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Four Charts Provide Distributed Solar Lessons from California

A new study for the California Public Utilities Commission explores the “Technical Potential for Local Distributed Photovoltaics in California.”  Basically, it’s one of the more in-depth analyses of local solar power in the country, suggesting that California has the capacity to add 15 gigawatts (GW) of local solar (20 megawatts and smaller) to its grid […]

What runners can teach us about sustainability

Today in the U.S., we have a “sprint culture” -- an addiction to speed and quick rewards. We need to slow down and begin to find a rhythm for a long-distance run.

Photos: See ya later, lovely glaciers

A new book by photographer James Balog captures in vivid color just what’s at stake as climate change erodes ice in some of the world’s most extreme places.

Friday music blogging: The Avett Brothers, yet again

There’s no band I have gushed over more than The Avett Brothers. I even wrote a cover story about them for another magazine, which you can check out here. So, yeah, there’s not much left to say. They’re awesome! And they have a new album out, called The Carpenter. It is also awesome.

Guam is entirely infested with spiders, and it’s all the fault of invasive snakes

The island of Guam has up to 40 times the normal number of spiders — on average, about one spiderweb every two feet during the rainy season. And if that’s not enough, it’s also infested with brown tree snakes. That’s not a coincidence. According to a study published in PLoS, Guam’s spider explosion comes from […]

Heat and Drought Ravage U.S. Crop Prospects—Global Stocks Suffer

By Janet Larsen September estimates from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) show 2012 U.S. corn yields at 123 bushels per acre, down by a fourth from the 2009 high of 165 bushels per acre. Yields are the lowest since 1995 and well below the average of the last 30 years. The summer heat and […]

Scientists are using new technology to identify zombie bees

Some of the scientists investigating the mysterious honeybee die-offs suspect zombie bees, bees that are being mind-controlled by parasitic scuttle fly maggots. Unlike human zombies, bee zombies (or, inevitably, “zombees”) do not have telltale tattered clothes or dark eye makeup. So in order to tell whether they’re dealing with bees or zombees, researchers are affixing […]

Artist slices delicate, beautiful nature scenes out of leaves

Lorenzo Durán's cut-away leaf art is both mindblowing and a thoughtful meditation on ecology.

An open letter to people who don’t like cheeseburgers, by a cheeseburger

Cheeseburgers have a lot of feelings, and those feelings are LIES.

New startup measures your home’s efficiency just by taking a picture

Forty percent of energy in the United States is used to heat buildings and homes. Only some of that goes to actually sparing your whiny ass from getting up and putting on a sweater, though. The rest — billions of dollars worth — just leaks out your windows and doors. But a new company could […]