Climate Climate & Energy

IMBY

Residential wind systems gain popularity It’s somewhat ironic, considering all the NIMBY opposition to wind farms, that more and more consumers are seeking out wind power for, well, their back yards. Three-bladed turbines are popping up at personal abodes across the country, with the potential to save consumers 30 to 90 percent on their electric […]

Spill ‘er Up!

Oil spills from Japanese and Philippine tankers It’s been an oil-spillarific few days. A Japanese tanker, en route from Jordan, collided yesterday with a distressed cargo ship and spilled about 1.4 million gallons of crude into the eastern Indian Ocean. The ship’s owner claims the spill has been contained and there’s no need to clean […]

How’s That Mars Exploration Going?

News flash: as world warms, weather gets worse As the globe warms, the risk of more frequent and severe forest fires, droughts, and floods rises. So says, well, the entire scientific community, forever. But a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is being billed as the most comprehensive look yet […]

Alt fuel rap video: Kick that filthy habit!

Word.

(Via Hugg)

Tim Flannery on Big Picture TV

I don't know how they do it, but Big Picture TV has added author and Australian scientist Tim Flannery to their impressive list of talking heads. Tim Flannery wrote The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means For Life on Earth which was reviewed by Grist back in March.

In this four-part series, Flannery chats about the carbon debt, action for solutions, the end of denial, and taxing carbon.

Party at Jim’s House!

Idaho governor says no to coal, yes to whoopin’ it up Exhibiting the flair and confidence only a short-timer can afford, Idaho Gov. Jim Risch (R) has announced that the state don’t need no stinkin’ coal. Risch, who took office when Dirk Kempthorne resigned in May to head the Interior Department, will step down when […]

Sheet Happens … Faster

Greenland melting faster than five years ago, study says We hate to give you bad news without some good, so here goes. The bad news from a study published this week in Science is that, by comparing satellite data from 2002-2005 to earlier data, researchers have determined that Greenland’s ice sheet is melting about three […]

So Much For “Beyond Petroleum”

BP pipeline fubar fallout continues Oil giant BP is weathering a ginormous poopstorm over its discovery of severe corrosion in an Alaskan oil pipeline and subsequent announcement that it would shut down its entire Prudhoe Bay oil field — 8 percent of total U.S. production — while it repaired the damage, which could take until […]

Sardar Superstar

India dam project still hot issue after more than 20 years For citizens of India, debate over dams is soap-operatic. Take the saga of the country’s still-unfinished Sardar Sarovar dam. It has everything: protests, riots, hunger strikes, and long, protracted court battles. Proponents of the $7.7 billion dam on the Narmada River claim that, when […]

Nuclear power is complicated, dangerous, and definitely not the answer

If the media and the New York Times editorial page are any guide, nuclear power is the new green-energy option being embraced by environmentalists. This is not a new idea. The first mainstream statement of the “nuclear option” came from a 2003 report by MIT professors John Deutch and Ernest Moniz, “The Future of Nuclear […]