The liquid golden light of winter floods our flowering yard, perfumed by blooming narcissus, cymbidium orchids, Andean lilies, and others. Tropical? No, we live in a temperate zone, but this year's unseasonable balmy to hot, dry weather persisted from the US southwest to the now-not-so-frozen Canadian north, as climate change...

Some of the most beautiful summer wildflowers imaginable festoon Copper Creek Trail, as it snakes its way through the Colorado Rocky Mountains. It was July, and one of us (Mary Ellen, a.k.a. Mel) was sharing her insights about them with some Texas ladies she met along the trail. Ultimately, one...

You've got to hand it to whoever thought up the idea of announcing on Halloween that our global population surpassed seven billion -- the irony is sooooo rich! As we follow our costumed children house to house in an atmosphere full of haunted spirits, goblins, and demons, our government creates...

People from all corners of the social spectrum have been urging President Obama to stop the development of the Keystone pipeline, a $7.2 billion Canadian project to carry oil from Canadian tar sands to refineries along the Gulf of Mexico. People such as Republican politicians, the

Did the media overdose on Irene? Oh, come on. That's not a great debate -- not even a real one. No, the real question is: when will the media stop overlooking the 500-pound gorilla in the extreme weather room? What will it take? A "Day After Tomorrow"...

November 2012 is over a year away, but the media is already focusing attention on the roar of a minor political wing, the Tea Party, on its Republican party, via the horn of Michele Bachmann. It's a page that liberal progressives are ready to rip out of the marketing book...

There are some universal goals that every US citizen can agree on: less environmental pollution, less catastrophic weather resulting from climate change, a better future for our children. Many people would also like to have lower taxes and smaller government. An important way for us to achieve ALL these goals...

What if there was an affordable plan to improve America's health, wealth, and national security? Not only America's, but the world's. A dream, you say? You bet -- an attainable one. The United Nations Division of Sustainable Development developed one in 2009, nicknamed the...

It's bad enough that the current tax bill appeals to our weakest and worse fallibilities: tax breaks for the rich at the expense of our children's future. But worse, it highlights how stubbornly our leaders, both President Obama and many in Congress, are so thoughtlessly squandering real opportunities once again...

Perhaps it takes a newspaper outside our tempest-in-a-teapot country to point out the obvious to us: we won't get any climate or energy legislation passed if we don't elect people who believe it's a problem. And there are plenty of unbelieving candidates out there right now, the London Guardian

As the November midterm elections near, Congress is faced with two big problems: 1) failure to produce energy or climate legislation, and 2) wanting to extend the Bush tax breaks to everyone. Most Americans favor an energy bill that would increase our energy independence, and free us from

The "Restoring Honor" rally hosted by Glenn Beck at the marble feet of Lincoln seemed to echo often with the themes "restoring honor" and "faith." According to Glenn Beck, "Something beyond imagination is happening, something that is beyond man is happening. America today is...

Maybe it's because we're at 9,600 feet in the Colorado Rockies that we can think with cool heads about the heat that has been boiling East Coast bodies and minds recently -- and the fact that we study the effects of global warming on...

Message to Congress: If you want to pass significant energy legislation soon and please the most voters, you don't have to read tea leaves to divine how. Move forward with the Cantwell-Collins CLEAR Act (Carbon Limits and Energy for America's Renewal). Most American voters want it. How do...

Okay, if you're reading this, you're probably part of the choir - you understand climate change is real, probably manmade, and serious. Indeed, scientists and policymakers have compared its threat to that posed in World War II, and say we have to act with as much single-mindedness, urgency and wholehearted...

At its heart, climate change is an overarching symptom of the unsustainability of the current global human enterprise. Many in the United States recognize this, motivating a productive and needed conversation on solutions. As we write, Congress contemplates how the US will address climate change in a way that sustains...

According to a recent Huffington Post blog by Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson of Public Agenda, scientists present the facts surrounding the causes and consequences of climate change, but do nothing towards assessing and offering solutions.

Ah, so true for so many - but why expect...

A perfect storm of factors are massing against continued coal burning, and given the catastrophic consequences of current and future climate change, it's coming none too soon. After more than a century of coal mining, the most accessible supplies of US coal reserves are now gone, so...

As we conclude the hottest decade since 1850 , polls of Americans show that the percentage of those who believe global warming is caused by humans is decreasing. A decreasing minority of Americans believe it is a serious problem. The Copenhagen talks proceed with the...

How to confront future rising sea levels, droughts, intense heat waves, and other catastrophes stemming from continued global warming? There are really just three options on our menu. We can: 1) try to reduce future fossil fuel use to prevent catastrophic warming; 2) allow the planet's climate to worsen and...