Latest Articles
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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?).
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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 […]
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Manatee deaths down, lonely penguin count up by one
... a Hong Kong sushi restaurant owner paid a record $55,700 for a bluefin tuna at a Tokyo market, a rate of $92 per pound ...
... a judge ordered the U.S. Navy to cease use of sonar within 12 nautical miles of the California coastline and whenever a marine mammal was sighted within 2,200 yards ...
... fish from a Canadian salmon farm tested positive for malachite green, a carcinogenic substance. "We have no explanation as to what has happened," said the company manager ...
... a study of Caribbean coral reefs found a correlation between high human population and coral loss. "It's like a cascade," said one of the researchers ...
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Friday music blogging: Brother Ali
Finally, a little hip-hop for FMB. Brother Ali — your standard albino Muslim rapper out of Minneapolis — made some waves in the underground hip-hop world with his debut album Rites of Passage, and then blew up pretty big with 2003’s Shadows on the Sun. Then four years passed, during which Ali ran into label […]
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Green groups sue over DOE’s plans for electric transmission corridors
Green groups are suing the Department of Energy over its plans for electric transmission corridors in the U.S. Southwest and Mid-Atlantic regions. The groups say the DOE violated environmental laws by failing to take into account the potential impacts of the high-voltage transmission lines on air quality, wildlife, and habitat; the corridors encompass dozens of […]
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Schwarzenegger proposes closing some California parks
As part of a plan to slim down the state budget, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed to close 48 state parks — and nature lovers are none too happy.
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Gore’s impromptu humor at a recent small climate summit
I'm not normally given to shameless name-dropping, but what else are blogs really for (other than making bets with readers)?Over the last three days I attended a small climate solutions summit hosted by the former vice president and current Nobel laureate. It was off-the-record, so I can't report on presentations directly, but they have made me a lot smarter about the latest technologies and strategies for clean energy, which will inform my blogging this year on climate solutions. I will say now as an aside that I have become much more bullish on the potential for large-scale solar photovoltaics as a result of attending these meetings.
The VP asked me to speak for seven minutes on hydrogen at dinner Wednesday. Before dinner, I gave him a copy of the brand-new paperback edition of -- warning, shameless product placement -- Hell and High Water. He looked it over for a few minutes and said, deadpan:
