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  • House GOP proposes 25% national energy tax, recycles Cheney energy plan

    Badly outnumbered and months behind in the debate on energy and climate change, House Republicans plan to introduce an energy bill on Wednesday as an alternative to the Democratic plan barreling toward a House vote this month. The Republican proposal, drafted by a group led by Representative Mike Pence of Indiana, leans heavily on nuclear […]

  • AP, Washington Times: “Experts suspect global warming” in Brazil’s brutal flooding

    Big media struggles with how – or even whether – to explain to the public that the increase in extreme weather we are seeing is precisely what scientists have been predicting would occur because of human-caused climate change (see, for instance, “CNN, ABC, WashPost, AP, blow Australian wildfire, drought, heatwave “Hell (and High Water) on […]

  • Short term memory won’t cut it

    I don’t think that NGOs were ever terribly confident about the dedication of countries to stopping climate change, but listening to conversations here at Bonn there seems to be an increasing anger at the determinedly short memories and short-sightedness of developed countries. I am hearing more and more at press conferences, side events and in […]

  • A climate policy for agriculture that works

    A proven climate solution. Not since Earl Butz’s famous “hedgerow to hedgerow” comment of the 1970s have America’s farmers been at such a turning point. Food and farming policy in the United States is largely determined by the Farm Bill, behemoth legislation that comes around once every five years.  Yet, the current climate legislation–The American […]

  • Breaking: Obama says mountain crimes can be regulated

    “Mountaintop removal is a crime–and ought to be treated as a crime.” — Al Gore “Mountaintop removal is a crime against local people, nature, our children, and our planet.” — Dr. James Hansen, NASA The Washington Post headline this morning cut to this chase: “Obama is Right to Allow Mountaintop Removal Mining.” Only two days […]

  • Do dirty coal plants make us more vulnerable to swine flu?

    Scientists have discovered that exposure to a common pollutant may make people more likely to experience severe symptoms from swine flu — and it’s a pollutant emitted in large quantities by coal-burning power plants and other industrial facilities. The culprit is arsenic, a highly poisonous semi-metal which, according to a new study by researchers at […]

  • Imperium CEO can’t take the truth

    Michael Kanellos said the following in his Greentech Innovations Report last week: “A tour of its portfolio shows it has made some pretty good bets, and also nabbed some major clunkers. …On the other hand, it also put money into Imperium Renewables, the dead-as-Latin biofuel maker.” … Down in the comment field, the CEO of […]

  • As Energy Northwest looks to nuclear power, expert details risks

    Last week, news broke that regional power consortium Energy Northwest may be looking to build another nuclear reactor in Washington state. The last time Energy Northwest went after nuclear power, they were known as Washington Public Power Supply System — or WPPSS, which eventually came to be pronounced as “whoops” when only one of five […]

  • West Va. Supreme Court affirms toxic coal silo as wonderful playground

    While coal may now be the official rock of West Virginia, it might soon become the official school vegetable, too. Call it organic clean coal. On the heels of being reprimanded by the US Supreme Court this week for allowing one of its Massey coal company-bankrolled justices to refuse to recuse himself on Massey coal-related […]

  • Coming global warming limits in China?

    News coming out of China provides some hints that they might adopt a domestic limit to reduce their global warming.  As China Daily is reporting: “China will put in place carbon dioxide emissions targets for its economic and social development programs, the central government has promised.It also signals that China may be considering national goals […]