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Beaches strewn with a lot of trash, says report

Six million pounds of trash were picked up in a one-day global beach cleanup last September, according to a new report from the Ocean Conservancy. In one day, beachcombers covering 33,000 miles of shoreline in 76 countries found an average 182 pounds of trash per mile. That was comprised of 7.2 million items of garbage […]

Thoughts on Bush’s latest speech on climate change

The whole media world is in a frenzy, yet again, over a Bush speech on climate change. A new strategy! An effort to secure a legacy! Exciting new principles and goals! Even my own bosses are pressing me to come up with a thoughtful reaction. Sigh. I hate to be the party-pooper. But we’ve been […]

Watch the farce

Connaughton is on CSPAN right now — the amount of BS flying around honestly defies belief.

President Bush’s speech on climate change, 16 April 2008, as prepared for delivery

Just over the transom, from the White House: This afternoon the President will deliver a statement in which he sets a new intermediate national goal for stopping the growth of greenhouse gas emissions. The President’s announcement comes as this week’s Major Economies Meeting in Paris begins to lay the groundwork for the world leaders’ climate […]

Umbra on rooftop gardening

Dear Umbra, Growing your own vegetables is supposed to be healthy and good for the environment, but I live on a heavily trafficked avenue in Manhattan and my plants stay on my roof. Should I be worried that dirt from car and truck exhaust is contaminating my buckets of soil? Could I be poisoning myself? […]

McCain’s gas tax holiday from reality

John McCain has a brilliant, original idea: Let's encourage Americans to drive more by lifting the gas tax for a summer "holiday."

Presumably it's the same principle as the "surge" in Iraq: so many soldiers are getting killed, let's send even more!

Here are some guaranteed effects from McCain's brainstorm. It would:

• Deepen the federal deficit, thereby weakening the dollar.
• Increase gasoline consumption, in one stroke worsening highway gridlock, compounding U.S. oil dependence, and speeding up global warming.
• Transfer what used to be tax revenue -- potentially usable for public benefit -- to the oil companies and the Saudis by pushing up oil demand.

Terrific, eh? McCain could drive to a gas station, perhaps in a jumpsuit with a padded crotch, stand surrounded by Uzi-toting Blackwater thugs while a parade of Hummers top off their tanks, and proclaim Surge II a success.

Higher food prices mean crappier cafeteria fare for kids

As food prices rise, who gets hit first and hardest? Clearly, urban dwellers in the global south, where people spend upwards of half of their incomes on food. According to the Wall Street Journal, here‘s the ever-growing list of nations that have experienced food-price riots: Rioting in response to soaring food prices recently has broken […]

Governors gather to gab about climate

A group of influential governors will meet this week at Yale University to discuss taking the reins in the fight against climate change. The discussion will center around “blending a set of state efforts, some of which are already up and running, with an emerging federal climate system,” according to Dan Esty, the director of […]

EPA just doesn’t have time to make CO2 decision, says official

Remember how the U.S. EPA was instructed by the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether carbon dioxide should be regulated as a pollutant? And how that was more than a year ago? A senior EPA official said in a speech this week that “given the time frame available to the agency, it’s not realistic” to […]

True patriots would fight global warming

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

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As you'll recall, Barack Obama made a controversial sartorial decision last October about what he will and will not wear on his lapel. He declared he will not wear one of those American flag pins that have become so popular among politicians since Sept. 11.

"I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest," he said while campaigning in Iowa. "Instead, I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great. Hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism."

His decision was instant red meat for a number of people who wear their patriotism on their sleeves as well as on their lapels. They questioned Obama's allegiance to his nation and to our troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.