January 23rd, 2013

Concerned about the heavy toll that carbon pollution is taking on the planet, students across the US are petitioning their colleges to divest from fossil fuels….By clicking on the link to their school, students are connected either to a petition they can sign, or a website for their campus group working for fossil fuel divestment.

[Read more →]

October 2nd, 2012

Beyond that brief mention at the Republican Convention when Mitt Romney won a laugh for quipping that Obama had promised to keep the oceans from rising, it’s impossible to name one other time when climate change dominated even 15 minutes of the daily election news cycle this past year.

[Read more →]

September 6th, 2012

Sierra Club’s “Beyond Coal” campaign has been turning up the heat on coal users, including campuses.

According to Sierra, 60 U.S. universities operate their own coal plants. The environmental group wants them to convert to another source of energy that produces fewer greenhouse gases, which are contributing to rapid climate change. Coal plant emissions also create ground-level pollution and contain mercury and arsenic, which ends up on land and in oceans and lakes.

[Read more →]

August 31st, 2012

You know that argument about how the U.S. can’t really impact greenhouse gases because they’re spiraling out of control in other developing nations like China and India?
It’s illogical on its face, but that’s not stopping fossil fuel interests from pushing this idea.

[Read more →]

February 9th, 2011

The battle over climate change bubbled anew in Washington today as Congressional climate change skeptics, who want to restrict or remove the EPA’s authority to control carbon air pollution, presided over hearings on the issue.

The skeptics, led by Fred Upton, have said that the EPA does not have this authority, unless and until Congress directs and defines such regulation. Only then, should the EPA regulate the climate-changing carbon emissions from coal plants, oil refineries and auto and truck tailpipes.

Defenders of the EPA, though, point out that a core function of the agency is to assure that Americans have clean air and water, and that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the EPA is responsible for setting standards around carbon pollution.

[Read more →]

February 4th, 2011

World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and sustainable energy consultancy Ecofys released a report Thursday that should gladden green hearts across the globe. It shows that the world could be fueled by clean renewable power by 2050. It’s possible, according to the analysis by The Netherlands-based Ecofys, and while this goal confronts huge technological challenges, it also presents economic opportunities.

One striking thing about the Ecofys analysis, which was two years in the making, is that it puts the lie to the claim of fossil fuel companies that the world must, by necessity, depend upon oil and coal for the rest of this century because energy demand is growing. Even as fossil fuels are depleted they will still be much in demand to round out our ever-growing power needs, this argument goes.

[Read more →]

July 8th, 2010

Activists with the Rainforest Action Network staged a sit-in today at EPA headquarters in Washington to protest the passage of a permit that will allow mountaintop removal coal mining in Logan County, West Virginia.

[Read more →]

May 24th, 2010

Coal is deeply woven into every aspect of West Virgina and its people. The fossil fuel is found in 53 of the state’s 55 counties and underground mines produced 97 million tons of coal in 2008. West Virginia’s coal industry provides about 30,000 jobs, including miners, mine contractors, coal preparation plant employees and mine supply companies, according to the state’s Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training. But amid coal mining accidents and concerns about coal-related pollution, a more vigilant Environmental Protection Agency under the Obama Administration is beginning to put the brakes on the state’s history of widespread mining by slowing the permitting process.

[Read more →]

April 19th, 2010

Coal-fired power plant (Photo: Braen Gunem/Dreamstime.)

Sitting in a heap atop the list of climate offenders is coal. Coal-burning power plants are the single biggest source of carbon emissions worldwide and their smokestacks spew sulfur and nitrogen dioxide, as well, contributing to the stew of greenhouse gases that are heating the Earth’s atmosphere.

Despite the growth of renewable energy sources, coal remains the single largest provider of energy for America, at 45 percent. And its toxic footprint doesn’t end with air pollution. The industry’s waste, leftover ash, is laced with metal oxides.

[Read more →]

July 20th, 2009

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

This was a week of news that really illustrated the push and pull between green ideals and the realities of life here on Planet X.

The Obama Administration put logging jobs ahead of forest preservation with its decision to allow a road into an undisturbed forest in the Tongass National Forest outside of Ketchikan, Alaska. The forest, a watershed and recreation area, had been left alone under a Clinton-era rule that protects “roadless” forests.

[Read more →]

March 13th, 2009

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

I always thought that Earth the Sequel could have been better named. It’s a catchy title, but it sounds like it could be a post-doomsday piece when, in fact, it is the opposite. The book by Miriam Horn and Fred Krupp canvasses the new landscape of green energy companies and entrepreneurs, showing us glimmers of a future economy freed of dirty fuels.

This past week, Discovery Channel brought us the video version of Earth the Sequel, which followed the road map of the book, but seemed even more uplifting. Maybe the infectious optimism of the green pioneers interviewed was more palpable on video, or maybe I just needed a mood-booster amid dour times.

It was heartening to hear the developers of wind, solar, solar-thermal and wave-energy projects talking earnestly and hopefully about the immediate future. (Though parts of the documentary were filmed before the economic meltdown last September.)

[Read more →]

February 10th, 2009

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

NV Energy has postponed plans to build a coal-fired power plant in eastern Nevada due to “increasing environmental and economic uncertainties surrounding its development,” the company announced.

Instead, the company will focus on construction of a 250-mile transmission line to link northern and southern Nevada in hopes of transporting energy from “renewable and other energy production facilities,” NV said in a statement. And it will ask the state regulatory agency to approve accelerated construction of the line.

[Read more →]