Latest Articles
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Ask Umbra: Who doesn’t celebrate the Fourth of July with rats and dandruff?
Readers launch a volley of questions at our green advice columnist. She responds with a veritable anthem of eco-smarts.
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Local haterade: Authors say locavores do more harm than good
In their book, "The Locavore's Dilemma," Pierre Desrochers and Hiroko Shimizu argue that a widespread embrace of local food could have "disastrous effects." We wanted to know more.
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Heat records melting across the U.S.
The summer of the future is here today. Last week, 1,924 high-temperature records in the U.S. were broken or tied.
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Overturning the ‘15% Rule’ Can Expand Distributed Generation
If you haven’t heard yet, there’s a “rule” that precludes distributed renewable energy projects from supplying more than 15% of the power to most “distribution circuits” (part of the low-voltage electric grid that brings power into homes and businesses). With the rapidly falling cost of solar power, many places in the country are starting to […]
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The Earth Summit debacle: Why our leaders don’t have game
Predictions that the Rio summit would fail became a self-fulfilling prophesy, says one young activist. But that failure can also be a catalyst for change.
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Tar-sands oil spills should scare the crap out of you
InsideClimate News has published an in-depth series on a million-gallon-plus spill of oil-sands crude near Kalamazoo, Mich. Here are the good bits.
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Three ways robots can help us deal with environmental catastrophes
Since natural disasters will only increase as the planet warms, engineers are focusing on how to use robots and other mechanical gadgets to aid in disaster response.
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Congress passes terrible transportation bill, hits the road
Final transportation bill is a major letdown for advocates of transit, bikes, and other car alternatives.
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Friday music blogging: David Mayfield
Earlier this year, a friend of mine casually mentioned that he’d been enjoying the David Mayfield Parade album. This friend happens to be a professional music critic, so I tracked it down, despite having never heard a thing about it (and I keep up with new music pretty well). And damn! The album quickly became […]
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WTO doesn’t want you to know where your meat was born
Mystery meat is about to make a comeback, now that the WTO has slapped down a rule requiring country-of-origin labels.
