Latest Articles

Umbra on green laundry detergents

Dear Umbra, What are the “green” high-efficiency detergents for washers? Thanks,Marilyn Dearest Marilyn, A perfect question for parenting fortnight. Children have such tiny clothing that you wouldn’t think it would add up to an increase in laundry volume. Until you saw the proof. Too bad keeping them naked (cuuuute!) and periodically hosing them off is […]

White House behind lobbying campaign to undermine California auto-emissions plan, Waxman charges

Arnold Schwarzenegger, who gave a rather good speech today here at the U.N. climate summit, is famously attempting to cut California's greenhouse-gas emissions. Now come accusations that the White House is behind a lobbying effort to get the U.S. EPA to reject Schwarzenegger's plan to regulate GHGs from cars and trucks.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chair of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, got wind of the situation. Writes Jesse Lee in "The Gavel," Speaker Pelosi's blog:

Chairman Waxman has obtained internal e-mails which show that Transportation Secretary Mary Peters personally directed a behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign approved by the White House to oppose EPA approval of California's landmark standards reducing greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles.

New report debunks libertarian attack on Portland city planning

A while back, a guy named Randal O’Toole at the libertarian Cato Institute put out a report "debunking" Portland, Ore.’s efforts to encourage dense, transit-oriented development. As Portland is at the forefront of such efforts, the report was taken as a debunking of New Urbanism in general and got lots and lots of press. The […]

L.A. building schools close to freeways

More than 60,000 students in Los Angeles attend school within 500 feet of a highway, and seven more traffic-spooning campuses are in the works, despite health experts’ warnings that such pollution-proximate students are at increased risk of asthma and other illnesses. All of the schools will be built with air-filtration systems, but such systems do […]

Bush’s climate summit promises no change in U.S. stance

Bush may be hosting a climate summit this week, but "what he will not do, officials said, is chart any shift in policies." Specifically, the Washington Post reports:

Top Bush administration officials said the president is not planning to alter his opposition to mandatory limits on greenhouse gases or to stray from his emphasis on promoting new technologies, especially for nuclear power and for the storage of carbon dioxide produced by coal plants.

This is straight from the Frank Luntz playbook on how to seem like you care about the climate when you don't: Technology, technology, technology. Yada. Yada. Yada. Delay, delay, delay.

Leaders of Chile, Austria, Ecuador, and other countries talk about the climate challenge

Here at today's U.N. Climate Summit in New York, everyone seems to agree that bringing America into a leadership role on climate change is a necessary condition for forestalling the climate change crisis. From my perspective, then, the success or failure of this summit should be judged by its ability to make progress on that front.

We've heard from -- among others -- Chilean President Michelle Bachelet and Federal Chancellor of Austria Alfred Gusenbauer, both of whom delivered passionate speeches about the pressing need for mitigation but without really explaining why countries (and America in particular) are hesitant to mitigate their emissions or how to upend that hesitance. We've heard about California's inspiring example, without hearing how crucial it is for that example to influence the greater United States. And on and on.

I stole that headline from this NYT article

To turf, or not to turf? The controversy continues.

Loggerhead turtle populations declining

Loggerhead turtle populations rose in the 1990s but are now falling again, according to a recent federal review. Thanks, commercial fishing!

Bush parallel climate meetings intended to avoid binding treaty

Bush is blowing off the U.N. climate meeting happening this week, choosing instead to focus on his parallel international climate meetings. I ask you to savor the multiple absurdities embedded in this paragraph in the NYT: Mr. Bush’s aides say that the parallel meeting does not compete against the United Nations’ process — hijacking it, […]

An amazing AP article on sea level rise

This weekend, the AP released the following story:

Global warming -- through a combination of melting glaciers, disappearing ice sheets and warmer waters expanding -- is expected to cause oceans to rise by one meter, or about 39 inches. It will happen regardless of any future actions to curb greenhouse gases, several leading scientists say. And it will reshape the nation.

Wow! The first amazing thing is the confidence with which AP makes a statement beyond the IPCC's scientific consensus. This is what most of the experts I spoke to for my book said, and I'm glad to see it in print (kudos to AP reporter Seth Borenstein):

Few of the more than two dozen climate experts interviewed disagree with the one-meter projection. Some believe it could happen in 50 years, others say 100, and still others say 150.

The second amazing thing is this quote: