It is time to stop heating the outdoors - McKibben to VT lawmakers

Bennington Banner: Activist to Vt. lawmakers: Act now on climate change - Bennington Banner: "MONTPELIER -- Writer and environmental activist Bill McKibben gave Vermont lawmakers a dire warning about climate change Wednesday, calling it "the biggest challenge by far that humans have ever faced," and calling for steps including a big new effort to save energy by insulating thousands of homes in the state."

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Protesters in Maine rally against tar sands oil - Nation - The Boston Globe

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Protesters in Maine rally against tar sands oil - Nation - The Boston Globe: "PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Hundreds of people rallied in Portland on Saturday in what was billed as the largest protest yet against the possibility of so-called tar sands oil being piped in from Montreal."

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Tufts students decide that hope is not enough, action needed on #climatechange

Students tell their story after arrest at pipeline protest - Tufts Daily - Tufts University: "“We know that now is the time to act, if not far past the time to act, in order to stop climate catastrophe from affecting us,” Powell said. “We want to make it really clear that 2013 is the year that the climate movement is proving that we are taking this issue very seriously,” Powell said. “We’re not going to back down.”"

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The Really, Really Big Picture | Peak Prosperity

The Really, Really Big Picture | Peak Prosperity: "The summary of all three reports leads to the conclusion that all efforts to cram the world full of fresh rounds of new debt lending are going to end in failure because the requisite net energy is simply not there to support continued debt accumulations running several-fold faster than actual economic productive output."

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NH Case Against 2 Big Oil Companies Gets Underway - ABC News

NH Case Against 2 Big Oil Companies Gets Underway - ABC News: "The state's lawyers say ExxonMobil and Citgo should pay more than $700 million in damages to monitor and clean up groundwater contamination caused by the gas additive MTBE — methyl tertiary butyl ether — now banned in New Hampshire."

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Small towns battle megastores -- #freetransit would promote #walkability and help local businesses

CVS Pharmacy Embattled Coast-to-Coast By Shepherd Bliss: "Sebastopol’s town slogan “Local Flavor, Global Vision” would not be exemplified by CVS, which does not fit into a unique, sustainable downtown. “A wide majority of Sebastopolians believed that the CVS project was bad for local business, traffic, and ecology,” reported Jonathan Greenberg in the daily Press Democrat of the nearby urban center of Santa Rosa on Jan. 4. “We voted accordingly, electing two candidates who vigorously opposed the project.”"

Two strong attractions of mega-stores: ample parking and one-stop shopping. How can local mom-and-pop stores compete when they have only 2 or 3 parking places in front of their store? Simple answer. Make buses free in your town. People will ride downtown and walk around to shop. They will actually do more walking than they do now, and will stop exporting money for gas and goods.