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  • Virginian coal protesters receive B-minus plea bargain for Kingsworth-like activism

    “You’re Hannah, right?” Hannah Morgan, a 20-year old from Appalachia, Virginia, was one of 11 protesters in handcuffs early Monday morning on Sept. 15 at the construction site for a coal-fired power plant being built in Wise County Virginia by Dominion Power. The handcuffs were applied by the police, but the questioner, it turns out, […]

  • Majorities oppose mountaintop removal mining

    The first nationwide poll ever taken on the subject finds that most Americans oppose the practice of mountaintop-removal mining, specifically the Bush administration’s recent bid to repeal the stream buffer zone rule. Of course, much like polls about climate, a high percentage of people willing to say it concerns them does not indicate a high […]

  • A food/climate manifesto presents new visions for responding to climate change

    Turin, Italy — I’ve just come out of the most hopeful and interesting discussions of climate change I’ve ever witnessed. Anchored by Indian food-sovereignty activist Vandana Shiva, the panel discussion at Terra Madre unveiled a new “Manifesto on Climate Change and the Future of Food Security,” drawn up by the International Commission on the Future […]

  • The imminent nuclear revival

    Still imminent! And kudos to Joe for getting a voice of sanity out into the MSM: The critics argue that the same money spent elsewhere — on wind power, or on retrofitting buildings — could create bigger cuts in carbon dioxide output. Joseph J. Romm, an official in the Energy Department during the Clinton administration, […]

  • CAP releases interactive U.S. map of per-capita emissions

    The Center for American Progress has an interactive map up, showing per-capita CO2 emissions from U.S. states. No big shock — the big emitters are the big coal users, and the low emitters are the big hydro users. The point CAP is pushing is this: “The 10 cleanest states based on per capita emissions … […]

  • Massive coal utility agrees to disclose carbon risk

    Here’s another one to file under Bigger Deal Than It Seems. A little over a year ago, I wrote about N.Y. Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s effort to pressure energy companies into fully disclosing their carbon risk. He sent them subpoenas which said, among other things: Any one of the several new or likely regulatory initiatives […]

  • NBC news ignores climate change, blows the bark beetle story

    The oldest Utah newspaper understands “climate change is now being blamed for an increased population of bark beetles.” The journal Nature published an article just this April, “Mountain pine beetle and forest carbon feedback to climate change.” The Canadian media knows, “Climate-Driven Pest Devours Canada’s Forests.” Yet NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams manages to […]

  • With climate change bringing the heat, take a look at the next tourist hot spots

    When we saw this list of so-called “Global Warming’s Winners” on ForbesTraveler.com, at first we thought, “Seriously?” And then we thought, “I sure could go for a cookie!” But after a quick snack, we reconsidered their hot-or-not travel judgments on places that stand to gain or lose from climate change, and made a few assessments […]

  • Solving the financial crisis by averting the climate crisis

    Chip and I have an op-ed in the Seattle Times: "Solving the financial crisis by averting the climate crisis." It begins: Polar ice caps are melting, but Wall Street is melting down. The ongoing financial crisis means that the next president will have to postpone or dramatically scale back plans to address the twin problems […]

  • Recession is the time to build a low-carbon future

    Sir Nicholas Stern, author of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, has a good article in the U.K.’s Guardian, “Green routes to growth.” The former chief economist with the World Bank offers up “two crucial lessons we must learn from the financial turbulence the world has been facing”: First, this crisis has […]