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All but one of the R’s voted against it

Pelosi has announced the membership of her new global warming committee. Here are the Democrats, appointed by Pelosi: Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Chairman Earl Blumenauer of Oregon Jay Inslee of Washington John Larson of Connecticut Hilda Solis of California Stephanie Herseth of South Dakota Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri John Hall of New York Jerry McNerney […]

A sensible way to view them

Greg Easterbrook, whom I respect (even though I don't always agree with him) has an interesting op-ed in today's New York Times on carbon offsets.

He examines the issue and concludes that reducing greenhouse gases will be a boon for developing countries because it will be cheaper for us to pay them to reduce greenhouse gases than for us to.

Spring summit underway

From an article in the Guardian:

Divisions over nuclear power and renewable energy threatened to derail the EU's campaign to assume a global leadership role in the fight against climate change at the bloc's spring summit which began last night. [...]

But France, backed by several east European countries, insisted carbon-free nuclear power be included within the EU energy mix and rejected [German Chancellor] Angela Merkel's proposal to make a 20 percent target for renewable energy binding on all 27 members.

At his swansong summit, the outgoing French president Jacques Chirac insisted that he would only agree to binding energy targets if nuclear power were included and proposed that 45 percent of the mix come from non-fossil fuel sources. France gets 80 percent of its power from nuclear power plants.

Aristotle in the climate age

Alex Steffen: To think that we can “solve” climate change without addressing poverty, human rights, democratization, conflict, epidemic disease, biodiversity loss, water scarcity, food issues and the like is to suffer from carbon blindness. Any climate plan which does not have sustainable prosperity as its ultimate goal will fail, just as surely as any effort […]

Young Dems sexify your mug

It’s about cups. Sexy, sexy cups. Well, actually it’s about getting college students thinking about the planet and about changing their personal habits. But the “sexy” sure doesn’t hurt. The University of Washington’s Young Democrats club launched a Sustainability is Sexy campaign this month to encourage students to bring their own cups to the campus’s […]

Global Inheritance seeks creative types for new project

The creative minds over at Global Inheritance are at it again with an exciting (and somewhat mysterious) project they’re calling the Energy FACTory. The project will be part of a … ahem … certain live event reaching some 200,000+ people over a 10-day period in SoCal in late April/early May. (My sources reveal that the […]

Cuba’s response to its peak oil emergency

The Orion Grassroots Network just screened this new film The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil for a capacity crowd, and I'd recommend it to any organizer seeking to stimulate conversation about how to start to getting our communities off of oil.

Vote passes easily

Today the House of Representatives voted to create the much-discussed committee on global warming: The U.S. House of Representatives Thursday passed a rule to create a committee that will focus on climate change. On a vote of 228-195, the House approved creation of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. House Speaker Nancy […]

An ecotourism success story

Conservation news is generally depressing, to say the least. Apparently, this has been pointed out to the folks at Mongabay and that is why they came up with the "happy-upbeat environmental news" section for those who just can't take it anymore. I really enjoyed this story about two Ecuadorian brothers who turned their land into a birder's paradise rather than a plantation. I know a few birders and they spend most of their vacations looking for new species to cross off their "must see before I die" list. Some are taking it to another level with photos that they can upload to the internet for additional bragging rights.

Blog Against Sexism Day

Today is International Women’s Day, and in honor of that, bloggers are banding together for Blog Against Sexism Day. So what do environmental concerns and women’s issues have in common (and how much do I hate the phrase “women’s issues” anyway? I can’t think of one of ’em that’s not everyone’s issue)? Well, where to […]