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 …
Politics
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 …
Typhoon Tests Japan’s Nuclear Resolve
UPDATE: Typhoon Ma-On has been downgraded to a tropical storm. It is expected to move over central Japan today, hitting south of Tokyo before moving out to sea, according to the U.S. Navy. At least one person was reported missing and dozens injured after the storm landed in Japan on Tuesday.
The smiling faces of the young …
Clean Coal Canceled Thanks to Poor Policy
If Congress had the wherewithal to establish a robust energy and climate change policy, there might have been a transformative bit of construction underway right now, next to the towering Mountaineer coal power plant, in New Haven, West Va. Mountaineer, like nearly every other coal plant in the world, pours tons of carbon into the …
Will Exxon’s Yellowstone Oil Leak Doom the Chances for a Tar Sands Pipeline?
ExxonMobil has been under a harsh spotlight over the last few days, facing accusations that the company has deliberately downplayed the severity of the Yellowstone River oil spill with misleading information and vague claims about what actually happened. It’s an object lesson in the political risks of owning a pipeline. So the energy …
