Latest Articles

Subsidies 101: A guide to corporate handouts, and why we shouldn’t stand for them

Let's call subsidies what they are: freebies for the richest companies in history. Here are five rules of the road that should be applied to the fossil-fuel industry when it comes to subsidies.

Google saves energy by cooling its buildings with ice

Google's new $700 million data centers in Taiwan will make ice at night, when electricity is significantly cheaper, and use it to cool the buildings during the day. It's called thermal storage, and it's basically a battery, but for air conditioning.

Why The Hunger Games is no climate parable: A science fiction pro explains

Author Paolo Bacigalupi (Windup Girl, Ship Breaker) talks about what a real eco-apocalypse looks like and the power of science fiction to inspire a better future.

Terrified by peak oil, FedEx turns to biofuels, efficiency

FedEx owns 700 planes and tens of thousands of trucks, which is why CEO Fred Smith is crazy for energy efficiency.

Forest Service employee traps and tortures wolf, doesn’t get fired

When wolves came off the endangered species list in western states like Idaho, wildlife advocates worried how the species would fare without protection. Ranchers aren’t known to be particularly fond of wolves, for starters. In March, a disturbing story confirmed some of advocates’ worst fears: A Forest Service employee had trapped and tortured a wolf […]

Critical List: A feathered cousin of T. rex; a solar panel thinner than spider silk

The Yutyrannus, a newly discovered dinosaur, was huge, related to Tyrannosaurus rex, and covered in feathers. Thousands of dead dolphins have been washing up on Peruvian beaches. Austrian and Japanese scientists teamed up to make a solar panel that’s thinner than a thread of spider silk. Drought in England means that anyone caught using a […]

Trade in the 20th century electric grid. Don’t trade off local energy

The future of U.S. energy policy is not about trade-offs, but rather a chance to trade in an obsolete paradigm for a local clean energy future.

Blown away: Wind power growing faster than other top electricity sources

Electricity generation from coal and nuclear fell in the last few years, while wind power generation skyrocketed. But policies like the production tax credit are still needed to help wind compete.

FDA to GMO labeling campaign: What million signatures?

Last week, the Just Label It campaign says they turned in 1 million signatures asking the FDA to label genetically engineered foods. The agency says it received a little under 400. What's going on here?

Four cars, built by teenagers, that get over 1,000 miles per gallon

The Shell Eco-Marathon is sort of a weird contradiction: It's all about challenging students to make hyper-fuel-efficient cars, i.e. kind of the opposite of Shell's goals.