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We need to start cleaning up space pollution

Image: European Space AgencyIt’s not just the Earth we’re junking up. There’s also a ton of man-made space-crud in orbit around the planet. Efforts to keep track of it are falling short — there are an estimated 600,000 pieces of stuff bigger than a centimeter in diameter, and fewer than 20,000 can be tracked — […]

Real-life Darth Vader/ Emperor Palpatine duo now in charge of U.S. energy policy

The best government money can buy.Photo: Official Star Wars BlogThe bad news is that we now have a political climate in Congress that could only be more lethal to action on clean energy and climate change if it were made out of mustard gas. The worse news is that the reason things have gotten to […]

Sorry, Eminem: Mass transit creates jobs, not Detroit

“Did you see what Mother Jones said about this ad? I’m about to cry.”Chrysler’s Super Bowl spot may feature Eminem looking all tough, but here’s one way he’s helping the terrorists win: Compared to mass transit, cars suck at creating jobs. A new report analyzing stimulus spending shows that spending on public transportation and road […]

‘Mom, can we get the kind of car that we keep at our house?’

But everybody else does it!Photo: Mario KlingemannOn a recent, rather brisk, walk to church, my 3-year-old daughter, Rosa, asked, “Mom, can we get the kind of car that we keep at our house?” As opposed, that is, to the kind we use for a few hours and then return. I wasn’t especially surprised by the […]

H&M wants the clothes you throw out to be more sustainable

It’s recycling! I recycled David Byrne’s jacket and Shakespeare’s pants.Is disposable-clothes giant H&M still trying to save face from the time it got caught with its pants down, shredded, and thrown in a dumpster in Herald Square? The clothing company, long a purveyor of one-season clothing for teenyboppers and underpaid professionals, is making a move […]

Why sustainable design sucks

Recycling gone awry.Photo: Rosenfeld MediaEverything you think you know about sustainable design is wrong. That’s the message of one of the most compelling and potentially disruptive essays on the subject since Buckminster Fuller unleashed his special brand of crazy on a world that was just waking up to design as a weapon in the war […]

Dando la cara a la comida [en Español]

Reproducido con permiso – (C) Rick Nahmias/Todos los derechos reservados (Check out the slideshow in English here.) Fotografía: (C) Rick Nahmias/themigrantproject.com Cada día, a más tardar a las 2:00 a.m., estas mujeres viajan desde Mexicali al puerto de entrada a Calexico. Esperan para abordar los autobuses que las transportarán casi 75 millas al norte para […]

Hexavalent chromium pollution linked to coal ash disposal

The landmark $333 million court settlement that propelled legal researcher Erin Brockovich to environmental stardom involved the contamination of a California town’s groundwater with hexavalent chromium, a toxic compound known to cause cancer. Now the same dangerous heavy metal, usually associated with steel manufacturing and metal plating, has been discovered seeping from coal ash disposal […]

Earthbags: Why hobbit-holes are part of green building’s future

Earthbags, a green building material that's cheaper and greener than cement, are getting attention from the DIY crowd.

Earthbags: Why hobbit-holes are part of green building’s future

Earthbags, a green building material that's cheaper and greener than cement, are getting attention from the DIY crowd.