Latest Articles

There is a silver-bullet solution to global warming

The dialogue between this country's youth and key decision-makers during the important Focus the Nation (FTN) event on January 31st has the potential to become diluted and confused. If it does, another opportunity to move a segment of the country towards seriously addressing climate change will have been wasted.

Shotgun Approach Falls Short

Although every personal effort at reducing energy use and greenhouse-gas emissions is laudable and helps change the way we think about global warming, taking the shotgun approach to emissions reductions is simply not enough. Time is extremely short, and we must act immediately and boldly if we are to avert a climate crisis.

The Silver Bullet

Contrary to what many are saying, there is a "silver bullet" solution to global warming, and it is time we, as a nation, faced up to it.

Forest Service official threatened with jail time over fish-killing fire retardant

Mark Rey, the undersecretary of agriculture in charge of the U.S. Forest Service, has been threatened with jail time or house arrest for his agency’s attempts to continue using a flame retardant on forest fires that’s toxic to fish. In 2002, fire retardant was dropped on a blaze in central Oregon, killing about 20,000 fish. […]

There’s a need for someone to draw contrasts among candidates on climate

I said earlier that there’s no point in Al Gore endorsing anyone in the primary. But if he does want to have a salutary effect on the presidential election, I have a proposal for him. More on that in a minute. It’s looking like John McCain has a better than even chance of getting the […]

Rubber, meet road

So, McCain made a big deal out of climate change before the New Hampshire primary, sucking up to the state’s independents. Now the Republicans are heading to Michigan, where there’s an epic fight going on between environmentalists and massive rush of proposed new coal plants. Think McCain will take sides in that struggle?

The Extreme (plug-in) Hybrid: no breakthrough needed!

Here is the plug-in hybrid I test drove a few weeks ago, the Extreme Hybrid by AFS Trinity:

I will be running a long article Wednesday on the climate implications of plug-ins in general and this car in particular. But you can read all about the car at this exclusive New York Times piece published today and the AFS Trinity website, which has a YouTube video of me driving the car and discussing why it matters:

The right way to interpret Shellenberger & Nordhaus

Matt Yglesias has a review of Shellenberger & Nordhaus’ book in the NYT Sunday Book Review. It contains a good insight and a fairly crucial mistake — albeit a mistake common to those enter S&N’s hall of mirrors for the first time. The insight is twofold. First, that the core and most valuable part of […]

Climate treaty among mayors often honored in the breach

Seven cities in the San Diego region signed on to the Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, but some didn’t do much more than sign it. I imagine it wouldn’t be difficult to find other MCPA participants for whom signing was little more than an empty gesture. That should come as no surprise: it’s a voluntary treaty […]

Wal-Mart pushes electronics suppliers to rate their products by eco-friendliness

Wal-Mart is giving its electronics suppliers a scorecard on which they can rate their products on green qualities like durability and ease of recycling. That’s tricky, of course, given the lack of a national standards for such things — so it’s pushing for that, too. Given Wal-Mart’s size, I won’t be surprised if it single-handedly […]

WTFx3

Leader of group fighting Cape Wind project makes $203,000 last year (WTF?), quits this year to go work in the wind industry (WTF?), and hands over leadership of the group to a former coal executive (WTF?).

High-speed rail

High-speed rail, already kicking ass (in Europe), is set to kick much more ass (in Europe): Last July seven operators banded together to form Railteam, an alliance that is working to create a seamless, high-speed network across a large swath of Western Europe. Functioning much like an airline alliance, Railteam is setting up a common […]