Latest Articles

No more compromise

This is one issue where there can't be any compromise at this point: the demand for shark fin soup is decimating shark populations and marine ecosystems, and must stop. Whereas most forms of animal consumption put strains on ecosystems, this practice is extreme and environmentalists should continue to wage a "zero tolerance" campaign against it. It's not cultural imperialism or Big Brother, it's common sense and respect for life.

Let’s Balk About Sex

Eastern Pacific gray whales, tired and hungry, are breeding less Researchers say the gray whales of the eastern Pacific are in deep trouble, and their fate could be an indicator of ocean health. According to Earthwatch, whales migrating from their feeding grounds north of Seattle to breeding grounds off the Mexican coast are arriving scrawny, […]

That’s One Way to Push Public Transportation

Gasoline-tanker explosion melts bridge, snarls traffic in Bay Area Hundreds of thousands of Bay Area residents faced a hellish commute today because of a major accident that speaks loads about transportation and convenience in our modern age. Early Sunday, a tanker carrying 8,600 gallons of unleaded gas overturned and exploded, causing a section of highway […]

One Fight In Bangkok

Scientists, others gather in Thailand to finalize third IPCC report In its third report of the year, due out Friday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will recommend climate solutions. (The first report confirmed the existence and science of our collective mess, and the second outlined its likely effects.) So what will save us? A […]

What the choco-giants are up to.

A couple of weeks ago, we noted here that Big Food is haranguing the FDA to loosen the definition of “chocolate” to allow for adulteration. At the time, I didn’t know why the industrial chocolate giants were agitating for this dubious cause. Now I think I know: cocoa-bean prices rose abruptly last year, pushed up […]

Imagine: charging polluters to encourage the others!

Sam Smith, publisher of the estimable e-letter The Progressive Review, is perhaps the ultimate pragmatic environmentalist, with a sharp eye for what works and a sharper ability to deflate the pompous and overly-self-loving.

He is often the sole commenter picking up on policy proposals and practices that a less parochial media less obsessed with infotainment would be interested in -- such as the success of congestion charges in London's central district, implemented by Mayor "Red Ken" Livingstone (elected by IRV):

Dueling assumptions

Kudos to Andy Revkin for giving some exposure to (occasional contributor) Charles Komanoff of Carbon Tax Center fame. Komanoff articulates a common fear about carbon offsets: Charles Komanoff, an energy economist in New York, said the commercial market in climate neutrality could have even more harmful effects. It could, by suggesting there’s an easy way […]

A video compilation

The South Carolina debate among Democratic presidential candidates on Thursday didn’t exactly light my fire, but there were some decent bits. LCV’s Heat Is On program is rounding up all sorts of good YouTube clips relating to global warming, and they’ve got a cut together video of every mention of climate change in the debate:

Australia’s great drought

The Economist has a great article on Australia's crippling drought. If this is what global warming is likely to bring Australia, we should pay attention and hopefully learn something about how best to cope.

The latest on smart grids, microgrids, and nerd grids

Three good bits from the smart grid front. First up, there’s a new report out from the California Energy Commission called Distributed Generation and Cogeneration Policy Roadmap for California (PDF). Hot reading! The New Rules Project has a nice write-up on it. See also the NRP’s section on barriers to distributed generation. Next up, five […]