Latest Articles
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Middlebury’s nordic ski team goes climate neutral
The Middlebury College Nordic Ski Team is starting off the athletic season with a clear conscience. Well aware of how global warming could eliminate their sport altogether, the team is going green to protect the white stuff. After calculating their environmental footprint -- from the eco-costs of travel to the energy used to power coach Andrew Gardner's office -- the skiers decided to go climate neutral.
They've partnered with NativeEnergy, a Native-owned renewable energy company that will use the money from the skiers' offsets to support wind-driven local energy creation.
"NativeEnergy is proud to work with these athletes to help build new renewable energy projects that will help preserve the skiing experience we all enjoy," said NativeEnergy's Thomas Hand, who also happens to be a Middlebury alum and one of my favorite eco-dreamboats.
Update [2006-10-6 14:3:2 by Sarah van Schagen]: I just received an email from Thomas Hand (swoon!) letting me know that the Middlebury Alpine Ski Team has also gone carbon neutral. Here's to a great (eco-conscious) season!
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Can industrial agriculture withstand climate change?
If the fossil fuels don’t getcha, the genetics will. Photo: iStockphoto In the United States, the clearest signs of climate change so far have been stern words from Al Gore and a few hotter-than-normal summers. In Greenland, by contrast, global warming has sparked a revolution — at least, when it comes to agriculture. A recent […]
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That’s All Wells and Good
Wells Fargo becomes biggest corporate buyer of clean energy Banking giant Wells Fargo announced yesterday that it has bought renewable-energy certificates to offset 40 percent of its current electricity usage over the next three years. Amounting to 550 million kilowatt hours of wind power a year, it is the largest-ever corporate purchase of renewable energy […]
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Nothing to Sea Here, Folks
Arctic sea ice melts to second-lowest monthly minimum on record Last month, sea ice in the Arctic melted to the second-lowest monthly minimum it has reached in 29 years of satellite measurements. The ice reached its record monthly minimum in September 2005; scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center say the monthly record […]
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An Embarrassment of Richard
Richard Pombo in danger of losing House seat to Jerry McNerney Rep. Richard Pombo (R), chair of the House Resources Committee and bugbear of the environmental community, is in a knock-down, drag-out fight to win an eighth term representing California’s 11th congressional district. Pombo has far more moolah than his Democratic challenger, Jerry McNerney, but […]
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Craigslist founder teaches us a lesson
What if everyone in America thought like Craig?
The founder of craigslist, the free social networking and classifieds Web site, said on Thursday he is not interested in selling out, a few hours after social networking site MySpace was valued at $15 billion.
"Who needs the money? We don't really care," Craig Newmark said in an interview at the Picnic '06 Cross Media Week conference here.
"If you're living comfortably, what's the point of having more?" Newmark said. -
A former fisherman responds to David Benton’s Q&A
Following Grist's Q&A with David Benton of the Marine Conservation Alliance, George Pletnikoff -- a former fisherman who now works with Greenpeace -- wrote to respond to some of Benton's points, arguing that the Alaskan fisheries are not quite the model of sustainability.
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I read with interest the article about David Benton of the Marine Conservation Alliance. The board and funders of the Marine Conservation Alliance are a veritable who's who of the industrial fisheries (mostly draggers and factory trawlers), and they have a right to their perspective. But being an Aleut from the Pribilof Islands, I have a different worldview and understanding of what is happening in Alaskan waters. I would like to respond to Benton's brave statement that Alaskan fisheries are healthy and that there are no examples of any overfishing practices. To the contrary, the examples abound.
The North Pacific Fishery Management Council manages the lucrative pollock fishery -- lucrative for the moment, that is, for one or two fishing communities and for the Seattle owners. Under the "precautionary" catch limits set by the NPFMC, three of the region's main pollock fisheries have been closed or severely limited due to overfishing: two in the Bering Sea (the Aleutian Island and Bogoslov fisheries) and one in the Gulf of Alaska (the Shelikof Strait roe fishery). Despite use of "strict guidelines," these fisheries have been decimated by the same catch formulas still in use to determine the total allowable catch for pollock in the Bering Sea.
Today, the vast majority of the fishing pressure is on the spawning aggregation in the eastern Bering Sea, home to the last pollock stock capable of supporting a sizable commercial fishery. Yet, there are no marine reserves set up to protect spawning fish. And what does the NPFMC say about this? "We use the best available science to determine total allowable catch limits."
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Battles it out with recalcitrant CNN anchor
Check out the video of Sen. James Inhofe appearing on the cable news show of Miles O'Brien, the very CNN anchor that slammed his wackadoo speech from a few weeks ago.
It's ... tense. Inhofe is courteous in that blank-eyed, sociopathic way that makes you think he'd just as soon strangle O'Brien as talk to him. "Keep smiling ..." he said at the end. Shiver.
The whole segment is a dense exchange of dueling quotes from scientific studies. At one point, Inhofe even says, "well, you have your scientific study, I have mine." As if this is just a he-said she-said thing, don't you know.
Of course O'Brien was in the right, and kudos to him for having the right studies on hand to rebut Inhofe's distortions. But more than anything this clip shows how deeply unsuited cable television is for educating viewers on these things. The barrage of science becomes white noise, and that's just what Inhofe wants.
I wish O'Brien had asked a simple question: "The overwhelming majority of climate scientists take one position. A tiny minority, many funded by fossil fuel industries, take another. Why have you, in your capacity as a U.S. Senator, chosen to champion this tiny minority so vocally?"
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Good news on ivory bills, bad news on border fence, and more
Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: Anyone Got an Extra PFD? Bluster’s Last Stand The Amazing Technicolor Dream Cote Bird Mentality Tender Loving Caribou Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: Branson With the Stars Majora League The Revolution Will Be Criticized A Bern Talking-To Engine Block
