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Good on ’em

I just got this email from MoveOn.org: Dear MoveOn member, Did you know the U.S. right now gets only 2% of our electricity from clean energy sources like solar and wind? We have the technology. We know people want it. We just haven’t had the political will. But Congress is voting this week on H.R. […]

The Simpsons Movie reviewed

I saw the Simpsons Movie Thursday night. However, I'm not going to discuss major plot details here. As we learned from Pottergate 2007, Grist readers don't like spoilers -- not even fake ones.

The movie definitely has an environmental theme (one highlight was the scene where Nelson bullies Milhouse into expressing climate change skepticism, then punches him in the face, yelling, "That's for selling out your beliefs!"), but you'll have to find out on your own which of the rumors I alluded to in my last post are true.

Distributed power could have saved us some serious pain over there

Earlier this year, it was reported that residents of Baghdad could count on about five or six hours of electricity a day. Last week, it was reported that they could now count on about … one. The Bush administration’s response to this trend is paradigmatically Bushian: it’s going to stop reporting. Seriously: But that piece […]

Interesting stuff on the hottest new green tech

I’ve been waiting for a good excuse to link to Earth2Tech, an interesting new project from internet legend Om Malik’s GigaOm family of blogs. It’s focused on clean tech startups, which as we all know are the hot new thing. I’ve also been waiting for a good excuse to post something about thin-film solar, which […]

An interview with Barack Obama about his presidential platform on energy and the environment

This is part of a series of interviews with presidential candidates produced jointly by Grist and Outside. Barack Obama at an Earth Day 2007 event. Photo: Michael Millhollin In his two and a half years in the U.S. Senate, Barack Obama has been active — even hyperactive — on matters of energy and the environment. […]

Harkin wants to boost land conservation

Here’s some reasonably heartening news from CQ.com: The Senate is prepared to write a dramatically different farm bill than the version the House passed last week. The Senate debate will not happen until September or later. For now, Senate Agriculture Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, has promised to increase funding for land-conservation programs far above House […]

Back(ground) in black

It's called Blackle -- a black version of Google -- and according to this blogpost, it could save 8.3 Megawatt-hours per day, or about 3000 Megawatt-hours a year globally:

Senate Majority Leader vows opposition to Nevada coal plants

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has occasionally been viewed with suspicion by enviros, thanks to his friendliness with the mining industry. This should help patch things up: U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada sent a letter this week to four companies telling them not to build planned coal-burning power plants in his […]

A look at Barack Obama’s environmental platform and record

Updated 22 Aug 2008 In the early months of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, enviros were skeptical of his (now heavily qualified) support for coal-to-liquids technology and unvarnished enthusiasm for ethanol, but he earned their respect with his aggressive climate and energy plan. The plan centers on a cap-and-trade system that aims for 80 percent emission […]

Republicans get catty with each other

Wow, two Republicans representing two very different groups have been going after each other on the blogosphere with words and phrases like, "It is my intention to destroy your career as a liar" and "nasty-gram" -- OK, nasty-gram isn't a word, but what do you expect from CEI?