Latest Articles

Wild Thing, You Make My Heart Sink

Wilderness is pretty much a thing of the past, says report Regardless of whether humankind was given dominion over the earth, we’ve most certainly taken it. A new report in Science calculates that only 17 percent of global land mass has been untainted by human dwellings, agriculture, or roads. And that was as of 1995; […]

We Always Thought It Was Industrial Strength

McDonald’s to power U.K. delivery fleet with its own grease Proving once again that everything’s cooler in Europe, McDonald’s has announced that it will run all its U.K. delivery vehicles on biodiesel — from its own greasy grills! The chain will convert the 155-lorry fleet to a mix of 85 percent fry grease and 15 […]

After All, She Knows The Secret

Poll respondents pick Al, Oprah, and Kofi as climate messengers Recent polls have shown that people all over the world … join hands, start a love train, love train! Oh sorry, we get distracted. People all over the world are worried about the environment — and the latest poll says that Oprah could help save […]

Readers write in about violent fires, violently bad puns, and more

  Dear Editor: How significant is the difference between one idiot burning a building full of rare plant tissues, research, writing, curricula, slides, and books all regarding the worthy goal of a better understanding of the natural world and the idiot who burns a church because it is occupied by a group of people they […]

Another rad bike

The coolest, greenest bike ever.

Tubular, dude!

Nature is still the best engineer -- though good human ones take advantage whenever possible.

Here's a terrific, hopeful story about a bike designer who got a dog-gone good idea about making bike frames out of a widely grown, cheap, strong, environmentally sound material: bamboo.

Now we just need to get BioD and this guy hooked up:

An editorial in the NYT

Al Gore: … we should demand that the United States join an international treaty within the next two years that cuts global warming pollution by 90 percent in developed countries and by more than half worldwide in time for the next generation to inherit a healthy Earth. … We should aim to complete this global […]

Predicts rabbit out of hat in three years, too

Here's a film clip of Al Gore making a firm prediction that "next generation ethanol" not dependent on corn or food crops will move out of the lab in "three years."

He discusses the energy balance question, fails to question the use of coal for process heat, and suggests that there is some sort of "distribution network" that's going to be built.

Sad.

Some good news and some bad news

First up is an interview with Jack Ewing, owner of an eco-lodge in Costa Rica. I must admit that writing checks to conservation organizations is about as pleasurable as a trip to the dentist. Spending a week in a place like Hacienda Barú also supports conservation and is a hell of a lot more fun. I managed to photograph about half of the wildlife I saw while staying less than a week in Costa Rica. Best vacation I've ever had. I might put the video (much more interesting than photos) on YouTube one of these days.

After reading that upbeat article, grit your teeth and click on the one about the eminent extinction of the orangutan and understand that palm biodiesel will play a large role in it.

Taking ’em to the mat

The first rule of Carbon Offsets is, you do not talk about Carbon Offsets.

Just kidding. This isn't Fight Club, but I do aim to pick a fight with those overhyping offsets.

If a smart company like Google can seriously think it can go green by burning coal and then buying offsets and if a smart company like PG&E is bragging about a new program that allows customers to offset their electricity emissions by planting trees (a dopey program I'll blog about later), then something is very wrong about the general understanding of offsets.

For those who want a basic introduction to offsets, Wikipedia has an excellent entry. I believe the more you know about and think about offsets, the less appealing they are, as these articles make clear.

No rules of the road exist for offsets. Until now. In subsequent posts, I will offer my own rules based on dozens of discussions over the past decade with environmentalists, energy experts, corporations, and would-be offsetters. I'll post the first rule tomorrow, but it can be summed up in two words: No trees!

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.