January 2009
44 posts
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“A future of dependence on coal is no less dismal than a future of oil...”
– President Obama, at an energy conference on Wednesday.
Thank god. I was beginning to fear he really believed the clean coal hogwash.
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WatchAl Gore: New thinking on the climate crisis.
“As important as it is to change the light bulbs, it’s more important to change the laws. […] In order to solve the climate crisis, we have to solve the democracy crisis.”
And with that in mind — please sign this petition asking the Senate to pass President Obama’s green stimulus, including $500 million for the...
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WatchPETA’s “Veggie Love” ad, rejected by NBC for Superbowl play because of concerns over a woman “rubbing pelvic region with pumpkin” and another “screwing herself with broccoli (fuzzy).”
PS: “Studies show vegetarians have better sex” — hell yes!
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The wind industry now employs more people than... →
Wind industry jobs jumped to 85,000 in 2008, a 70% increase from the previous year, according to a report released Tuesday from the American Wind Energy Association. In contrast, the coal industry employs about 81,000 workers. (Those figures are from a 2007 U.S. Department of Energy report but coal employment has remained steady in recent years though it’s down by nearly 50% since 1986.) Wind...
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Put on a sweater, President Obama!
Obama won’t be pulling a Carter anytime soon — telling us to wear our sweaters and turn down our thermostats to conserve energy. According to David Axelrod, the President likes the Oval Office so warm “you could grow orchids in there.”
I know you’re from Hawaii, Mr. President, but you’re not setting a good example.
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WatchThe Los Angeles Ecovillage, a two-block neighborhood where a small community of people are demonstrating “the processes of creating living patterns that are much lower impact, while at the same time raising the quality of life.” The village is part of a global network. (Via World Changing.)
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“Science is not a monument of received Truth but something that people do to look...”
– Dennis Overbye
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Disinformation
I could hardly believe my eyes when I read this in the NYT…
According to Rasmussen Reports, 44% of U.S. voters say “long-term planetary trends are the cause of global warming, compared to 41% who blame it on human activity.”*
There’s a stark contrast between the parties: 59% of Democrats believe global warming is caused by humans, while only 21% of Republicans do.
...
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Obama’s EPA Raises Objections to South Dakota Coal... →
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Green Jobs = Good for the Environment, Bad for... →
Jen Nedeau raises this timely and critical question at Change.org (via IGHIH). She quotes a Dec. 2008 op-ed by Linda Hirshman in the New York Times:
The bulk of the stimulus program will provide jobs for men, because building projects generate jobs in construction, where women make up only 9 percent of the work force.
It turns out that green jobs are almost entirely male as well,...
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Breaking: Obama Set to Allow California and 13...
He just keeps tickin ‘em off the list. Go BO go!
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Hey! Remember Sarah Palin?
If you liked what she did with wolves, you’re gonna love what she’s doing for whales! Mother Jones reports:
In 1994, there were some 650 Cook Inlet belugas living off the coast of Anchorage, but their numbers were nearly halved by 1997. This sharp decline was largely attributed to overharvesting by Native hunters, and by 2005 this already small whale population reached an all-time low of 278,...
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“As a businessman it is hard to speak favorably about any new tax. But a carbon...”
– Exxon Mobil chief executive Rex Tillerson on why he wants a carbon tax of “somewhere north of” $20 a ton (really!) rather than a cap-and-trade system modeled on Europe’s.
I agree with his criticisms of cap-and-trade (can’t believe I’m saying I agree with him on...
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“Like The World is Flat, a book borne of Friedman’s stirring experience of seeing...”
– Matt Taibbi, destroying Thomas Friedman yet again (via hellofriend & cajunboy)
I’m reading “Hot, Flat, and Crowded” now. Well, sort of (if you’re at all familiar with this whole climate change thing, you’ve read it all before). It reminds me of what we used to...
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US Climate Action Partnership Releases Climate... →
Matthew McDermott for Treehugger writes:
The fact that some of the USCAP members have been involved in projects in the Alberta Tar Sands, widely called one of the most environmentally destructive projects on the planet, makes me skeptical…despite the involvement of some great green groups such as NRDC, EDF and the Nature Conservancy.
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"J.F.K. took us to the moon. Let B.H.O. take... →
Thomas Friedman makes the case for math and science education and stimulating technological innovation in addition to infrastructure and green job development:
If we spend $1 trillion on a stimulus and just get better highways and bridges — and not a new Google, Apple, Intel or Microsoft — your kids will thank you for making it so much easier for them to commute to the unemployment office or...
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The Electric Auto Fleet Moves a Few Steps Closer →
AUTO engineers have been talking for years about the coming “electrification of the automobile.” But as the development of hybrids and pure-electric vehicles has accelerated rapidly across the industry, it’s increasingly difficult to separate the subject of batteries from the cars and trucks they’ll soon be powering.
A look at the machinery to be revealed at the 2009 North American...
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The case against the revitalizing power of the...
Elizabeth Kolbert writes:
The basic premise of Jones’s appeal—that combatting global warming is a good way to lift people out of poverty—is very much open to debate. Economists generally agree that the key to addressing climate change is to raise the cost of burning fossil fuels, either directly, through a carbon tax, or indirectly, through a cap-and-trade program. Low-income families are the...
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ReBuild and RePower America with a Green Stimulus... →
This is one of the Ideas for Change in America. Anyone can vote on up to 10 of their favorites; voting ends at 5pm ET on Thursday, January 15. The top 10 ideas will be presented to the Obama administration the next day.
I’m endorsing this idea because, as I wrote here, I believe that
Obama’s stimulus package has the potential to build our workforce and infrastructure capacity, prime the...
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Another coal sludge spill →
This one is in Alabama and it’s at a plant owned by TVA, the same company responsible for the billion-gallon disaster in Tennessee in December.
The spill reached a creek and environmental officials are on their way to asses the damage.
Thanks to Jake Brewer for the heads up.
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Exciting news for my fellow New Yorkers: 45 by 15
In addition to “15 by 15” — the goal of reducing energy use by 15% by 2015 that’s been in place for a couple of years now — Gov. Paterson is pushing the state to increase our Renewable Portfolio Standard (the amount of our energy we get from renewables) to 30% in that time. They’re calling the plan “45 by 15” and I think it rocks.
The RPS goal...
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Why Bananas are a Parable For Our Times →
Bananas are dying. The foodstuff, more heavily consumed even than rice or potatoes, has its own form of cancer. It is a fungus called Panama Disease, and it turns bananas brick-red and inedible.
There is no cure. They all die as it spreads, and it spreads quickly. Soon - in five, 10 or 30 years - the yellow creamy fruit as we know it will not exist. The story of how the banana rose and fell can...
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River rescue: project launched to breathe life... →
One of the biggest rescue projects of its kind is being launched today to reclaim many urban rivers, streams and brooks. Under the plan 92 projects will be announced covering 14 different waterways in London, at least seven of which have been buried by history….
The Environment Agency, which will lead the work, hopes to uncover at least 15km (nine miles) of river in the next six years....
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“Green mattress manufacturers stumbled upon the brilliant realization that, if...”
– Emily Main (via cathyerway)
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“Full disclosure: I love to eat meat. I was born in Memphis, the barbecue capital...”
– Mike Tidwell, “The Low-Carbon Diet”
Let me preface this by saying I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. Until now….
I know the meat and poultry I do eat (about 1-2 times a week) is bad, bad environmentalist behavior, but I’m not (yet) willing to become a...
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CEO of company responsible for TN coal ash... →
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Dollar short and a day late. →
(Understatement of the year.)
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Top Youth Activism Victories of 2008 →
Go, green jobs, go!
Environmental Victory: Blue Collar Jobs Become Green Opportunities
In an election year that saw unprecedented numbers of new voters and activists, the campaign for green collar jobs became much more than just a well-intentioned campaign promise. The goal of the green collar job movement is to train traditionally blue collar workers in renewable energy skills such as home...
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3Qs with Myles Lennon of Urban Agenda
New York City has set ambitious plans for greenhouse gas emission reduction — 30% by 2030 (and 30% by 2017 for all city properties and the major universities). But if all the initiatives involved in greening the city — energy auditing and retrofitting buildings, installing new lighting and heating and cooling systems, planting more trees, and upgrading public transportation, to name a...
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How to go Prius green on a Chevy Nova budget. →
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Toyota Secretly Developing Solar Powered Green Car →