Gift idea for the eco-educator on your list

Maybe the kids won't think this is as cool as an XBox ... perhaps it's better for a classroom's holiday wishlist: Keep Cool! is a "Risk"-style board game about "gambling with the climate." (Or put another way: setzen sie das klima aufs spiel! The half-English half-German directions in this are as interesting as the game itself -- the authors are from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact in Germany.)

Each player takes a role in global climate politics, from nations to economic interests, and aptly, the "ruthless track" of pursuing narrow self-interest results in all players losing.

Does AB 32 call for maximizing emission reductions or minimizing costs?

California’s pioneering climate legislation, the Global Warming Solutions Act, or AB 32, caps the state’s emissions at 1990 levels by...

The E. coli outbreak’s continuing negative effect on wildlife

Farming is often seen as in conflict with wildlife, but it needn't be. The Wild Farm Alliance is a grassroots group that's trying to chart a new direction. They don't just talk about how agriculture can coexist with cougars and wolves, though. It's also about the little guys -- the birds and rodents that live in the wild margins between fields.

That's why the USDA's proposed Leafy Green Marketing Agreement (a national version of the California program of the same name, which came about after last year's E. coli outbreak) has them riled, and rightly so.

Countries strike climate deal in Bali

Apparently they’ve reached some kind of agreement at Bali. Sounds like the last 24 hours have been a real white-knuckler:...

The 15 minute House vote on the Energy Bill …

… just started. Update shortly. UPDATE: It passed! The bill now goes to the Senate. Reid says he’ll hold a...

President says he will sign energy bill

The White House just released a statement saying that the president will sign the just-passed energy bill into law: Last...

Billions of taxpayer dollars are helping destroy African waters

After exhausting commercial seafood stocks off their own shores decades ago, wealthy nations turned their bows toward the pristine populations off the coast of Africa. In the 1990s, the European Union took more than a million pounds of fish out of African waters annually; the former Soviet states took about 2.5 million pounds. The result has been predictable: a steep decline in biomass along the African coast.

Meanwhile, African nations took a sliver of their own fish. According to a 2002 report in Marine Policy, Guinea Bissau earned just 7 percent of the gross returns on fishing off its coast, while the E.U. got the other 93 percent.

There is a silver-bullet solution to global warming

The dialogue between this country's youth and key decision-makers during the important Focus the Nation (FTN) event on January 31st has the potential to become diluted and confused. If it does, another opportunity to move a segment of the country towards seriously addressing climate change will have been wasted.

Shotgun Approach Falls Short

Although every personal effort at reducing energy use and greenhouse-gas emissions is laudable and helps change the way we think about global warming, taking the shotgun approach to emissions reductions is simply not enough. Time is extremely short, and we must act immediately and boldly if we are to avert a climate crisis.

The Silver Bullet

Contrary to what many are saying, there is a "silver bullet" solution to global warming, and it is time we, as a nation, faced up to it.

Feeding ethanol waste to cows

Perhaps the most persistent debate around corn ethanol involves its “net energy balance” — that is, whether it consumes more...