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Majora Carter

If this doesn’t get you in your gut, you’ve got serious problems:

California hopes to spur development of less-toxic chemicals

California officials are aiming to spur development of less-toxic chemicals as safer alternatives to widely used toxics and will today unveil their proposals to kick-start the “green chem” revolution. One idea that’s not included on the list of over 800 proposals is additional bans or restrictions on the use of toxic chemicals. Instead, ideas range […]

California and New Jersey have high numbers of PV installations

The following essay is a guest post by Earl Killian.

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Cooler Planet looked at the solar photovoltaic (PV) installation data from the California Energy Commission and made it visual to show just how it is growing. A static view of their data is at the right, but go to the site and move the slider to see the growth from only 1,675 grid-connected photovoltaic installations in 2002 to 29,628 installations in 2008. According to SolarBuzz:

In 2006, 112 megawatts of solar photovoltaics were installed in the US Grid Connect market, up from 80 megawatts in 2005. Demand was led once again by California, which accounted for 63% of the national market. Notwithstanding funding program bottlenecks, New Jersey saw very strong growth in 2006, representing 17% of the national market.

Why would California and New Jersey, with only 12 percent and 2.9 percent of U.S. population respectively, account for such a large fraction of PV installations? Perhaps incentive programs (most recently the California Solar Initiative and the New Jersey Clean Energy Rebate Program) and other policies are working.

Internationally, Germany (8.8 x U.S. in 2006 MW installed) and Japan (2.6 x U.S.) (PDF) are the leaders in PV installations, with California a "distant third" (PDF) according to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Most places where PV is economic have some combination of the following (but usually not all):

Grandfathering is Robin Hood’s evil twin

Climate change is regressive. Its effects punish the least fortunate the most -- those who've contributed little to and gained little from polluting economies. But the solutions to climate change can be progressive. Done right, they can share fairly the burdens and opportunities of preventing climate disruption.

I said "can."

If poorly designed, climate policy can also be viciously regressive -- a vacuum cleaner sucking up working families' earning. That's why it's so important to get climate policy right. It's the single most important economic fairness issue facing us right now: more important than reforming payday lending, more important even than reforming health insurance. It's what every advocate for economic opportunity should be losing sleep over -- and jumping to action to help shape the solution.

The most needed measure for minimizing climate disruption is a firm cap on emissions of greenhouse gases and a mechanism for putting a price on those emissions. In short, climate pricing. We need to make prices tell the truth about the climate.

Jared Leto and band film video in the Arctic

Jordan Catalano Jared Leto took his so-called band to the Arctic Circle to film this video for "A Beautiful Lie." They’ve also partnered with NRDC (much like Green Day did) to provide eco-tips and minimize the impact of their trip (via "strategies that would minimize fuel consumption on the shoot" and, yes, offsets). Says Leto, […]

Organic food reduces organophosphate exposure in children

By now, I think most people understand that organic food is supposed to be healthier for you. But I think there are still some people who feel that the health benefits are a just a bunch of marketing hype.

Well, this new study suggests that it ain't just hype -- organic produce really does reduce kids' exposure to some potentially risky pesticides. From the Seattle P-I:

The peer-reviewed study found that the urine and saliva of children eating a variety of conventional foods from area groceries contained biological markers of organophosphates, the family of pesticides spawned by the creation of nerve gas agents in World War II.

When the same children ate organic fruits, vegetables and juices, signs of pesticides were not found.

Greenpeace pulls off a doozy of a stunt

Some fiendishly clever visual protest from Greenpeace: Joe Romm must be flattered.

My older brother, my mom, and me in 1975

Just because: How awesome is that dress?

Notable quotable

“I do think we’re in a position where we don’t foresee the need for new coal-fired generation in the Carolinas anytime in the foreseeable future. It’s probably premature to say we will never build a coal plant in the Carolinas again, but today we do not foresee the need to do that based on the […]

All four Republican prez candidates express support for California’s EPA waiver

Last night’s Republican debate spawned at least one memorable surprise: all four GOP candidates appeared to express support for California in its battle with the U.S. EPA to get a waiver it needs to implement its greenhouse-gas emissions standards for vehicles. The Bush administration denied the waiver in December, arguing that recent changes to federal […]