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by Tom Athanasiou Photo: www.chucknorris.com A lot of dreck comes across my desktop. I’m even on a list called “ennui mail,” and some of it is utterly irredeemable. But still I took notice when Chuck Norris: Copenhagen Talks To Forge “One World Order” blew in. ...

by Peter Sinclair One of the most contentious of climate crocks is the role of water vapor in climate change. And climate deniers are always trying to fog the issue. But don’t be scared, Crock of the Week is here, to help make sure you don’t get sucked in. Related ...

by Jonathan Zasloff President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Singh of India walk along the Cross Hall of the White House towards the East Room for the arrival ceremony.Photo and caption: The White HouseAt least that’s what the White House is calling it . (Okay, okay: Technically, the ...

by Bill Scher President Obama announced today that he will attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen ,  raising the stakes for himself and all participating nations. The initial goal for Copenhagen was to forge a binding treaty. But that ambitious goal has been ...

by Tom Philpott Martha Stewart is easy to caricature. But the sister values good ingredients—and has realized that industrial agriculture churns out flavorless crap. That has caused her to ask second-order questions about the food system—and use her immense popular appeal to shed ...

by Agence France-Presse President Barack Obama will attend the climate summit in Copenhagen next month and offer to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, officials said Wednesday. Obama hopes to “give momentum to the negotiations” on Dec. 9 when ...

by Tom Philpott   I’m prepared to fight for this fake snow, damn it. Media hype aside, John McCain was always a self-important blowhard. But didn’t he used to care a little bit about substantial issues—and even once sponsor climate legislation in defiance of an ...

by Umbra Fisk Related Links: How to turn your turkey carcass into a spectacular gumbo This Friday, don’t just Buy Nothing—use nothing! Ask Umbra on trash, toxics, and tots

by David Roberts There’s a new Washington Post-ABC News poll out on climate change; Juliet Eilperin’s got a good piece up about it (despite the terrible headline, for which she is not responsible). Having watched this story bounce around today, I’m frustrated yet again by how ...

by Brad Johnson Cross-posted from the Wonk Room . Stephen J. Dubner, co-author of SuperFreakonomics , has embraced charges by the right wing that a handful of illegally obtained private emails means that the scientific consensus on climate change is actually a dangerous conspiracy. Dubner ...

by Rebecca Solnit Cross-posted from TomDispatch . Next month, at the climate change summit in Copenhagen, the wealthy nations that produce most of the excess carbon in our atmosphere will almost certainly fail to embrace measures adequate to ward off the devastation of our planet by heat and ...

by Todd Woody Last year, a colleague suggested I check out a startup with the intriguing, and so-very-California, name of Tao It. Founded by Berkeley professor Dara O’Rourke, Tao It aimed to tap a multiplicity of databases to rank consumer products according to their health and ...

by Tom Philpott Palm-oil trees in the making, Ivory Coast.In his Late Victorian Holocausts, Mike Davis teases out the mechanisms of famine in British-ruled 19th century India. When a drought would wipe out a grain harvest in one region of India, the price of grain would spike. People all over ...

by Ashley Braun “The good news is spring is coming earlier and earlier [thanks] to climate change.” — An anonymous White House official , on the prospect of the Senate debating a climate and clean energy bill in the spring of 2010. Related Links: Inhofe to ...

by Tom Laskawy The NYT’s Cityroom blog offers some hopeful news on getting more healthy food into low-income neighborhoods: Food stamp purchases at the city’s Greenmarkets have more than doubled in the last year, due in large part to publicity campaigns and the addition of more ...

by Adam Browning It’s that time of year again ... no, not when turduckens appear on dinner tables nationwide and it becomes somehow acceptable to call the marshmallow a vegetable. It’s time for the 2009 edition of “ Freeing the Grid ,” an annual report card to states on ...

by Jonathan Hiskes The IPCC’s prediction for average sea-level rise this century is 13 inches (if global warming continues unchecked). Today’s report from a group of climatologist ups the prediction to 33 inches. This is what the difference looks like on a pair of identical twins. ...

by Osha Gray Davidson “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary…” OK, students of American History, think you know the rest of this historic American sentence? If you guessed, “... for one people to rid themselves of an energy system that may threaten ...

by David Roberts As I said in my last post , taking energy efficiency in buildings seriously means expanding our policy horizons beyond the blunt tool of raising energy prices. We have to think in creative ways about how to remove market and behavioral failures that inhibit cost-effective ...

by Michael A. Livermore This Friday is the deadline for public comments on the stricter vehicle efficiency standards from EPA and the Department of Transportation.  The docket is likely to be overrun with statements for and against the regulation that would make cars and light trucks 30 ...