I’m in Austin, Texas this week, attending the first-ever SXSW Eco conference—a green offshoot of the annual SXSW interactive, film and music festival held in the spring. You can follow along with the live stream here. It runs through Thursday—personally, I recommend Philippe Cousteau Jr.’s presentation at 2 PM Central on …
Politics
Climate Change Caused Crises Half A Millennium Ago, Too
Al Gore’s televised, 24-hour PowerPoint extravaganza last month predictably sparked some hot debate – much of it not about the science itself, but about Gore as its mouthpiece (common themes: he’s a hero, he’s become irrelevant, he’s a hypocritical capitalist). But a key message within Gore’s Climate Reality Project was …
The Legacy of Wangari Maathai, Nobel Environmentalist
When Wangari Maathai, who died of cancer on Sept. 25 in a Nairobi hospital, won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, not everyone was happy. Maathai was the first African woman to win a Nobel, chiefly for her work creating the Green Belt Movement — a (literally) grassroots effort to empower rural women in Kenya to plant trees and reverse a …
Solyndra “Scandal” Is Washington Business as Usual
I haven’t written much about the California solar company Solyndra, which recently went bankrupt after receiving over $500 million in taxpayer money as part of the Department of Energy’s program of loan guarantees for renewable energy companies. Short story: the sudden demise of the California-based company—which went out of …
Are We Ready for Al Gore’s Climate Reality?
Al Gore is back. The former vice-president and Nobel laureaute—who had stepped back somewhat from the day-to-day battle over climate change in recent years—returns on September 14 with a 24-hour global PowerPointathon updating his famed global warming slide show. 24 one-hour presentations, in multiple languages delivered by …
Green Jobs Vs. Brown Jobs
President Obama will be making his much-anticipated speech on job creation this evening—though, fortunately, he won’t be interfering with the kickoff of the NFL season. But he still has to answer the question—where will those jobs come from?
In the early months of his Presidency, Obama had an answer: the jobs of the future …
Poll: Tea Party Out of Step with the Rest of U.S. on Climate
Republicans will be holding their latest Presidential debate in California tonight, and this one will be more newsworthy than most. It marks the debut of Texas Governor Rick Perry, the laconic latecomer who is currently trouncing the rest of the field. I don’t expect the environment or climate change to be a major topic at the …
Why Dropping the Gas Tax Would Be a Disaster
In the wake of last month’s game of chicken/debt deal compromise, the country was almost paralyzed again by another fiscal dispute—this time over funding for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Congress couldn’t agree to re-authorize the FAA’s operations, thanks to a disagreement between some Republicans and Democrats over a …
Climate Injustice in Utah
I’m in Cameroon right now, working on a health story with the Global Viral Forecasting Initiative (update: it’s now just GVF) and the viral ecologist Nathan Wolfe. I’ve been out of email and cell contact the past few days—hence the lack of blogging—and even now Internet contact is dicey. But while the signal’s strong I wanted to note …
Famine in Somalia: When Does the World Decide to Use the ‘F’ Word?
The word ‘famine’ may be a familiar one, but it is not thrown around lightly by the people who decide when there is one. The fact that most of us today probably associate the term with the 1984 crisis in Ethiopia is testament to its exceedingly careful dispensation; to use it too often would dilute its power to command the attention …