Uncategorized

NYT Magazine probes Obama’s economic thinking

If you read only one article about Barack Obama this week — hell, this campaign season — make it “Obamanomics,” by David Leonhardt, in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine. Little I’ve read about Obama has provided more insight into the way he thinks, not only about economics, but also about public policy generally. The framing […]

Clean coal making the early rounds at DNC

8:28 a.m., residential Denver: First sighting of giant, roving “clean coal” van, sponsored by the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. Photos to come.

OMFG

How is this not the worst thing ever? Did the McCain campaign make this?

Snippets from the news

• Fracture in Greenland glacier concerns scientists. • U.S. Open talks up greenness. • Can veggie oil clean up toxic groundwater? • Ethanol losing its golden reputation. • Is plastic sickening lobsters?

California to phase out lead weights on tires by end of 2009

Lead weights used to balance vehicle wheels will be phased out in California by the end of 2009, in accordance with a court settlement approved Wednesday. The settlement resolves a lawsuit filed by the Center for Environmental Health in May against Chrysler and the three biggest U.S. makers of lead wheel weights. The group says […]

Snippets from the news

• Oreos under attack for rainforest destruction. • Pacific nations plead for help. • Climate change poses threat to Himalayas. • Plan to bottle Vermont water is controversial. • Musk oxen and caribou help Arctic.

Snippets from the news

• Lease sale held in Gulf of Mexico. • First half of 2008 coolest of last five years. • Nations meet to talk climate in Ghana. • Shareholder resolutions related to climate change doubled over last five years. • Five Midwest states violated air-pollution standards. • Southwest getting less rain.

Umbra on Method cleansers

Dear Umbra, I’ve noticed lately that Method cleaning products are now being sold in a number of different retail outlets, whereas before they were only sold in Target. This shouldn’t seem too weird in our every-store-sells-the-same-thing world, but seeing these products on the shelves in Whole Foods got me wondering more about them. You see, […]

EPA knuckleheads hide info on pesticide implicated in colony collapse disorder

So there’s this insecticide called clothianidin that seems likely to be implicated in colony collapse disorder. By the EPA’s own reckoning [PDF], clothianidin “has the potential for toxic chronic exposure to honeybees, as well as other nontarget pollinators, through the translocation of clothianidin residues in nectar and pollen.” Over in Germany, the introduction of clothianidin […]

Make it stop

A note to conference organizers everywhere: it’s been documented by science that extended periods of exposure to light jazz leads to terminal dyspepsia and even brain tumors. So perhaps you should find something else to play in the lulls between speakers.