Latest Articles

The enGorsement, re-reconsidered

I wouldn’t normally post about the latest round of Gore endorsement speculation, since nobody ever has anything new to say about it, but this comes from Steve Clemons, a D.C. insider who knows of what he speaks. He says a source close to the Clinton campaign told him that a rumor is running rampant that […]

Romney out

Mitt Romney dropped out of the presidential race today, which all but insures that John McCain will be the Republican candidate. I wonder: how will Republicans and industry groups lobby against a carbon bill if their president supports it? That is a strategic dilemma I’m sure they have their finest minds working on as we […]

A reflection on the lasting legacy of 1970s USDA Secretary Earl Butz

Industrial agriculture lost one of its greatest champions last week: Earl “Rusty” Butz, secretary of the USDA under Nixon. Blustering, boisterous, and often vulgar, Butz lorded over the U.S. farm scene at a key period. He plunged a pitchfork into New Deal agricultural policies that sought to protect farmers from the big agribusiness companies whose […]

Enterprise and other rental companies move into car-share market

Enterprise Rent-a-Car is zooming ahead with a car-sharing program à la the successful Zipcar. The Enterprise venture, called WeCar, started on the campus of St. Louis’s Washington University last month, but will kick off in urban style in the city downtown next week. WeCar will begin with nine Toyota Prius hybrids and will target employees […]

Sell-off of oil leases in polar-bear habitat brings record bidding

The Bush administration’s sell-off of leases for oil and gas drilling in Alaska’s polar-bear-harboring Chukchi Sea raised a lot of controversy — and a lot of moola. The sale brought in a record $2.66 billion in bidding, well beyond the $67 million the feds had expected and budgeted for. Royal Dutch Shell was the big […]

Will the media give McCain a free ride on climate?

My latest post on The Nation is up, asking: Will the media give McCain a free ride on climate? I know there’s a sense out there that because McCain is relatively sane on climate, this race might pose the opportunity to have a serious discussion of the issue. But my fear is the opposite: that […]

According to Bush adviser, Bush actually serious about mandatory climate controls

This ($ub req'd) just in from Captain Environmental Compassion, Bush adviser James Connaughton: Bush is serious about climate change. Seriously!

Surprised? Read on, for excerpts from this newsflash ...

Thanks to the ethanol boom, big investors are plowing cash into corn country

Big investors seem to have forgotten how to exist without some sort of speculative bubble. In the last decade, they’ve whipped cash from tech stocks to bonds to emerging markets to real estate to junk mortgages. With the latter bubble now deflating rapidly, they’ve turned to … Midwestern farmland? Yes, big cornfields. Here’s a Chicago […]

Exploratory uranium mine near Grand Canyon given go-ahead

The U.S. Forest Service has granted a permit to a British mining company to drill exploratory uranium mines just miles from Grand Canyon National Park in northern Arizona and just three miles from a popular lookout. Officials in the county voted unanimously to try to stop the exploration, but their opposition has had little effect […]

Sobering dispatches from Alaska

The melting and erosion of permafrost is probably the most visible manifestation of climate change in Alaska.

Photo: Seth Kantner, www.kapvikphotography.com

Author and photographer Seth Kantner has a new blog that shares his observations of a changing Arctic in words and images. From trees invading the tundra and freakish weather to the hair-raising loss of the permafrost, it's a must-read. His phenomenal book Ordinary Wolves (one of my favorites of the last 10 years) takes place in the town of Kotzebue on the northwest coast of Alaska (where he's from), where the tundra is literally melting away from underfoot and into the sea.