An oil spill but no energy bill: where do we go from here?

To many people, it seemed inevitable that 2010 would be The Year we passed The Climate & Energy Bill to overhaul the way we make and consume energy in this country.  The stage was set in 2008 when Democrats gained control of both the Congress and the White House and pledged to reduce carbon pollution.  [...]

SACE Guest Blog with Bill McKibben

We’re Hot as Hell and We’re Not Going to Take It Any More
Three Steps to Establish a Politics of Global Warming
This blog posting features an article by 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben that has been posted everywhere from TomDispatch.com to Grist.org to the L.A. Times. This provocative piece shows us how to change the dynamics of the climate [...]

Too little, too late? Congress may fail to move from oil spill to a robust energy bill

After decades of scientific data gathering, years of growing public and business support and more than three months of an unmitigated environmental catastrophe, it is reasonable to expect that citizens and leaders would all support a paradigm shift in U.S. energy policy.
In fact, even before BP’s Gulf oil disaster began, President Obama and Congress promised [...]

Clean Energy Gulf Challenge Winner

Oceana’s Vision 2020 is the winner of SACE’s Clean Energy Gulf Challenge
Today, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy announced the winner of its Clean Energy Gulf Challenge:  Oceana’s Vision 2020. It is the best plan—according to expert judges and public voters—for the path to end our nation’s dependence on oil and eliminate the need for oil from both [...]

Dams in the desert, windmills in the doldrums, biopower in the Berkshires

From SACE’s perspective, the Manomet study of biomass and carbon offers an important new way to describe and think-through the possible impacts on the climate from biomass energy. Although the study’s findings are limited in geographic scope, the methodology can be applied elsewhere to great benefit.

Join Hands Across the Sand this Saturday

On summer weekends visitors and residents alike head to beaches across our region to surf, fish, swim and play. One hard reality of the still-ongoing Gulf oil disaster is that at least 100 miles of Gulf coastline cannot welcome people or animals due to the oil and tar balls that continue to wash up [...]

The Gulf Oil Disaster, Vulnerable Communities and Energy Policy

This post was co-authored by Seandra Rawls and Marcus Strong, Clean Energy Policy intern for the summer of 2010.
The sinking of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig and the uncontrollable oil leak that resulted is already being called the nation’s worst environmental disaster. For a region already battling poverty and still recovering  from Hurricane Katrina, [...]

Turning Anger Into Action, Responding to the BP Gulf Oil Disaster

Since the Gulf oil disaster began on April 20, the ever-increasing damage to local wildlife, ecosystems and local economies confirms just how deadly our addiction to oil and other dirty fossil fuels has become.
In March, SACE critiqued President Obama’s short-sighted plan to lift a 20-year old ban on offshore drilling and then in April we [...]

Sacrificing the Gulf for the Illusion of Energy Independence

This blog was co-authored by Dr. Stephen Smith, Toni Reale and Jennifer Rennicks.
Hollywood couldn’t have written a stranger, more ironic script depicting our nation’s ugly, polluting and dangerous energy addiction.  On the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, the world watched as the Deepwater Horizon, the “technologically advanced” $600 million exploratory drill rig, sank into the [...]

Lawmakers must create renewable-energy jobs

Opinion Editorial by Stephen Smith
Originally published March 19, 2009 in the Orlando Sentinel
Aaron Deslatte’s column, “Legislature 2010: Can Lawmakers Create Jobs?” on OrlandoSentinel.com recently, provided a good overview of the efforts that the state Legislature is considering to lower Florida’s high unemployment rate.
In Deslatte’s column, House Speaker Larry Cretul says, “We’ve all heard ‘government doesn’t [...]