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A new book by four public health advocates called Globesity: A Planet Out of Control? was recently reviewed by Grist’s Jonathan Hiskes.  I haven’t read the book but Hiskes’ review got me thinking about how the origins of public health practice and current efforts to address climate change are related. It might seem like a stretch. But public health was built on the premise that the most effective way to...

As the House of Representatives fine tunes legislation like the American Clean Energy and Security Act, public opinion weighs far less than other pressures. But as our elected officials make perhaps the biggest decision of their careers about the biggest, most sweeping climate and energy legislation ever, it’s worth noting that the American public is calling for “yes” votes—and that’s across party lines. Washington Post and ABC took the nation’s...

The gist: At a moment when the most sweeping climate and energy bill ever is moving in Congress, polling shows that the American public is hungry for exactly this kind of action. But it’s not a slam-dunk. Our job now is to keep the momentum going with smart communications that preempt the shallow claims made by those who oppose real climate and energy solutions. This month’s Flashcard: Trends in polling...

When someone says “Klamath” I think these words: Water. Fish. Farms. Forest. Fights. It’s a story I saw so often for so many years that I long ago lost interest. So I was delighted to find this weekend’s story in the Oregonian that showed me a different side of Klamath County, Oregon. One in which geothermal energy is heating greenhouses that help produce a pesticide-free application for strawberry patches, almond...

Peter Steinbrueck former Seattle city councilmember and Sightline board member Gordon Price got together for a lively debate last night in Seattle’s downtown library. The question: whose home town was the greatest city—Seattle or Vancouver, BC.  The premise, however, was that each advocate had to argue for the other guy’s hometown.  Steinbrueck launched his argument noting the fact that Vancouver had accessible and safe bathrooms in public places. Seattle has...

A recent piece in the New York Times’ Home and Garden section featured the growing eco-consulting industry—entrepreneurs who give up-close and personal advice to people about how to live their lives more sustainably. The writer questions whether or not the small stuff adds up to real impacts. In fact, she reminds us that the biggest impacts are much farther “upstream”: There is also debate about whether individual action matters at...

The hot-button topic of population growth is feared and avoided by politicians and enviro-minded folks alike. Contraception, abortion, family planning, religious beliefs—yikes! Even if you believe that curbing procreation is key to solving our environmental and climate woes, who’d want to touch that powder keg of issues? But Robert Engelman in the current issue of Scientific American says it doesn’t need to be that way, and in fact, if we...

Folks in Oregon have been trumpeting the good news all day today—and rightly so; according to the Pew Charitable Trusts Oregon has the largest percentage of its jobs involved in the clean energy economy. (Click map for larger version) True—it’s a small chunk (1.02 percent of the 1.9 million jobs in the state), but it shows that the state has claimed a lead in the transition to the new energy...

The Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill is best known for its extensive provisions for a cap and trade system to set a price on carbon emissions and gradually reduce them over time. But in the bill’s more than 900 pages (be careful when you download it!) are some interesting provisions that mandate significant improvements to energy codes that govern building construction. It is hard to exaggerate the importance of building...

If you read beyond the dubious headlines today, “Think Twice About ‘Green’ Transport, Say Scientists” and “Train Can Be Worse for Climate than Plane,” you’ll find an interesting study that suggests policy makers go beyond tailpipe emissions when calculating the carbon impacts of planes, trains, buses, and cars. University of California-Berkeley researchers attempted to also account for greenhouse gases released when building the vehicles, generating fuel to run them and...