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A new play with historical and environmental roots

If theater is your thing, here's a great short review of the new play The Boycott -- by Kathryn Blume -- that challenges assumptions about what environmental activism should look like. A humorous and serious one-woman show, it's a contemporary take on Aristophanes' comedy Lysistrata, in which women from Athens and Sparta refuse to sleep with their husbands until they stop the war. Blume's schedule brings the show to Alaska and Vermont this month, and New Hampshire and Missouri this spring.

Green groups will sue over feds’ missed polar-bear deadline

Discontented with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s announcement that it will not meet its deadline for deciding whether to list polar bears as a threatened species, the Big Three green groups — Greenpeace, NRDC, and the Center for Biological Diversity — have notified the government that they plan to sue.

British supermarket expands bike-trailer program

Bike to store. Pick up free bike trailer. Fill trailer with groceries. Hitch it up and ride home. Return trailer within three days. That’s the dreamy concept at the Waitrose supermarket chain in Jolly Olde Englande, where the free-trailer scheme is being tried out at a handful of stores. Says a department manager, “There are […]

Clinton and McCain win New Hampshire primaries, attract green voters

Unseasonably warm weather brought out a record number of voters in New Hampshire’s primary on Tuesday — and is it mere coincidence that the majority of them voted for candidates with real plans to tackle climate change? Well, OK, probably yes. Hillary Clinton was the victor on the Democratic side; she’s got a strong platform […]

Talk about targeting!

Here’s a blog devoted entirely to geothermal energy in Washington state. Apparently there’s a need: The hot zone of California, Nevada (the Saudi Arabia of geothermal), Idaho and Oregon could produce tens of thousands of megawatts along the spine of the Sierra Nevadas and Cascades. Washington state sits on the edge of this hot zone. […]

General Motors unveils hydrogen-powered concept Cadillac

Trading in your Chevy for a Cadillac-ac-ac-ac-ac-ac? You oughta know by now: at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, General Motors unveiled a concept Caddy powered by a combination of hydrogen fuel cells and battery power. Following the rule that all green car technology must have an insipid name, the new Cadillac Provoq […]

‘Men’s Health’ uncovers some real whoppers

Not so smooth. Photo: iStockphoto Industrial food is really vile stuff — even when it’s been tarted up by marketers to sound “healthy,” “natural,” and “fresh.” This is an obvious point, but it bears revisiting in a culture predicated on quick fixes. Is industrial food killing you? Don’t stop eating it — try these “new […]

Shiny plants will save the climate, say researchers

You thought fighting climate change was going to be hard? Pssh — all we gotta do is plant some peppers and we’ll be home free. OK, it might not be that easy, but California scientists say they’ve hit on an unusual climate-change solution: shiny plants. Encouraging farmers to plant foliage that reflects the sun’s heat […]

New nanoantennas capture sun’s energy 24-7; are cheap; are not yet for sale

Via SolveClimate, the latest whiz-bang new gonna-change-the-world solar technology: nanoantennas! They harvest the sun’s energy even at night! They’re cheap "as inexpensive carpet"! They’re printed on thin, flexible sheets! They’re … in a lab somewhere. Here’s hoping.

Spending on adaptation and mitigation now is an investment, spending later is a waste

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

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A dirty little secret of climate change is that somebody wants us to pay much higher taxes and higher energy bills. But it's not the advocates of climate action. It's the other guys.

Make no mistake: The costs of switching to clean energy and an energy-efficient economy are far less than the costs of doing nothing.

A study released by the University of Maryland last October helps bring the cost issue into clearer focus. It concludes that the economic costs of unabated climate change in the United States will be major and nationwide.

Climate change will damage or stress essential municipal infrastructure such as water treatment and supply; increase the size and intensity of forest fires; increase the frequency and severity of flooding and drought; cause billions of dollars in damages to crops and property; lead to higher insurance rates; and even increase shipping costs in the Great Lakes-St Lawrence seaway because of lower water levels. And that's just a sampling.

"Climate change will affect every American economically in significant, dramatic ways, and the longer it takes to respond, the greater the damage and the higher the costs," lead researcher Matthias Ruth told ScienceDaily.

How big are those costs?