Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania rejected TVA coal ash that’s going to poor communities in Alabama and Georgia

Some of the more than 1 billion gallons of toxic coal ash that spilled from an impoundment at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston power plant in eastern Tennessee last December is making its way to landfills in poor and black communities in Alabama and Georgia, as we reported last week at Facing South. It turns […]

Methane digesters make dairy good sense

When Shawn Saylor was in high school, he built a science-fair-sized solar-powered home, complete with tiny solar cells and working lights. (He got an A.) These days, Saylor is a fourth-generation dairy farmer working on an entirely different renewable energy project. The Hillcrest Saylor Dairy Farm in Rockwood, Pennsylvania, produces some 6,000 gallons of milk […]

Event planners announce location, greening plans for next year’s conference

Near the end of this year’s Netroots Nation, event planners announced that next year’s gathering will be held in Pittsburgh, Pa., a spot selected for its green merits. One of the main reasons is that Pittsburgh has the first and largest LEED gold-certified convention center in the country. “We have a goal of making 2009 […]

Obama talks up energy plans in the Rust Belt

Barack Obama was in Wayne, Pa., on Saturday, where he highlighted energy costs and the need for new energy policy in a town hall meeting. “It isn’t an accident that gas prices are this high,” the presumptive Democratic nominee told the crowd. “It’s because Washington failed to deal with the challenge of alternative energy when […]

Listen as I talk green collar jobs on NPR

Interested in the promise of — and questions about — the growing “green collar jobs” movement? Listen Wednesday, May 28, at 11 a.m. EDT as I discuss it on NPR’s Radio Times, a popular call-in show from WHYY in Philadelphia, the station that also brings the nation Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Bracken Hendricks of […]

A video on the great coal myth

The new but already-going-gangbusters Washington Independent has teamed up with the also new and also gangbusters American News Project to put together a video called "How clean is clean coal?" Good stuff:

How three Rust Belt cities are changing

For more on Rust Belt cities, see our full feature on sustainability initiatives underway in Cleveland. It may not be intuitive to link an area historically associated with steel mills, coal mining, and automobile assembly lines to sustainable development. But green growth is catching on in the Rust Belt, long an economically unendowed area of […]

No difference between McCain and Dems on climate

I got home yesterday from canvassing for Barack Obama in the outskirts of Harrisburg, Penn. and found last week's edition of The Patriot-News (whose politics reporter, Brett Lieberman, describes the state as "Pennsyltucky" for its unique mix of urban, industrial, and backwoods), including a "Find Your Match" voter guide with a chart that's supposed to help people figure out which candidate is closer to them on key policies. Here's what the chart said about Obama, Clinton, and McCain on global warming:

Clinton: $150 billion, 10-year energy package for new fuel sources; backed stringent caps on greenhouse-gas emissions.
Obama: $150 billion, 10-year program for "climate friendly" energy supplies, favors stringent caps on greenhouse-gas emissions.
McCain: Led Senate effort to cap greenhouse-gas emissions; favors tougher fuel efficiency.

Send your questions for the National Green Jobs Conference

A big collection of policy makers, activists, job-training types, and labor union honchos are getting together later this week in Pittsburgh for “Good Jobs, Green Jobs: A National Green Jobs Conference,” and it’s my job to be there to watch it all go down. It’ll be a good opportunity to find out what’s hope and […]