Latest Articles

The widening war between activists and coal

According to AP, at least 48 coal plants are being contested in 29 states: From lawsuits and administrative appeals against the companies, to lobbying pressure on federal and state regulators, the coordinated offensive against coal is emerging as a pivotal front in the debate over global warming. Music to my ears. Naturally, the industry forecasts […]

Monsanto’s latest court triumph cloaks massive market power

At first glance, it was an open-and-shut case. In 1998, Mississippi farmer Homan McFarling bought soybean seeds with genetic traits owned by Monsanto, then as now the world’s dominant provider of genetically modified seeds — and also the biggest herbicide maker. Like all farmers who buy GM seeds, McFarling signed a contract obliging him not […]

Canada announces new fuel-economy regs to match or exceed U.S. standards

At the Montreal International Auto Show, Canada’s transport minister announced the country will be setting new fuel-economy regulations that will match or exceed the U.S. fuel-economy standards signed into law in late December. The Canadian standards will be phased in starting in 2011 and by 2020, cars and light trucks sold in the Great White […]

A pragmatic view of cellulosic biofuels

So Vinod Khosla is not happy with with my recent attack on his (willful) ignorance, "Khosla blows his credibility dissing plug-ins." Gristmill has given the billionaire a platform to defend himself, but he just spouts even more nonsense in the bizarrely titled post, "Pragmatists v. environmentalists, part I":

I have been accused of dissing hybrids. I was mostly discussing Prius-type parallel hybrids and all the support they get, when one can get the same carbon reduction by buying a cheaper, similar-sized and -featured car and buying $10 worth of carbon credits. I was objecting to greenwashing (powered by a large marketing machine) that suggests hybrids can solve our problems ...

Corn ethanol, which has been heavily maligned in the mainstream media, reduces carbon emissions (on a per-mile-driven basis) by almost the same amount as today's typical hybrid ...

The Prius is the corn ethanol of hybrid cars ...

Seriously! This is like one of those newspaper puzzles: Can you spot all the errors?

NASA declares 2007 second-warmest year on record, NOAA says it’s fifth-warmest

NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies has declared 2007 the second-warmest year on record, tying with 1998 for the title. 2005 remains the hottest, according to the agency. Researchers said, to no one’s surprise, that the greatest warming occurred in the Arctic. “As we predicted last year, 2007 was warmer than 2006, continuing the strong […]

Thus spake Chairman Peterson of the House Ag Committee

David already pointed to it, but it bears repeating: House Ag Committee Chairman Colin Peterson, a tireless champion of ethanol and any other big-ag project he can get his mits on, has declared that cellulosic ethanol could well never “get off the ground.” At best, he declared, cellulosic ethanol stands at least 10 years away […]

Alberta premier heads to D.C. to preach the virtues of tar sands

Kevin Grandia has the skinny on Alberta (it’s in Canada) Premier Ed Stelmach’s visit to D.C. to shill for tar sands and to fight "the myth that the environmental cost of the oilsands is too high." Below is Stelmach with a very perspicacious polar bear:

Green groups seek to overturn mine exemption from ESA reviews

Four green groups and two state agencies have filed a petition with federal wildlife and mining agencies seeking to change the long-standing policy of exempting mountaintop-removal mining from specific Endangered Species Act reviews. In 1996, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided that mountaintop-removal mining wouldn’t unduly imperil threatened species if mines followed other environmental […]

Bush asks Saudi king to open oil spigots

The president who said "America is addicted to oil" now begs the Saudis for another fix. Like some binge-drinking, pill-popping starlet -- is there any other kind? -- the president is prostrate before his top foreign "dealer," begging for more, even at the risk of public humiliation:

The Saudi oil minister, however, waited only a short time before announcing that oil prices would remain tied to market forces -- a direct slap at Bush.

Wow! When even your dealer won't sell you more, you have got a real problem.

Just one hour later, though, "President Bush made a private visit to Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah to again ask him to open the spigots."

Norway aims to be carbon neutral by 2030

Norway has announced it aims to be carbon neutral by 2030, 20 years earlier than its previous goal set last spring. Up to two-thirds of the emissions cuts will be made in Norway itself (though officials aren’t sure precisely how yet). The other third will be offset by about $550 million a year in carbon […]