Over on the Time.com mainpage, I have a Going Green column about the Prop 23 battle in California. The ballot initiative would all but repeal California’s landmark global warming law, but during an election cycle where fossil-fuel interests have dominated the money game, green forces have a distinct cash advantage in California. Check …
Politics
Guam: An Early Casualty of U.S.-China Tensions?
Sometime after World War II, the Boiga irregularis, or the brown tree snake, is believed to have hitched a ride on a cargo ship and landed on the Pacifc island of Guam. For the snake, Guam was paradise, home to a large number of prey and no natural predators. By 1970, the snake had colonized the entire island, pushing several bird
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Transportation: The White House Puts Out Fuel Efficiency Standards for Heavy Vehicles
Though Congress has been (self-)stymied on climate change this term, the Obama Administration has taken steps of its own to deal with rising U.S. carbon emissions. And nowhere have they been more aggressive than in promoting—mandating, really—better fuel efficiency on our roads, as I wrote earlier this month:
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Politics: European Energy Companies Funding Climate Skeptic Campaigns in the U.S.
There’s been no shortage of attention paid to the vast amount of money being poured in the 2010 midterm campaigns by corporations—with the bulk of the cash going to conservative candidates. Given the strongly skeptical views on climate change that now dominate the Republican Party—and especially their
Energy: A Clean Tech Trade War Begins to Heat Up With China
Renewable energy may be clean, but the international politics behind it are getting dirtier by the day. A little more than a month after the United Steelworkers (USW) filed a compliant with U.S. trade officials over what the union saw as China’s unfair subsidies for its clean-technology sector, the Obama Administration announced that it …
Oil Spill Report Hits White House. Is it Fair?
Sometimes a President can’t catch a break—a lesson the current, beleaguered resident of the Oval Office keeps learning. The latest bit of bad news came from a commission the President himself appointed back in the spring to study the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. President Obama announced the creation of the study group on May …
Honoring Green Heroes—and a Republican Environmentalist
The Heinz Family Foundation—set up in memory of the late Sen. John Heinz of Pennsylvania, who died in helicopter crash in 1991—today announced its 16th annual Heinz Awards, to honor heroes of the environment. (The awards are handled in part by Teresa Heinz, Sen. Heinz’s widow and now wife of Sen. John Kerry, who has emerged as a …
Energy: The White House Says No Thanks to Solar Panels
Back in 1979—when the economy was suffering and the U.S. was facing a serious energy crisis, a situation in no way similar to what’s happening now—President Jimmy Carter installed solar panels on the roof of the White House. It was a symbol of Carter’s push to get the U.S. to face up to its energy problems, beginning with the most …
Robbing Renewable Energy to Pay Teachers
This afternoon, after Speaker Nancy Pelosi called them back from their six-week summer break, members of the House of Representatives passed an emergency $26 billion spending bill to prevent the layoff of 300,000 teachers, police and other civil servants from layoffs due to state cutbacks. The bill passed
Oil Spill: Static Kill on the Well—and Just Static in the Senate
The “static kill” is so called because that’s what BP aims to create—a static situation within its blown well, one where the drilling mud the company is currently pumping into the well offsets the pressure in the reservoir itself. If BP’s Houston-based drilling engineers want some advice on how to create a static situation, however, …