Climate Climate & Energy

Good Mennonite, and Good Luck

Discovery of oil in Belize leads to craziness all around A few years ago, a Mennonite farmer in Belize dug a well looking for water and found something else entirely: Black gold. Texas tea. Oil, that is, in a country where it had never before been discovered. This brought on a private firm, which hit […]

How Not to Prove Your Innocence

BP under criminal investigation for oil pipeline problems in Alaska When your massively profitable oil company is under criminal investigation by the U.S. government for possible violations of the Clean Water Act, it’s not a good idea to spill tens of thousands of gallons of crude onto the Alaskan tundra. So oopsie at BP. Turns […]

We’ve Got Poll, and We’re Super Bad

Polls find Americans worried about energy and climate problems To paraphrase Benjamin Disraeli, there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and poll results. So take the following factoids from three recent polls with a big block o’ salt. An Environmental Defense survey found that 71 percent of Americans think global warming is real […]

Coal Decliner

Idaho legislature passes two-year moratorium on coal-fired power plants In a two-for-one snub of President Bush and Idaho Gov. (and likely future Interior Secretary) Dirk Kempthorne (R), Idaho’s Republican-controlled legislature overwhelmingly passed a bill last week that would put a two-year moratorium on new coal-fired power plants in the state. The bill — which says […]

Cap in Hand

California bill would mandate serious greenhouse-gas emissions caps California will jump (farther) into the lead on state-level action to combat global warming if a soon-to-be-introduced bill requiring stiff emissions caps becomes law. The measure would mandate greenhouse-gas pollution cuts to 1990 levels by 2020; that’s 25 percent lower than they would otherwise be by that […]

Umbra on plants and global warming

Dear Umbra, My simple understanding of global warming is that we are introducing long-buried carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This is shifting the balance, leading to a host of undesirable issues. CO2 is consumed by plants, so here’s my thought: Could we grow crops that consume a lot of CO2 (I’m thinking bamboo here, which […]

Rebranding “global warming”

As reported in the most recent Daily Grist, a New York-based marketing firm announced that it will help with the rebranding of global warming. As we're all armchair marketers from time-to-time, how would you rebrand "global warming"?

Share your thoughts in comments and we'll send them to the experts.

Oiling for a Flight

The top 10 best places to live during an oil crisis Pack yer bags, kids — there’s an oil crisis coming and we’re moving to the Big Apple! Eco-website SustainLane has come up with a list of the 10 U.S. cities best able to weather an oil crisis, and New Yawk is number one. The […]

The Biggest Loser

Feds to lose at least $20 billion in oil-company royalties, report finds Remember that outrageous story about how oil companies are going to gank U.S. taxpayers out of some $7 billion in royalties for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico? Well, time to crank up the outrage-o-meter: Turns out, based on a new report from […]

Labor Rattling

Britain will likely miss target for slashing greenhouse-gas emissions For years, Tony Blair and his Labor Party have waved the climate-change flag, proclaiming danger and pledging to reduce Britain’s greenhouse-gas emissions 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2010. All very inspiring, except for the whole not-actually-doing-it thing. Yesterday, after an 18-month climate-change policy review, Environment […]