Latest Articles

Major coal vctory: LS Power agrees to abandon two coal projects, invest in solar

Today, the Sierra Club is celebrating a landmark victory that was a long time coming. We have reached a settlement with LS Power to cancel their plans to build two new coal plants — the Longleaf plant in Georgia, and the Plum Point 2 plant in Arkansas. These two coal plants are Nos. 160 and […]

Totally plausible water solution: Collect ice in the desert

Look, it's very simple. All you need to solve the water shortage is a giant metal leaf that you put in the desert and it uses solar power to grow ice. Then you drink the ice. How is this difficult? Okay, this is not completely for real. The leaf's creators don't think it will singlehandedly […]

Amazing green building looks like it’s made of string

The new design for the Taiwan Tower (which will be built in, where else, Taiwan) is based on the banyan tree, but it looks more like a super-complex cat's cradle. The openwork building, designed by Japanese firm Sou Fujimoto Architects, will house a "semi-outdoor" space, pierced by sunlight and shaded by a green roof. The […]

Cities: Not quite as awesome as we like to think

Photo: David Graham If you Google the term “a scholar and a gentleman,” the first result to pop up is a picture of Witold Rybczynski — or it would be if there were any justice in the world. Rybczynski is an architect, author, and professor of urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania. He has written […]

Market forces, not EPA standards, killing new coal plants

Cross-posted from the Natural Resources Defense Council. As the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) prepares the first-ever national standards for carbon pollution from new fossil-fuel power plants, the coal industry is embarking, predictably, on its latest disinformation campaign to try to block these desperately needed public health and climate safeguards. New coal plants are dirty, risky, […]

The top five takeaways from the Durban climate talks

Talking about climate-policy developments gets tedious. Bear with us for the verdict on Durban.After running 36 hours into overtime, the climate talks in Durban, South Africa, finally wrapped up this weekend. As usual, all the dramatic stuff happened in the last 12 hours, after everyone had been beaten into submission by sheer exhaustion. I do […]

Your mom was right: Don’t eat raw cookie dough

I know, I know, it's so good. But a study of a 2009 E. coli outbreak, led by CDC researchers and state health officials, has traced the contamination back to prepackaged raw cookie dough. Turns out ready-to-bake is not the same as ready-to-not-bake-and-get-right-to-the-eating. Ugh, god, what are we supposed to scarf when we get dumped […]

The most bare-chested grocery-bag video you’ll watch today

This is maybe not the most complex Tim Minchin song I've ever heard, but you have to admit it imbues canvas grocery bags with some much-needed rock star cachet. At least by the time the giant fan comes out. (Hat tip to Umbra reader Jake!)

Brits make disused landfill into wildlife sanctuary

There are a few options of what to do with an old landfill: cover it over and leave it alone; turn it into a field for solar panels; convince people to play soccer on top of it. One town in England is going a step further and returning a decommissioned landfill to nature. The 16-acre […]

What exactly happened at Durban?

Ok, kids, Durban is over, and it's time for the world to return to its regularly scheduled programming of carbon-induced DOOM. What exactly did the world's long-suffering climate negotiators accomplish? They agreed on a "platform" outlining how they’ll keep trying to create a new climate treaty. Well, it’s … progress towards progress? Here are the […]