate: Democracy In Action?"

You would never know from his post that one side in the debate was desperately trying to save future generations from catastrophic warming and the other side was simply doing shameless political posturing. Here is how it opens:

Budget resolution includes funds to clean up nuclear sites

Apparently the Senate actually accomplished something this week in the environmental realm: the 2009 federal budget resolution that passed 48-45 on Wednesday included $500 million for a Department of Energy environmental management program to clean up Hanford and other nuclear sites across the country. Hanford is the decommissioned nuclear-weapons complex along the Columbia River in […]

Republicans try to stoke Dem discord on climate legislation in the House

Amidst the chaos in the Senate over climate legislation, Rep. Ed Markey introduced his climate legislation in the House on Thursday. House Republican Leader John Boehner (Ohio), hoping to take advantage of apparent disarray within the Democratic Party, has dared Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to push Markey’s bill to the floor. He wrote a letter […]

Climate Security Act dies, failing to muster enough votes to move forward

The Senate held a cloture vote this morning to bring to a close debate on the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, a vote that would have allowed the amendment process to begin. After four days of conversation and delays, the bill died, failing to reach the 60 votes needed to invoke cloture by a vote of […]