Jerry Brown has done more to fight climate change than perhaps any other elected official in the US. But can the California governor truly be a world class climate champion if he doesn’t reject fracking, especially now that science says we have to leave at least two-thirds of the earth’s known reserves of fossil fuels in the ground to avoid climate catastrophe? One day before activists pressed Brown on these questions at a “March for Real Climate Leadership in Oakland,” the Los Angeles Times published my op-ed:… Read more

Will Sao Paolo, Brazil, with its 20 million inhabitants become the world’s first mega-city to run out of water? That’s among the key questions I discuss in this Global Post news analysis previewing 2015, a year that nevertheless could prove a turning point in the fight to preserve a livable… Read more

The Nobel Laureate scientists at the Doomsday clock say that “failed political leadership” on climate change and nuclear weapons “endangers every person on Earth,” I report in The Nation:… Read more

Greenpeace provides Peruvian authorities with the names of four of the activists who vandalized the Nazca Lines World Heritage Site during the December 2014 UN climate talks in Lima, an action that outraged the people and government of Peru, shocked Greenpeace’s supporters, and gave the activist group its worst PR black eye in its 40 years of high-visibility protest. I broke the story first in Businessweek: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-20/greenpeace-names-activists-behind-its-epic-fail-in-peru/. I also discussed the story on the national radio program, The World:… Read more

ExxonMobil has been the chief corporate funder of climate denial, but internally it assumes that a rising price on carbon emissions is inevitable, partly because of public pressure such as the huge September climate march in New York. The oil and gas giant tests all of its long-term investment decisions against a carbon price of $60/ton by 2030 in OECD countries. Scores of other companies do likewise. The global economy is moving; when will Congress? Read more at… Read more

The top priority of the new Republican majorities in Congress is to overturn president Obama’s climate policies. But they didn’t gain quite enough seats in the 2014 elections to succeed, provided that Democrats stay united and fight back, Obama is not shy about using his veto pen and the public keeps the pressure on. Read more at… Read more