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Cities worldwide will turn off lights for Earth Hour

Mark your calendar for March 29, when cities around the world will switch off non-critical lights at 8:00 p.m. for an awareness-raising Earth Hour. At present, 24 cities — with a total population of some 30 million people — plan to participate in the energy-saving symbolism, from Toronto to Tel Aviv, Bangkok to Brisbane, Canberra […]

Our chance to escape the tightening fossil-fuel vise

With or without climate policies, energy prices seem set to rise. The question is, Who will get the money? Auctioned cap-and-trade gives us the opportunity to take charge of price increases and share the benefits widely -- even while we safeguard the climate and stimulate local jobs. Big chances like this don't come along often!

To see what a golden opportunity this is, we've got to briefly review recent fossil-fuel price increases.

Oscar-nominated film depicts oil production realistically

Anyone interested in oil should see There Will Be Blood, since it is a great film that tells a fascinating and detailed story of the early days of the oil industry in California.

Okay, it's Oscar week. I try to see all the Best Picture nominees, which is much tougher now that I have a one-year-old daughter. I missed Atonement [so far], but my wife read the book, so half credit. And lord knows after seeing No Country for Old Men, I don't need to see another downbeat movie -- uh, sorry for the spoiler, but if you thought a movie titled No Country for Old Men (or Atonement) was upbeat, you get out even less than I do these days.

I don't think There Will Be Blood is the best picture of the year -- but it is very good. Certainly the performance by Daniel Day-Lewis should take the Oscar, and the cinematography and music are fantastic.

But as a depiction of the grueling work of producing oil, it has no equal. Assuming you've read The Prize by Daniel Yergin, this is a must-see. Just leave five minutes before the end and you'll be happy.

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Cali EJ groups reject cap-and-trade in strong terms

A big coalition of environmental justice groups in California just came out with a strong statement opposing a cap-and-trade system and urging “fees” (i.e., taxes) instead. (Here’s L.A. Times‘ coverage.) Their points are fairly familiar. Most of the opposition seems to be based on the well-documented failures of the European trading system — which, as […]

FCC must consider impact of communications towers on birds

A federal appeals court has made the call that the Federal Communications Commission must analyze the impact of new Gulf Coast communications towers on migratory birds. Green groups which sued over the birds’ flight plight point out that up to 50 million birds die annually from collisions with towers as they cross the Gulf of […]

‘Climate change’ and ‘global warming’ are not scary-enough terms

Andy Revkin of the NYT has a good blog post on one of the main problems with climate messaging by scientists, environmentalists, and the like. In short, it sucks!

One problem is the name "global warming" or "climate change." It sounds like a vacation, not a crisis.

Indeed, one of the main reasons I titled my book Hell and High Water is that I thought it was a better term -- more accurate of what is to come if we don't act, more descriptive, more visceral -- and I hoped (faintly) it might become more widely used. But other than being projected onto the Washington Monument by Greenpeace, nada!

Names do matter. As conservative message-meister Frank Luntz wrote a few years ago in an infamous memo, that explains precisely how a politician can sound as if he or she cares about global warming but doesn't actually want to do anything about it:

"Climate change" is less frightening than global warming. As one focus group participant noted, climate change "sounds like you're going from Pittsburgh to Fort Lauderdale." While global warming has catastrophic connotations attached to it, climate change suggests a more controllable and less emotional challenge.

Umbra on house siding

Dear Umbra, I have been a homeowner for five years and gradually I am upgrading the 25-year-old house to be more green. I have finished replacing the single-pane windows with Energy Star-rated double-pane windows. Now I am turning my attention to the siding, since the roof is still in good shape. I have wood siding […]

Mining CEO so insinuated in W. Va. politics that they can’t find judges to hear his case

So, you may recall that loathsome mountaintop-removal mining outfit Massey was hit with a $50 million judgment a while back. They appealed it up to the W. Va. Supreme Court, which overturned it. Later, it turned out that Massey CEO Don Blankenship (an evil bastard) had been photographed frolicking with one of the judges in […]

Public-university researchers get cash for studying GMOs — and the shaft for studying organic ag

The following essay, which first appeared on Alternet, is a lucid, detailed look at what has become of public-university agriculture research in an age of budget austerity.

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I've startled a bug scientist. "Yeah, now I'm nervous," said Mike Hoffmann, a Cornell University entomologist and crop specialist who spends his days with cucumber beetles and small wasps. But he's also in charge of keeping the research funding flowing at Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. What have I done to alarm him? I've drawn his attention to the newly released FY 2009 Presidential Budget.

Like more than a hundred public institutions of higher learning, Cornell is what's known as a "land grant" college. Dotting the United States from Ithaca, N.Y., to Pullman, Wash., such schools were established by a Civil War-era act of Congress to provide universities centered around "the agriculture and mechanic arts." Congress handed each U.S. state a chunk of federal land to be sold for start-up monies, and for the last 150 years, it has funded groundbreaking research on all things agriculture, from dirt to crops to cattle.

The land-grant system has been, in short, a high-yield investment. The scientific research that has come out of land-grant labs and fields has aided millions of farmers and fed millions of Americans. And the land-grant reach doesn't stop at ocean's edge. Oklahoma State, the Sooner State's land grant, says that the public funding of land-grant research "has benefited every man, woman and child in the United States and much of the world."

That was until America's land-grant system met George W. Bush.

P.S.

Obama won Hawaii, with a convincing 75 percent. That’s 10 wins in a row. In response, Clinton is ramping up her attacks.