As you may have heard, Bill McKibben of 350.org has been traveling the country on what he calls his "Do the Math tour". The goal, as McKibben puts it, is "to jumpstart a new movement...that will change the terrifying math of the climate crisis." The means by which McKibben et al. hope to achieve their goal are simple but powerful: "cut off the [fossil fuel] industry’s financial and political support by divesting our schools, churches and government from fossil fuels." In other words, defund the fossil fuel industry before it poisons us all and completely trashes our planet.

Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories is out with its 5th annual "Tracking the Sun" report, which looks at "historical trends in the installed price (that is, the up-front cost borne by the system owner) of grid-connected PV systems in the United States." A few findings of the report jumped out at us:

Recently, we held a roundtable discussion at Tigercomm headquarters in Rosslyn, Virginia with former Virginia Governor (now Senator-elect) Tim Kaine, as well as 10 clean economy  business leaders from the  mid-Atlantic region. One of those leaders was Anthony Smith of Secure Futures. Here's a brief description of Secure Future's work in helping to build a clean energy economy.

DeSmogBlog has excellent news for anyone who cares about academic integrity, about getting the real facts regarding oil and gas "fracking," and about standing up for "real science over junk science peddled by the gas industry."

Add this to the true cost of fossil fuels; that is, when the "polluter pays" for the damage they've caused to the environment, to human health, and to the economy.

A new study by the National Research Council of the National Academies provides yet another strong argument for widespread deployment of solar panels and other types of renewable energy: enhanced security against potential terrorist attacks on the nation's power grid.

In our way of thinking, making it easier for commercial property owners to upgrade their buildings' energy efficiency is a goal we all should be rooting for. That's why this article in the New York Times Green blog made our ears perk up. The bottom line is that California is making energy efficiency upgrades for buildings "a bit easier and cheaper come early next year, thanks to a new pilot program approved last week by the state’s Public Utilities Commission." Here's how it works:

As clean energy technology continues to advance, the fossil fuel industry is getting desperate to preserve its prominence in the energy sector.  Fossil fuel executives and front-groups have been spending more money than ever on pro-fossil fuel ad campaigns and doing what they can to debunk climate change science. The latest – and possibly most outrageous – example of this is the fake “Addendum” to a climate change impact assessment, soon to be released by the libertarian think-tank Cato Institute.

As frustrating as it is to see the gridlock in Congress over clean energy, it's nice to know that progress is being made at the state level.

The other day, we highlighted an article by David Roberts of Grist, about how the U.S. coal industry is in "big trouble as...production costs rise."  This morning, Roberts had a followup which is also worth reading, entitled Exporting to China may not save the U.S. coal industry after all.  The key points are:

A recent Harris Poll of Americans' attitudes towards renewable energy and other issues had a few interesting findings that jumped out at us.