Latest Articles

Solar is making boats go now — take that, wind!

Wind, you think you are so badass. I tell you, solar is creeping up on you where you least expect it:

A Nation columnist goes contrarian; GM goes the other way

Did lefty pundit Alexander Cockburn and corporate behemoth General Motors secretly agree to swap climate positions?

It looks that way. GM, swallowing hard, recently joined the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, the elite enviro-business coalition pushing cap-and-trade -- a so-called "market-based system" for controlling carbon dioxide emissions. Meanwhile, the famously acidic Cockburn lacerated global warming orthodoxy in his column in the Nation magazine, deriding it as a "fearmongers' catechism [of] crackpot theories" ginned up by "grant-guzzling climate careerists" and opportunistic politicians looking to ride the greenhouse "threatosphere" all the way to the White House. (Whew!)

But there's less here than meets the eye. For as the inconvenient details of cap-and-trade schemes start to surface, USCAP is looking less and less like a CO2 control lobby and more like a corporate club seeking to cash in on the rising clamor against free carbon spewing. And Cockburn, it turns out, has been raining on the climate crisis parade for years.

The federal gov’t is blocking state efforts to fight climate change

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) and Connecticut Gov. Jodi Rell (R) take to the pages of the Washington Post to send President Bush a simple message: “It’s high time the federal government becomes our partner or gets out of the way.” At issue is the waiver Calif. and 11 other states need from the EPA […]

This Sounds Like a Job For … Nobody

Workaholics, especially American ones, are ruining the planet Now here’s a theory we can get behind: workaholism is ruining the earth. “We are proudly breaking our backs to decrease the carrying capacity of the planet,” says Conrad Schmidt, proponent of the 32-hour work week, who declares that overwork leads to overconsumption, pollution, and less fulfilling […]

The Tête Offensive

French eco-groups get face time with new president Nicolas Sarkozy is better known as a friend to big business than as a friend to the environment, but the newly elected French president is reaching out nonetheless. Yesterday, three days after taking office, he gathered representatives from nine green groups — along with the head of […]

Britney Was Ahead of Her Time

Some car seats leach toxic chemicals, says new report Car seats have joined baby bottles and bath toys on the ever-growing list of Evil Things You’re Subjecting Your Child To. The Michigan-based Ecology Center tested 62 models of tot-toters, finding that about a third can leach chemicals such as chlorine, bromine, and lead. The center, […]

For the Love of … You Know

Religious leaders urge Congress, Bush to act on climate change After millennia of mistrust and conflict, the world’s religions might be united by … climate change? In an open letter published today in two Capitol Hill newspapers, the leaders of more than 20 religious groups urged Congress and President Bush to act on the issue. […]

Conservative blog doesn’t read studies it writes about

As discussed last week, Planet Gore's Sterling Burnett was upset with the media for supposedly ignoring "the recent reports by MIT and the CBO [PDFs] detailing the substantial costs and regressive nature of the costs that are estimated to arise if any of the current domestic proposals restricting carbon emissions to combat global warming are enacted."

Given that the MIT report in fact concluded the exact opposite of what Sterling claimed -- and given the fact that the National Review typically doesn't complain about the regressive nature of, say, tax cuts for the wealthy -- I'm guessing you won't be surprised to learn that the CBO report also comes to a different conclusion than Sterling claims.

Drilling for oil is good for climate change — see how!

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) explains why drilling in the Arctic Refuge will help us fight climate change: Won’t drilling for more oil make global warming worse? What some might perceive as the contradiction in further drilling, when we take into account the mean estimate of what we take from ANWR, it will be the […]

The paper vs. plastic question must die

Ok, I'm whining. But the obsession with paper vs. plastic shopping bags just plain bugs me.

As The Oregonian's Michael Milstein correctly points out: both paper and plastic have their pros and cons. Plastic has some surprising environmental advantages (more here), but also some unexpected drawbacks, including gumming up recycling equipment -- which makes it hard to figure out which option is actually worse in practice. But quite clearly, reusing bags you already have is better than asking for a new one.

The thing is, we already know all this. What's more, we've known it for decades.

And (heresy alert!) the truth is that paper-vs-plastic is an astonishingly low-priority issue.