Time to reinvest in the school-lunch program

At private schools across the country, good cafeteria food is becoming as de rigueur as French classes taught by native...

Evangelicals gather in D.C. and reaffirm that climate is not their focus

In D.C., the Values Voters Summit is in full swing. For those not familiar, the summit is a who’s-who gathering...

Stop dwelling on the climate change nightmare and dream about change

This post is by ClimateProgress guest blogger Bill Becker, executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project.

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When I was a child in the 1950s, I went about my business with a little cloud hanging over my head. It didn't matter whether I was playing in the backyard, studying in my bedroom or suffering from my first romantic crush (Annette on the Mickey Mouse Club). The cloud was always there.

It was the fear of nuclear war. We lived in suburbs west of Chicago. All day long, jets flew overhead on their way to O'Hare International Airport, sometimes so high that they were just a silver spot gleaming in the sun as they moved across the sky. When I saw one, I stopped what I was doing and waited several minutes to see if a mushroom cloud appeared to the east over Chicago. Once I saw the mushroom, I knew from school, our neighborhood would be flattened a few seconds later.

It never happened, of course. I can't say that the cloud ruined my childhood or followed me into adulthood, but its shadow came back to mind Friday night (Oct. 19) as I watched John Stossel's latest "Give Me a Break" segment on ABC.

NYC mayor climbs aboard the carbon tax train

New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg declared his support today for a national carbon tax, according to a report posted on the New York Times City Room blog by metro reporter Sewell Chan:

Mayor Bloomberg plans to announce today his support for a national carbon tax. In what his aides are calling one of the most significant policy addresses of his second and final term, the mayor will argue that directly taxing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change will slow global warming, promote economic growth and stimulate technological innovation -- even if it results in higher gasoline prices in the short term.

Mr. Bloomberg is scheduled to present his carbon tax proposal in a speech this afternoon at a two-day climate protection summit in Seattle organized by the United States Conference of Mayors.

(A copy of the speech was provided to The New York Times by aides to the mayor; the full text is available from The Times, along with the complete Times story.)

With his speech today, Mayor Bloomberg joins former Vice-President Al Gore as the nation's leading advocates of a carbon tax to cap and reduce carbon emissions from fossil fuels. French President Nicolas Sarkozy called last week for a national carbon tax on global-warming pollutants and a European levy on imports from countries not complying with the Kyoto Protocol to reduce emissions. In September, U.S. Rep. John Dingell, the powerful chair of the House Commerce Committee, proposed a hybrid carbon tax combining a straight carbon tax on coal, oil, and natural gas with a surcharge on gasoline and jet fuel.

Jeremy Carl argues that coal will be with us for a long while

This is part one of a guest essay from Jeremy Carl, a Research Fellow at the Stanford University’s Program on...

Scientists try to reduce methane emissions by tweaking cow diets

Did you know that cows belch every 40 seconds? I did not. A recent article in The Christian Science Monitor states this fun fact, and goes on to explain how scientists are trying to manipulate bovine diets to reduce the amount of methane that they emit:

A clean tech firm accuses a carbon credit nonprofit of forcing kids to do fieldwork

You might blame a leading carbon-offset provider of forcing poor kids to work, according to The Times of London. Or not.

Carbon credit firm Climate Care pays families in India to use human-powered treadle pumps to get water out of the ground for drinking and farming. As a result, half a million foot pumps have replaced diesel ones, which pollute and cost a lot to fuel. Unfortunately, Climate Care doesn't ensure the diesel pumps are retired instead of finding new life with other owners.

Nor does it stick around to make sure that kids aren't doing all the pumping. It probably never crossed the minds at the British nonprofit that this would come into question. Children have done backbreaking farm work for eons in regions where sustaining an income in the field is a family necessity. And the foot pumps are supposed to be easier to operate than hand pumps.

Offset customers don’t buy offsets to justify their other behavior

So, TerraPass just got done with a customer survey, with several thousand responses. Uncovered was the shocking news that people...

A good NYT piece on Alice Waters

Edible Media takes an occasional look at interesting or deplorable food journalism. Alice Waters is so beloved and renowned in...