Latest Articles

He proposes a carbon tax, assuming it will fail

Last Sunday, Rep. John Dingell appeared on the C-SPAN show Newsmakers for a 30-min. interview (transcript here; video accessible via the website), and caused an enormous ruckus with this: SWAIN: Mr. Chairman, I want to go back to your statement that the American people want action [on climate change]. Does that also correlate with the […]

Videos for your viewing pleasure, if that’s the word for it

Film director Robert Greenwald has been producing a series of videos exposing Fox News as a propaganda arm of the far right wing (is "exposing" the right word when everyone already knows it?), under the rubric Fox Attacks. The latest in the series is Fox Attacks: The Environment, which is about Fox’s hackery on the […]

A new study puts the old canard to rest

One of the most common arguments against organic farming is that it can't possibly provide enough food to feed the planet's burgeoning population. Low yields and lack of organically acceptable nitrogen sources, it's been said, will always confine its production scale to the realms of specialty groceries and farmer's markets. Now researchers at the University of Michigan have decided to examine these claims with some scientific scrutiny. Their findings?

"Organic farming can yield up to three times as much food as conventional farming on the same amount of land."

If this is surprising, the authors say it's because many people in developing countries can't afford to buy the fertilizers that hybrid seeds require in order to produce top yields. So they're better off bypassing the biotech system altogether, instead using traditional seeds and so-called "green manures." These manures are cover crops planted in-between harvests and then plowed back into the soil. The authors found that this method provided sufficient nitrogen to farm without using any synthetic fertilizers.

Said one of the study's lead authors, "Corporate interest in agriculture and the way agriculture research has been conducted in land grant institutions, with a lot of influence by the chemical companies and pesticide companies as well as fertilizer companies -- all have been playing an important role in convincing the public that you need to have these inputs to produce food."

A guest essay from Greenpeace scientists

A while back, after some criticisms of his company on this site, I ran an essay by Russ George, CEO of Planktos, defending his work. What follows is a response to that essay from the UK-based Greenpeace Science Unit. —– Russ George, CEO of self-professed ‘ecorestoration’ company Planktos, seems increasingly convinced that opposition to his […]

A guest essay from Geoffrey Holland

This is a guest essay by Geoffrey Holland, co-author (with James Provenzano) of The Hydrogen Age: Empowering a Clean Energy Future, which will be out in the fall. I know there are many hydrogen skeptics in the audience, so remember: keep it civil and substantive. —– Of the vexing challenges humanity faces — and there […]

Thanks for the observation, Washington Post

Today’s “I’m a journalist and I’m objective, here let me prove it to you!” gem of the day, nestled in an otherwise relevant and interesting Washington Post article on the costs of climate change: Some have argued that the effects of global warming will be positive as well as negative, and Frumhoff acknowledged that there […]

Tell Us What You Flaunt, What You Really Really Flaunt

Spice Girls reunion tour will be — gasp — carbon-intensive We’ve been looking for an excuse to mention the Spice Girls reunion since it was announced two weeks ago, and we’ve finally got one. It seems that — brace yourself — the group’s world tour will not be eco-friendly. In fact, each Girl will get […]

Sounds Perfecto to Us

Organic farming can yield more food than conventional ag, says analysis In developed countries, organic farming can yield nearly as much food as pesticide-heavy agriculture, and in developing countries can produce up to three times as much chow, says a new analysis of 293 published studies on organic yields. “My hope is that we can […]

Unhappy Feet

Manatees may lose endangered status, penguins may get it Manatees and penguins and hornshell clams, oh my! Yes, it’s time for an endangered-species update. Flush with success from removing the bald eagle from the endangered-species list, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is suggesting that Florida manatees be downlisted from “endangered” to “threatened” status. It’s […]

Now That’s an Exit Strategy

Sens. Bingaman, Specter introduce industry-backed climate legislation Two U.S. senators have introduced climate legislation that’s a bold compromise or a copout, depending whom you ask. The Low Carbon Economy Act, sponsored by Sens. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), would cut current U.S. carbon-dioxide emissions 60 percent by 2050, using a cap-and-trade system that […]