Climate Climate & Energy

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  • Earth Day gets no respect

    Grist hates Earth Day because it thinks every day should be Earth Day. I’ve got a different grievance, however. There’s no @#$&ing enforcement with Earth Day. Anyone can claim anything on Earth Day.

    John Passacantando Climate & Energy

  • Anti-wind now not just for NIMBY’s

    Opposition to wind power used to be the province of NIMBY’s who quailed at the supposed intrusion into their viewsheds and soundsheds. No more. Wind power is big — its share of U.S. electricity reached 1.3% last year — and getting bigger fast enough to alarm the Far Right and other feeders at the trough […]

    Charles Komanoff Climate & Energy

  • CHP primer: Fun with thermodynamics

    Those of us who believe (as I do) that there are massive opportunities to reduce US energy costs while simultaneously lowering our greenhouse gas footprint spend a lot of time getting into arguments with bad economists.  These folks remember just enough of freshman theory (supply, demand, price, blah blah blah) to assert confidently that if […]

    Sean Casten Climate & Energy

  • What baseball can teach policymakers

    With the Major League Baseball season having just begun, I’m reminded of the truism that the best teams win their divisions in the regular season, but the hot teams win in the post-season playoffs.  Why the difference?  The regular season is 162 games long, but the post-season consists of just a few brief 5-game and […]

    Robert Stavins Climate & Energy

  • Another 125 million?

    As climate change impacts ramp up over the coming years, we have a serious choice to make. We can try to run in between the raindrops, or we can figure out how to build the equivalent of sturdy, innovative umbrellas. Millions more people, mostly living in the world’s poorest regions, are expected to be directly […]

    David Waskow Climate & Energy

  • Steven Chu doesn’t talk in sound bites

    My oh my, how times have changed. For eight years, Washington was run by a crew that seemed to take delight in not sounding brainy, in being plain-spoken and “common-sensical.” Time after time, you’d see reporters banging their heads against the wall when President Bush or his minions would answer complex questions with non-answer answers […]

    Russ Walker Climate & Energy

  • Fast action on climate change

    This is a guest post from Ted Glick, a long-time progressive and climate activist. More information and contact information can be found at tedglick.com Tomorrow, April 20th, I and over 200 other people around the country and from several countries will be fasting. We’ll be doing so to make a statement that it is long […]

    Jon Rynn Climate & Energy

  • A Sea Change on film

    Ocean acidification is an issue that may not be on everyone’s lips, but its causes, solutions, and dire impacts if gone unaddressed are the same as climate change. A Sea Change (check the trailer below the fold) is a new documentary on the subject that follows retired educator Sven Huseby on a mission to Norway […]

    Erik Hoffner Climate & Energy

  • The unrecognized link between water and energy

    Photo: rutloOur nation is in the midst of some serious energy and water problems, but what many may not realize is that these two issues are very closely linked (see the recent Wall Street Journal article on this topic). The truth is that energy and water are related in just about every way you can […]

    Amy Hardberger Climate & Energy

  • Earth Day reflections on food as an environmental issue

    Courtesy Stewart via Flickr Michael Pollan ended The Omnivore’s Dilemma with this line: “we eat by the grace of nature, not of industry, and what we’re eating is never anything more or less than the body of the world.” Sustenance, it seems to me, has always been humanity’s most persistent and direct link to the […]

    Tom Philpott Climate & Energy