Latest Articles

White House talks up its Hawaii climate-change meeting

The White House has released a statement regarding its very own climate-change meeting for the world’s biggest economies, to be held Jan. 30-31 in Hawaii. “The two-day meeting will further the shared objectives of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, increasing energy security and efficiency, and sustaining economic growth, and will help to advance the negotiations under the […]

What is the Green Party up to, exactly?

The Green Party assembled in the counterintuitive location of San Francisco recently for its presidential debate, wherein ex-Dem Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney was joined by this cast of luminaries: The other three candidates included Jared Ball, a hip-hop scholar and assistant professor of communications at Morgan State University in Baltimore; Kat Swift, a 34-year-old dread-locked activist […]

Umbra on nuclear vs. coal

Dear Umbra, I work for a certain large environmental organization, and I have often had to deal with the issue of nuclear and coal-fired power plants. If ever asked which is better, we are officially supposed to say “neither.” But I think a response like that doesn’t always work for the real world, so I’d […]

The Conservation Security Program

This is the fourth in a series of five farm bill fact sheets from the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. For more information about the status of other sustainable agriculture programs in the Senate and House versions of the bill, please see this 2008 Farm Bill legislative tracking chart (PDF). The 2008 Farm Bill conference committee negotiations are just getting underway at the staff level -- please contact members of the Agriculture Committee and weigh in!

In addition to food and fiber, farmers and ranchers are in a unique position to help provide healthy soils, clean air and water, habitat for native wildlife, carbon sinks to help mitigate global warming, energy savings and renewable energy sources, and other conservation benefits. The Conservation Security Program rewards environmental performance rather than the overproduction of commodity crops or expansion of industrial livestock waste storage, and in doing so, provides an alternative form of farm and conservation program support for family farmers and rural communities that re-enforces the public interest in a more resilient, healthy environment.

The added ecological stress caused by the recent ethanol boom and associated expansion of corn acreage makes it more important than ever that the 2008 Farm Bill provide for a strong Conservation Security Program (CSP).

Me on the radio

I was on RFK Jr.’s Air America radio show “Ring of Fire” the other day, talking about the lay of the land in the presidential race, climate-wise. Should you be so inclined, you can hear it here.

California withdraws proposal to potentially override private thermostats

Strenuous public objection has forced the California Energy Commission to withdraw a proposal that new buildings in the state have radio-controlled thermostats that would allow utilities to override customers’ temperature settings in the case of a power emergency. Some saw the plan as way too Big Brother; energy commission member Arthur Rosenfeld described it as […]

Climate change disrupts ecosystems that provide valuable services

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

-----

If you are one of those people who loves the quiet communion of hiking in the high-country forests of Colorado, you'd better get there fast. In three years, those forests may be gone.

The Rocky Mountain News reported this week that every large, mature forest of lodgepole pines in Colorado and southern Wyoming will be dead in three to five years. Some 1.5 million acres of pine forest already have been destroyed since 1996. State and federal foresters call the loss "catastrophic."

What's causing the massive die-off? The root cause appears to be global climate change. Winters are warmer. That allows pine bark beetles to survive. The lodgepoles are less able to defend themselves because they have been stressed by years of drought. As a result, a rice-sized bug is felling vast expanses of forests in Colorado. Similar die-offs are underway elsewhere in the western United States and in Canada.

(Forest management practices -- mainly fire suppression in past years -- also are to blame. Dense vegetation allows the beetles to spread more quickly and older trees are more susceptible to the bug.)

Notable quotable

“Environmentalism isn’t a communist plot.” — Colorado resident Dave Peterson, on the polarization of opinion on new state rules for oil and gas production

Bush exempts Navy from environmental law in ongoing sonar saga

President Bush fired another salvo in the ongoing fight pitting the U.S. Navy’s use of mid-frequency sonar against whales and other marine mammals that can be harmed by it. Bush yesterday exempted the Navy from parts of the Coastal Zone Management Act that a federal judge recently found the Navy was violating when it used […]

Gingrich’s further explications of green conservatism do not inspire confidence

The more I see of Newt Gingrich’s "conservative environmentalism," the less impressive it seems. The guy’s offering run of the mill, crony capitalist conservatism with a shabby green paint job. The two top-tier public policy approaches to fighting climate change are: supporting green industries, practices, technologies, and infrastructure via subsidies, tax breaks, or mandates, and […]