Unplugged: A Push to Waste Energy

On Monday, the House of Representatives will consider legislation authored by Rep. Joe Barton to repeal federal energy efficiency standards for light bulbs, set to take effect next year. The standards have the support of environmental groups, consumer advocates, and lighting manufacturers and will save energy, reduce household electric bills and spur investment in advanced…

Read More

Friday Finds: Environmental Bach Lash

Michelle Bachman drills down to solve the energy crisis As the Republican contenders for the 2012 election begin to emerge, a old theme among the crew is arising deep from within the ashes of the failed McCain-Palin 2008 presidential run: Drill, baby, drill. The most recent aspiring president, Michelle Bachman, recently said that energy can…

Read More

A Desperately Needed Win for the Loggerheads

Federal judge orders the National Marine Fisheries Service to take another look at rules that govern the Gulf of Mexico fishery in loggerheads’ favored habitat

Read More

Want a Side of Plastic With Your Fish?

Ever wonder where that bottle cap or cheap dime store action figure went when you casually tossed it away years ago? Well, there’s a good chance it ended up somewhere in the Pacific Garbage Patch, a soupy mixture of plastic and other debris swirling in the north Pacific Ocean. Trapped there, the plastic becomes food…

Read More

Tr-Ash Talk: House Buries Coal Ash In Appropriations Bill

We knew this was coming. After the drama this past winter we knew it was likely that the House had something else up their sleeves. Now this. To break it down, both the Senate and the House must consider appropriations bills (that fund government agencies) and the House is up first. There are all types…

Read More

House Appropriators Slash Environmental, Health Safeguards

The 112th Session of the House of Representatives is at it again, doing what they do best: writing legislation to strike and block the clean air and clean water laws that keep us alive and healthy. This morning, the House majority released its spending bill for the year 2012, and not to disappoint those who…

Read More

This Is Your Brain on Dirty Air… Any Questions?

Remember the anti-drug commercial where illicit drugs (played by butter) fried a brain (played by an egg)? Over the action, a gravelly voice intoned “This is drugs. This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?” Those PSAs were a fixture of my childhood. Now, well into adulthood, I wonder if it is perhaps time for…

Read More

Friday Finds: Follow the Money

Climate change skeptic awash in oily money A Greenpeace investigation has found that climate change denier Dr. Willie Soon, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, has received more than $1 million in payment from major U.S. oil and coal companies over the past decade, reports the Guardian. Though Dr. Soon denies that any…

Read More

Obama to Science: See Ya After the Elections!

“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.” – Isaac Asimov In American culture, perhaps no method or form of knowledge is regarded more highly than science. Philosophy and religion are unsettled debates over unknowable questions; art and poetry are the realms of divine inspiration and…

Read More