August 15, 2026

Though the Need is Urgent, Earth Day’s Best Moment May Lie in Past

This week, just a day before the nation marked the 40th Earth Day, the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform exploded 50 miles from the Louisiana coast, leaving 11 people dead, dozens injured, and a pulse of crude oil that is spreading across the Gulf of Mexico. The blast, which caused the platform to sink on Earth Day itself, came 16 days after 29 men perished in a West Virginia coal mine – the worst American mining …

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Stewart Udall, An American Statesman Passes

I met Stewart Udall, and his wife Lee, in 1988 when I was a national correspondent for the New York Times and he was in the midst of seeking compensation for American victims of the nuclear weapons industry. It was the start of a friendship of 22 years that ended today with Stewart’s death. Stewart, who was 68 at the time, and Lee were getting ready to move into a beautiful adobe-style house they were …

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Recovery Bill is Breakthrough on Clean Energy, Good Jobs

In signing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act today President Barack Obama ensured that $113.5 billion will be spent over the next two years on developing clean fuels, modernizing rail transit, pursuing energy efficiency, developing high-mileage electric vehicles, and scaling up electrical generating stations powered by the wind, sun, and heat of the earth. The magnitude of the clean energy investment – consistent with the sums spent to launch the Interstate Highway System in the …

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Apollo Alliance at Democratic National Convention

DENVER –– Beyond what the Democrats contend is the epic misrule of the Bush administration, and beyond what the Obama campaign asserts is Senator John McCain’s obeisance to a belligerent president lies Senator Barack Obama’s new frame for the 2008 presidential election. Here are its pieces. America is in peril. Obama is the man to fix it. And the most powerful tool at his disposal is developing a clean energy, good jobs economy that ends …

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