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Ban on loaded firearms in national parks may be lifted

Photo: iStockphoto The Interior Department plans to revise regulations banning loaded guns in national parks, and park rangers and green groups are up in arms (figuratively, of course). Current rules, which require guns to be disarmed and stowed away within park boundaries, “are not unduly burdensome, but are limited, reasonable, and necessary,” says the president […]

Notable quotable

“I have the same feelings about wind as I had about the best oil field I ever found.” — financier and oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens

Factory farms fight to avoid reporting on toxic emissions

This article in the WaPo shows yet again how insidious the agricultural lobby in this country is, and how we need leadership that will take it on. This time it's the factory farms fighting laws that mandate that they provide information on their emission of toxic gases (from animal waste).

Breaking the power of the agricultural lobby should be a top priority for the environmental community; at every turn it fights for corporate welfare and against environmental progress and the public good.

Clinton only candidate to appear at energy forum on Thurs.

The Greater Houston Partnership had planned a bigtime energy forum where all the presidential candidates would come and discuss America’s energy future. Only Clinton agreed to come. Despite that, it should be interesting. There will be lots of players from Big Oil & Gas there, and they want to hear about what they euphemistically call […]

EU-27 emissions down 8 percent since 1990

The European Environment Agency (EEA) reports:

Total greenhouse gas emissions in the EU-27, excluding emission and removals from land-use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF), decreased by 0.7% between 2004 and 2005 and by 7.9% between 1990 and 2005.

Over the same period, 1990 to 2005, U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions are up an alarming 17 percent (PDF). The EEA report underscores a point I have made repeatedly -- the transportation sector remains the toughest nut to crack:

Massive database of species goes online

An online Encyclopedia of Life that aims to eventually include every living organism on the planet has unveiled its first detailed pages. Read up on the 24 species that have entries complete with text, pictures, and video, or sift through 30,000 others with preliminary information. Those involved with the encyclopedia, which got its start from […]

Notable quotable

“Anybody can talk and beat up coal: They don’t like it; it’s dirty; it does this and this. But I can assure you, they’re not going to turn their lights or their demand for energy off.” — Gov. Joe Manchin of West Virginia

A chat with Philip V. Adams of the World Green Exchange auction system

Last week, World Energy Exchange, an online energy trading platform, officially launched a new marketplace for renewable-energy certificates and greenhouse-gas permits. The World Green Exchange employs an auction system -- think eBay -- to bring buyers and sellers together. In theory, auctions create a more transparent marketplace and drive out cost inefficiencies by directly connecting the buyer and seller and removing the middleman.

We caught up with World Energy President and COO Philip V. Adams last week to find out how the launch went and why he thinks WGE will stand out in an increasingly crowded field dominated by the Chicago Climate Exchange in the U.S. and European Climate Exchange and European Energy Exchange overseas.

Grist: Congratulations on launching the World Green Exchange. I know it's only been up and running for a couple of days, but is it attracting users and working as you had hoped so far? How will you measure success longer term?

Adams: Thank you. The World Green Exchange was formally launched last week, but in fact we have been conducting transactions on the platform for the past several months. We're a bit of a conservative firm, and took the view that we would have real client success in the marketplace before making an announcement of our capabilities. As we suspected, the auction approach is performing very well. In several transactions conducted to date, we have significantly bettered benchmark prices that were derived to our clients who were using brokers or bid-ask exchanges.

Chris Dodd endorses Barack Obama for prez

Former presidential contender Chris Dodd has broken with the wait-and-see Democrats to endorse Barack Obama for president. Obama has been “poked and prodded, analyzed and criticized, called too green, too trusting, and for all of that has already won” a majority of states and votes, said Dodd. See what he did there, using the word […]

EPA staffers warned Johnson he might have to resign if he denied Cali’s waiver

Stephen Johnson. Lordy. Not only did Stephen Johnson’s staff at the EPA oppose his decision to deny California’s waiver, but they warned him that if he denied the waiver he might have to resign in shame. Boxer’s EPW committee has gotten ahold of some internal memos and briefings from the EPA. To pick just one […]