And If So, Is That Terrible News?

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com

A few weeks ago, Time magazine called the fight over the Keystone XL pipeline that will bring some of the dirtiest energy on the planet from Alberta, Canada, to the U.S. Gulf Coast the “Selma...

BLOOMBERG VIEW:

If you go to the website of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of the Eastern District of Missouri, you can read more than 1,000 letters from retired coal miners and their widows.

Their words are like the lyrics to an endless Johnny Cash ballad, and...

I don't claim to know exactly what's going on with #IdleNoMore, the surging movement of indigenous activists that started late last year in Canada and is now spreading across the continent -- much of the action, from hunger strikes to road and rail blockades, is in scattered and remote places,...

Why Climate Change Won’t Wait for the President

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com

Change usually happens very slowly, even once all the serious people have decided there’s a problem. That’s because, in a country as big as the United States, public opinion moves in slow currents.  Since...

Superstorm Sandy has made it clear that no matter how hard some politicians try to ignore climate change, climate change will not ignore them -- or any of us. More carbon means higher seas, the kind that inundate subways. The U.S can also thank carbon emissions for contributing to the...

Watching from a distance is hard. I'm on the move setting up our big roadshow assault on the fossil fuel industry, but the real action is in Texas, where a growing number of blockaders are trying to shut down work on the southern section of the Keystone Pipeline...

You may wonder why so many progressive leaders -- from Van Jones to Al Gore -- are lining up to endorse Joe Romm's new book.

In part, of course, it's because we admire what he's done at Climate Progress. He's not just turned it into by...

It's turning into a hot climate summer in two ways, only one of which you can measure with a thermometer.

Amidst the deepening drought, the summer's fourth heat wave, and the continued western fires, there's something else breaking out: a siege of citizen uprisings at key points...

Pity the poor senator or representative trying to stay alive in the political jungle. At every turn there's a danger: a constituent who actually wants something done. Or worse, a campaign donor who might be offended by that something.

And so over time, our representatives have developed protective drab coloration...

Climate-Change Deniers Are On the Ropes -- But So Is the Planet

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com

It’s been a tough few weeks for the forces of climate-change denial.

First came the giant billboard with Unabomber Ted Kacynzki’s face plastered across it: “I Still Believe...

Two pieces of crucial evidence emerged in the tar sands fight yesterday. One, happily, got all kinds of notice -- Jim Hansen's op-ed in the New York Times was the "most emailed" item of the day, which is appropriate since he explained new calculations showing that those Canadian...

A Planet Connected by Wild Weather

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com

The Williams River was so languid and lovely last Saturday morning that it was almost impossible to imagine the violence with which it must have been running on August 28, 2011. And yet the evidence...

Maybe you've heard. We are facing a climate crisis that threatens life on our planet. Climate scientists are unequivocal: We are changing the world in deep, measurable, dangerous ways -- and the pace of this change will accelerate dramatically in the decades to come.

Then again, if you've been a...

There are lots of types of people who have been taking action on climate change over the last several years: environmentalists (of course), students and young people, community-based groups, labor activists, indigenous peoples, Appalachian and Gulf Coast residents, ranchers and more. Among them, importantly, have been people from the many...

And Why Taxpayers Shouldn’t Stand for It Any More

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com

Along with “fivedollaragallongas,” the energy watchword for the next few months is: “subsidies.” Last week, for instance, New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez proposed ending some of the billions of dollars in...

The president makes a potentially interesting speech on Thursday in Cushing, Oklahoma.
 
It comes amidst a completely unprecedented March heat wave -- 2,000 records fell last week as cities like Chicago broke records dating back to the 19th century, and that heat is expected to...

Today was... quite a day. The bell that people struck last August when they sat in at the White House to block the Keystone Pipeline was still resonating. Not loudly -- the oil money in Congress muffled the sound. But loudly enough that we squeaked through by a 4-Senator margin,...

There were two scientific studies this week that set the ongoing Keystone pipeline battle in sharp relief.

One was a reminder of just how crucial this fight is. A secret report delivered to the Canadian government's chief bureaucrat showed that changes in tarsands mining methods, which the industry...

*** Updated at 1:00 pm ET: We're now at 777,000 signatures and going even higher. Stay up to date at 350.org/kxl ***

This has been an amazing 24 hours, the third in a trio of events that took Keystone XL from an obscure pipeline project to the country's central environmental...

At least for now, the battle over the Keystone Pipeline -- the most visible environmental cause in many years -- has moved from the scarred boreal forest of Alberta and the Sand Hills of Nebraska to the halls of Congress. Or rather, it's moved to send button on your email...