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Ugh

Last night’s party in Seattle went wonderfully well, and by “well” I mean I drank well beyond excess and by “wonderfully” I mean won’t someone please kill me now and end this pain. Blogging from yours truly may be slow today, and by “slow” I mean for the love of God why haven’t you killed […]

New anti-junk-mail service stops unwanted catalogs for free

A new service set up by the Natural Resources Defense Council, National Wildlife Federation, and the Ecology Center called Catalog Choice can put a stop to all those unwanted catalogs clogging your mailbox. Since its debut last week, some 20,000 people have signed up for the service, already halting over 50,000 unwanted catalogs. That’s a […]

Britain wades into battle for sea-floor mineral rights in Southern Ocean

The World Wildlife Fund has been trying to gather support to establish a network of marine protected areas in the Southern Ocean in an attempt to mitigate increasing ecological pressures in the area from climate change, invasive species, and commercial fishing. The plight of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean has often been overlooked compared to […]

Plan for northern spotted owl’s recovery in question

The future of the infamous northern spotted owl in the Pacific Northwest may be in further jeopardy if some U.S. federal agencies carry out their plans to restructure its recovery. Perhaps most potentially destructive is the Bureau of Land Management’s recently announced plan to essentially opt out of the Northwest Forest Plan — a truce […]

Umbra on planes and cars

Hi Umbra, Which is less harmful to the environment when traveling long distances, flying or driving? A jet puts out a lot of exhaust, but since it carries a lot of people, maybe it’s less than having everyone drive themselves? Craig Denver, Colo. Dearest Craig, Jeepers it was fun to find out the answer to […]

A detailed breakdown of the differences from earlier drafts

Here’s a document from the Senate offices of Lieberman and Warner, forwarded along by multiple folks top-secret sources. It shows the differences between the August draft version of their bill and the version that will be released tomorrow. I pass it along for your edification. (You’ll see that the improvements in allocation were somewhat more […]

The green movement of the Rio Grande

Yesterday, Grist published my investigation of why the environmental movement has been relatively slow and cautious in fighting the U.S.-Mexico border wall, one of the greatest manmade disasters to ever strike the Western landscape and Western wildlife.

Of course, these articles have to be readable, so I wasn't able to delve into all the details of the politics of the border wall. But I wanted to share with Gristmill readers the part of the investigation that didn't make it into the article -- about how stopping the border wall could represent a major opportunity for environmental groups to build alliances and members in a region of the country that, despite strong pro-environment sentiment, hasn't traditionally been thought of as the environmental movement's heartland. Enjoy (and I'd love your thoughts in the comments section).

Consensus Senate climate bill will largely retain original weaknesses

Over at E&E Darren Samuelsohn has the goods (sub. rqd.) on changes to the Lieberman-Warner bill to be introduced tomorrow: Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John Warner (R-Va.) have made two major changes to global warming legislation they plan to introduce tomorrow, including tighter caps on heat-trapping emissions in 2020 and fewer free credits for […]

Stopping global warring and global warming

Ted Glick is on the 44th day of his fast, by my count, as part of his effort to bring awareness to and demand action concerning global warming. On Sunday through Tuesday, October 21 to 23, there will be a series of protests and actions grouped under the name "No war, no warming." It is an attempt to bridge the two issues of ending the war in Iraq and global warming by taking immediate action to:

Stop the war in Iraq and future resource wars by ending our addiction to fossil fuels;

Shift government funding to rebuild New Orleans and all communities suffering from racism and corporate greed;

Go green and promote environmental justice with new jobs in a clean energy economy.

In my last post, I argued that it is important for environmental activists to build coalitions with others that are working for progressive change, for instance among European-Americans and African-Americans. In this post, I want to discuss the meaning of peace, war, and the military, and how integrating these issues might help in the fight to save the biosphere -- and how people might understandably feel that such issues might hurt such efforts as well.

In this era of an alleged "war on terror" (really more of a police investigation of terror), people are skittish about criticizing the military. Taking on the military might seem futile, might seem to alienate a large constituency of people open to action on global warming. While I don't hope to change that perspective with this post, I want to at least offer a few ideas to think about.

First of all, the long-term military capability of the U.S. is dependent on our ability to produce the machinery that is used by sustainable energy, transportation, and agricultural sectors of the economy. The reason: the military depends on a healthy manufacturing sector in order to produce its tanks, jets, and ships.

Solar decathlon underway in D.C.

The Solar Decathlon is underway on the National Mall this week, and Inhabitat’s got some great coverage, including a Flickr set of the fully solar-powered homes built by university students.