New Delhi, India -- India's in the midst of a rolling series of state elections, and one striking reality is that the voters Thomas Frank wishes Kansas possessed -- keenly focused on how those who govern them impact their own lives -- are found here by the scores. (Tens of millions.)...

Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India -- If, as I pointed out in my first posting on this subject, stories about the prices of coal for electricity get buried in the press in both India and the U.S., stories about gasoline or diesel prices get top billing. It's quite simple -- voters buy...

Mumbai, India -- The story is buried in the business section of the Times of India. India's largely government-owned monopoly, Coal India, is changing its pricing system -- and the result will be a staggering 25 percent projected increase in the price of electricity generated with domestic coal. Since...

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates -- That question just shouts itself from the stage of the World Future Energy Summit here. The opening plenary features UN Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon, and Abu Dhabi's Sultan Ahmed al Jaber, but also Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Korean President Kim Hwang-sik. The U.S. is...

New York -- Perhaps it's not surprising that the audience of investors at this year's CERES Climate Risk Summit would give the day's only standing ovation when AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka pledged organized labor "to work together with others to shape a process for how we are going to...

However much pleasure President Obama's supporters may gleefully derive from watching his Republican adversaries carpet-bomb each other through their "Super-PACs," what is far more revealing than whether Santorum or Gingrich is eventually the last opponent left standing up to Mitt Romney is how they are going to get there....

At the end of this week, I'm scheduled to fly to the Persian Gulf. Most likely, I'll get to Abu Dhabi for the World Energy Future Summit. But the current saber rattling around the possibility that IF Europe proceeds with oil sanctions against Iran, and that IF Iran retaliates by...

And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light,
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
But westward, look, the land is bright.

          --Arthur Hugh Clough

You might be surprised to learn that I think climate protection may have posted...

During the Constitutional Convention, Hamilton and Madison couldn't agree on what kind of president they wanted -- or how to choose one. So they turned it over to the states, giving the legislatures free rein to decide how to allot their electoral votes. After many twists and turns, we ended...

American Canyon, CA -- This town is in Napa County, but it's a far cry from the high-priced vineyards and estates to the north. Only recently incorporated, American Canyon sits just across the county line from blue-collar Vallejo, and was historically an unincorporated, low-income community that was the favorite location...

Looking back, the Durban Climate Conference, I think, can best be summed up "the world lived to fight another day."  Climate diplomacy neither broke through nor completely broke down. The US hid behind China; India hid behind the US.  China, seemingly more skilled at these things, managed to hide behind...

Now that I've returned from my stint at the Durban Climate Conference, it's clear that the fundamental dynamic we are dealing with is that the global economic crisis has caused most leaders to focus exclusively on short term problems, which has enabled oil and coal and their right-wing allies to...

OK, so you are a cell-phone user in rural Nigeria or Zimbabwe, and your provider is Econet Wireless. You've been a customer for a while, so you've accumulated loyalty rewards, just like airline frequent flier points.  You live in a small hut in a village with no electricity, so you...

Durban, South Africa -- The conversation here about the formal negotiating track of COP17 ranges from gloomy to cynical. The lack of American leadership is palpable. Most disturbing is that Todd Stern, the U.S. negotiator, on behalf of the Obama administration, is pushing very hard to delay beginning global...

Munich -- The International Herald-Tribune has devoted its entire business section to the pending Durban climate talks, where I'm headed in a few hours. The story on the failure of the industrial world to keep the promise that Secretary of State Hilary Clinton flew to Copenhagen two years ago...

San Francisco -- Looking at how badly politics and government are treating the future, or even the idea of a future, you might feel fairly gloomy this year. So I'm going to stop and celebrate the resilience of nature, and how many of our mistakes, blunders, and crimes natural systems...

This morning I announced that I was "opening up my dance card" and stepping down as chairman of the Sierra Club, the role I assumed almost two years ago when Michael Brune assumed leadership of the Club. I'll continue to consult and fund-raise with the Club -- but...

Last week, the Obama administration announced, to great consternation on the oily right, that it would require that the Keystone "Export" XL pipeline be rerouted to avoid the Ogallala aquifer in Nebraska and, as a result, would delay a final decision until 2012, after the next election.

Immediately,...

Last Tuesday night was a bleak one for the Tea Party as election results came in. Although a few of its candidates were elected (Republicans captured the Virginia State Senate by 96 votes but lost a similar effort in Iowa), by and large their ideas were not just defeated --...

Sunday's stunning "hands around the White House" demonstration by 12,000 citizens in opposition to the Keystone XL tar sands export pipeline was the culmination of what's been a brutal three months for the tar sands cartel -- the Koch brothers, Shell, Valero, and TransCanada -- which thought it...