As the meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) continues in Nagoya (tip for attendees—check out Los Tacos!), hopes are dwindling for any kind of broad, global deal to aggressively protect nature. That’s partially due to the fact that diplomats are locked over contentious arguments about how to divide up the world’s …
Oil Spill: A Damning Indictment of BP’s Safety Culture
New BP CEO Bob Dudley isn’t happy with me. Well, not just me—all of the reporters who dug into BP’s past safety problems and raised questions about the mistakes the company made on the road to the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. And he’s also mad at the environmentalists and scientists who raised the alarm in the wake of the spill, and …
The Green Cost of The New Great Game
In 2007, James Graff wrote a cover story for TIME that looked at the new “great game” developing in the arctic. Global warming is melting the arctic ice cap, opening a scramble for control of a short passage between Asia and Europe. But now a new study has underlined how the new great game may come with a high ecological cost.
Climate: India Is Still a Long Way from Cutting Carbon
You’ll hear it over and over again in the debates over the global climate negotiations: while the U.S. has put more carbon overall into the atmosphere than any other nation (and is still the number two emitter overall), the lion’s share of future carbon emissions will come from the big developing nations. China, now the world’s …
Trash Talk: Hong Kongers Produce the Most Garbage in the World
When you first get to Hong Kong, there are a few clues that this city might have a trash problem on its hands — like the fact that people seem to live off takeaway food, which all comes in plastic containers that are then wrapped in a paper bag, wrapped in a plastic bag. Or how at global chains like Pret A Manger, the nice people …
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:
…
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
Will Britain sell off its public forests?
One of the major environmental challenges today is the task of convincing many developing economies in the tropics to protect their forests. But some countries up north in the developed world may soon understand how difficult it can be to strike a balance between economic pressures and arboreal conservation, at least according to a …
Vacationing in Space? The Planet Could Pay
To hear Richard Branson tell it, your next vacation will be in space. On Friday, Branson, the swashbuckling CEO of Virgin Airlines and the newer Virgin Galactic, cut the ribbon on a 2-mi. (3.2 km) runway in La Cruces, N.M., which will be used in as little as 18 months, he promises, to begin carrying paying tourists into suborbital …
Climate: Money Vs. Money in the Battle Over California’s Climate Law
Thanks in part to the Supreme Court’s decision to allow unlimited political spending by corporations and unions, money is flowing into this election like never before. A lot of that funding is coming from corporate sources, and conservatives are receiving the lion’s share of those funds—although because many of those donors are keeping …