Latest Articles

Congress toys with the future of wind energy

The same lawmakers clinging desperately to Keystone won't extend the production tax credit that keeps the burgeoning wind industry alive.

Unbroken homes: Five creative reuses for foreclosed houses

In the wake of the mortgage crisis, hundreds of thousands of homes the in U.S. now stand vacant. What do we do with these moldering houses?

Climate analysts are from Mars, climate activists are from Venus … but they both live on Earth

With the Keystone XL pipeline back in the news, David Roberts tackles the tensions between climate analysts and climate advocates -- and finds they're better off working together.

Senators take emergency oil reserve hostage to force Keystone approval

They won't stop: GOP senators introduced an act that would prevent Obama from selling oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve unless Keystone is approved.

Corn, corn everywhere — and not a drop to eat

Record-high crop prices have all the big farms in the Midwest planting up a storm while farm state politicians plan to trim conservation programs. Put them together and what do you get? A Big Ag bubble.

World’s worst elected official makes the case for sprawl

"Well, let me state it unequivocally: I love sprawl," says L. Brooks Patterson, county executive of Oakland County, Mich.

Fair Trade gasoline

You know where your coffee beans come from -- so why not your gasoline? Did your $3.50 a gallon go to prop up our tar-sands-addicted frenemies in Canada?

Hillary Clinton is tackling climate change whether you like it or not

Clinton announced a new initiative to start attacking "short-lived climate pollutants" -- otherwise known as "everything except carbon dioxide."

Adorable video will make you feel bad for power plants

This video of collapsing power plant cooling towers is supposed to make you want to celebrate the victory of renewable energy over large power companies that run on fossil fuels. And it does! Sort of. But the cooling towers are so adorable that you feel kind of bad for rooting against them. Couldn’t they have […]

Kid-powered school bus

Leave it to the Dutch to figure out how to replace even school buses with a conglomerate of bicycles. The buscycle, used to transport kids to day care, turns elementary schoolers’ boundless energy into a source of renewable fuel.