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EPA needs to pay attention to carbon monoxide, says judge

Carbon dioxide gets all the press, but the U.S. EPA is way behind on its legal obligation to update the nation’s carbon monoxide regulations — and it needs to get crackin’, a federal judge ruled this week. Federal law requires a reassessment of carbon-monoxide standards every five years, but the EPA last took a look […]

Politics gaining ground in popular celeb rags

And Barack is winning …

New paper demands consideration of global warming in federal policy decisions

This post is by ClimateProgress guest blogger Kari Manlove, fellows assistant at the Center for American Progress.

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The fact that our country has a National Environmental Policy Act means we should have a national environmental policy, and any national environmental policy is bound to take into consideration global warming, right?

Wrong on two counts.

The U.S. is sorely lacking an updated environmental policy. It's been over a decade and counting. With the EPA as example, and based on its condition as of late (see here and here), the climate's looking grim.

As for a cohesive national policy that takes into account global warming's causes and impacts? Think again. States have been infinitely more active than our federal government (and we thank them).

Give this roundup a sporting chance

Ado, ado, ado. It’s been a while since our last sports roundup, so with no further ado: Baseball: Major League Baseball was all about Earth Day. The Seattle Mariners hosted the league’s first carbon-neutral game, while the uniforms of the Boston Red Sox displayed a pair of red socks in a green recycling logo. (Reaction […]

What North Carolina and Indiana tell us about future oil and climate policy

For nearly two months now, Sen. Clinton has been outperforming the closing polls in primary state after primary state. And no one can possibly say that Sen. Obama had a good past three weeks, with the reemergence of Rev. Wright. Yet this time, he outperformed the recent polls in both states.

This suggests that in the only other big issue to rise in the last week of the campaign -- the gas tax holiday -- Obama did not lose votes taking the principled position. As I (and many others) have blogged, a gas tax holiday would most likely benefit the oil companies more than the the average consumer. Also, it sends a terrible message about future climate policies (namely that some weak-kneed president might roll back carbon prices the first time the economy hit a rough patch after a cap-and-trade system was passed) -- see "A gas tax holiday would be cynical and indefensible."

How to use extra-virgin olive oils, from the extraordinary to the merely wonderful

I met with my friend, chef Didi Emmons, on a recent spring morning for breakfast in Harvard Square. We met at the Hi-Rise Pie Company, where we bought a loaf of potato bread and crept up the stairs to the little rooms filled with ancient chairs and tables. Peak oil. Didi pulled a dark green […]

Greens and developer come to agreement in SoCal

A long-running disagreement over what should be done with the largest swath of privately owned wilderness in southern California has been settled by a deal between green groups and a developer. Ninety percent of the 270,000-acre Tejon Ranch will be conserved, while 26,000 homes will be permitted on the remaining 10 percent. The Center for […]

People’s Grocery is rebuilding food connections in West Oakland

Global Oneness Project has finished a great new series of interviews with Brahm Ahmadi, co-founder/director of People's Grocery. Their food justice work is crucial to Oakland: like many cities, there are usually lots more opportunities to buy beer or smokes on every block than fresh, healthy fruits and veggies. Check out this inspiring 8-minute film to get some new ideas for how we can reconnect urban populations and the planet through food. The sidebar clips are great, too, as are all the short films on this site I've viewed.

Brazilians and Indians are the greenest, says survey

Brazilians and Indians are the most eco-friendly folks in the world, and Canadians and Americans are the least, according to a new survey done by the National Geographic Society. Consumers in 14 countries, representing more than half of the world’s population and about three-quarters of its energy use, were ranked on their sustainability in the […]

Goldman says oil ‘likely’ to hit $150-$200 by 2010

Goldman Sachs' Arjun N. Murti said this in a May 5 report:

The possibility of $150-$200 per barrel seems increasingly likely over the next 6-24 months, though predicting the ultimate peak in oil prices as well as the remaining duration of the upcycle remains a major uncertainty.

That would mean gasoline prices of $5 to $6 a gallon. Unless, of course, we permanently suspend the gasoline tax, in which case gasoline prices would only be $5 to $6 a gallon.

Why should we listen to Murti? Well, back in 2005, when prices averaged under $60 a barrel, he was one of the few Wall Street analysts who predicted oil could soon hit $105 a barrel -- or higher if we don't take the right actions quickly: