Latest Articles

In which the author finds his dream neighorhood restaurant

In Mad Flavor, the author describes his occasional forays from the farm in search of exceptional culinary experiences from small artisanal producers. Recently, Mad Flavor was on the ground in Chicago — the author’s ancestral home city — a veritable garden of delightful food. I’ve long dreamed of a very particular neighborhood cafe/restaurant. It would […]

A tragedy in Utah and everywhere else, too

Coal is the enemy of the human race, Salon edition: This is the great paradox today: In an age of global warming and greater energy and safety awareness, we are also witnessing the great coal revival. Nearly 50 percent of our electricity still comes from coal — the very energy that runs our computers on […]

Huffington calls on press to do that thing I did

Arianna Huffington wonders why, with all the press coverage of the Utah mine collapse, so little has focused on the horrible safety record, anti-unionism, and political back-room dealings of the mine company’s faux-folksy CEO, Bob Murray. What she does not do, apparently, is read her own site. Just saying.

Economist goes over to the dark side

Some facts to hang your hat on: Good governance might save the day. Bad governance could just make things worse.

I generally agree with Galbraith's opinions. However, there is always a reasonable probability that some of his opinions are wrong (as is true of anybody's opinions, including my own). He's quoted in David's post:

"Planning" is a word that too many in this debate are trying to avoid, fearful, perhaps, of its Soviet overtones. But the reality of climate change is that central planning is essential, and on a grand scale.

History has a bad habit of repeating itself. In the past that was unavoidable because we had no way to record history so future generations would learn from others' mistakes. We don't have that excuse now. Ignoring history in today's information age can't be blamed on ignorance.

Fascinating talk from people at the company

Via Treehugger, Metropolis magazine has posted a transcript of a talk by Scott Charon and Susan Lyons from furniture company Herman Miller. The talk was given at Metropolis‘s conference Design Entrepreneurs: Rethinking Energy. As the eco-geeks among you likely know, Herman Miller is way out ahead of almost any other company on the planet in […]

Move over, 1998

Turns out that in the U.S., 1934 was a bit hotter than 1998. Which matters not a whit for global temperatures, but it's worth reading the story below before the spin machine gears up. Mr. Limbaugh has already started.

"1934, not 1998, the hottest year on record, NASA confirms," from Greenwire ($ub req'd):

To solving our global warming problem

Geo-engineering is "the intentional large scale manipulation of the global environment" (PDF) to counteract the effects of global warming, which itself was unintentional geo-engineering -- although today you'd have to say global warming is intentional, since everybody now knows what we're doing to the planet.

But I digress. We're screwing up the planet with unrestricted greenhouse-gas emissions, and the question is, do we want to try to fix that problem by gambling on some other large-scale effort to manipulate the climate, or should we just try to restrict emissions? It's as if the doctor says you have a disease that can definitely be cured by diet and exercise, but you opt for expensive chemotherapy -- even though the doctor can't guarantee the results but is pretty certain the side effects would be as bad as the disease.

She’s cool

One of the most (OK, only) active members of Congress around the intersection of climate change and race is Rep. Hilda Solis (CA-32). She’s the one who sponsored the Green Jobs Act that Van Jones is so excited about. Here’s a short interview with her, from OpenLeft: Tomorrow, Solis is hosting a community forum of […]

Makes total sense!

On the one hand, Bush and the Republicans say we’re helpless to do anything about global warming until China and India act. On the other hand, the U.S. Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corp. are funneling billions in taxpayer dollars to huge corporations (think Halliburton and Bechtel) to help them construct carbon-intensive hard […]

From Rep. John Larson

Love the carbon tax but can’t stand Dingell? Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) is your man. He just introduced a kick-ass carbon tax bill (PDF) to the House. From Greenwire ($ub req’d): Larson’s legislation would set a $15 tax in its first year for every ton of carbon dioxide emissions from the oil, gas and coal […]