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UK biz ahead of schedule

This story is pretty cool, though I expect there's more than a little CBI PR behind it.

Steel, aluminum, cement and chemical makers made the biggest cuts to carbon dioxide emissions. Along with paper, food and drink companies, they also took the biggest strides when it came to energy efficiency.

But let's talk about the caption. WTF? Nothing in the story so much as touches on the science of climate change. BBC just thought it was worth pointing out?

When they have a story on, say, new gene research, do they caption their picture with "the science of evolution has been disputed"?

Foreign oil

I've pretty much concluded that any story or speech that includes the term "foreign oil" is full of it. There is no foreign oil or domestic oil. There's a worldwide oil market. Cut off oil from one source? Another source compensates. Produce more oil domestically? Prices drop a tiny bit, equally for everyone.

The problem, if problem there be, is not "foreign oil." It's oil. Anyone who says otherwise is trying to pull something over on you.

Barton controversy hits the bigtime.

David Ignatius covers the Barton controversy for The Washington Post. Glad to see it's hitting the bigtime. I would take issue with this, though:

Even President Bush agreed that the scientific evidence is solid by endorsing a Group of Eight communique this month that described climate change as "a serious and long-term challenge" and warning that human activities "contribute in large part to increases in greenhouse gases associated with the warming of our Earth's surface."

As Chris Mooney has carefully demonstrated (and many others have argued as well), the G8 statement shows a lot more movement of other countries' positions toward America's than vice versa.

Weeding, Writing, ‘Rithmetic

Locally grown foods catching on at college dining halls The local-and-seasonal food movement is going to college. About 200 schools around the country have joined programs that supply them with locally grown foods, like Brown University in Providence, R.I., where locally farmed Pippin and Macoun apples proved so much more popular than Granny Smiths and […]

John G. Roberts’ enviro record not so green, but also not provoking a lot of protest

John G. Roberts (left) and President Bush. Photo: The White House/Eric Draper. Not only are the far-right Family Research Council and the biz-friendly U.S. Chamber of Commerce raving about President Bush’s nominee for the Supreme Court, but plenty of liberals have glowing words for John G. Roberts Jr. too. Georgetown law professor Richard Lazarus, a […]

The Pernicious Effects of Hollywood Liberalism

Californians believe global warming is real and want state to act Most Californians believe their state should take action now to regulate human activities that are heating up the planet. According to a survey conducted by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California, 86 percent think global warming will affect them or their descendants, and […]

Body Count

Americans’ bodies harbor numerous toxins, big study finds The largest-ever study of human chemical exposure shows that Americans are carrying dozens of potentially harmful toxic compounds in their bodies. Researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control tested some 2,400 people in 2000 and 2001 and found more than 100 worrying compounds, many with known […]

Green building builds on successes

The Leadership in Energy and Environmetal Design standard is becoming quite its own recognized brand name. Bill Walsh, founder of the Healthy Building Network, fielded some questions on it in his InterActivist interview this past winter.

The standard no longer just applies to buildings, though. Neighborhood development is being targeted for a LEED certification as well. Sharing many principles with New Urbanism and Smart Growth, the certification aims to reward developers for thinking green on the neighborhood level (or larger).

The World Bank gets called out

One look at the World Bank's homepage would certainly give the impression that the institution has a new focus -- climate change. "Working together to beat the heat," the banner declares.

The bank has its work cut out for it if those words are going to be anything more than just that, words, says Daphne Wysham of NPR's Marketplace (see also her essay on the subject in Grist).

She has a few suggestions of her own -- ending funding for coal and oil projects, increasing funding for renewables, and, ahem, actually measuring the impacts of its projects on global warming, just to start.

When it comes to green products, who’s zoomin’ who?

“I don’t trust ‘natural.’ People are always dying of natural causes.”— Woman looking at food labels, in a Richard Guindon cartoon Roll playing games? Photo: Laura Cacho. Shoppers of the world, I have just one question: Are you an eco-chump? Lots of us try to shop green. We buy unbleached paper towels and recycled products, […]