Barbara Bernstein

On February 17 the U.S. Senate confirmed Scott Pruitt as the new EPA administrator. This is a man who denies climate change is real. As the attorney general of Oklahoma he sued the EPA fourteen times, while using talking points written by energy lobbyists to publicly attack... Read more

It's hard not to be disheartened by the news everyday coming from the Trump-occupied White House. But one way to stay energized is to resist at the local level. As the Trump Administration's federal policies look to favor the fossil fuel industry, state and local authority... Read more

There are a lot of things that are inconceivable about Donald Trump, but the incoherence of his energy policy is especially mind boggling. He’s likely to wind up angering a lot of his key supporters in the fossil fuel industry, because some of his moves, such as resuscitati... Read more

Since 2005, when Congress passed a federal mandate to blend corn-based ethanol and other renewable fuels into conventional gasoline, the increased demand for corn – which has supplied nearly all of these mandated fuels to date – has resulted in a major transformation of the... Read more

In 1992, in a remote mountain range, a team of scientists discovered the remains of an unusual animal with beautiful long horns. It turned out to be a living species new to western science - a saola, the first large land mammal discovered in 50 years. Rare then and rarer n... Read more

In December Donald Trump met with the CEOs of several high tech companies, including Safra Catz, CEO of Oracle. After Catz was quoted before joining the Trump transition team as saying: “I plan to tell the President-elect that we are with him and are here to help in any way... Read more

America's electrical grid, an engineering triumph of the twentieth century, is turning out to be a poor fit for the present. It's not just that the grid has grown old and is now in dire need of basic repair. Today, as we invest great hope in new energy sources--solar, wind,... Read more

As this year draws to a painful close, amidst all the political debris, we can look back at some major environmental successes. Communities across the Pacific Northwest have stopped proposals to build coal terminals in Washington and Oregon, a giant methanol refinery in Tac... Read more

We have been watching Donald Trump announce the most astonishing rogues gallery of cabinet nominees ever assembled. Not only are his picks bent on demolishing the very agencies they would lead, they are for the most part totally incompetent. The only possible upside of this... Read more