Latest Articles

The age of thirst in the American West

This essay was originally published on TomDispatch and is republished here with Tom’s kind permission. Consider it a taste of the future: the fire, smoke, drought, dust, and heat that have made life unpleasant, if not dangerous, from Louisiana to Los Angeles. New records tell the tale: biggest wildfire ever recorded in Arizona (538,049 acres); […]

The brutal logic of climate change

The consensus in American politics today is that there’s nothing to be gained from talking about climate change. It’s divisive, the electorate has more pressing concerns, and very little can be accomplished anyway. In response to this evolving consensus, lots of folks in the climate hawk coalition (broadly speaking) have counseled a new approach that […]

Cartoon penguins: Biggest threat to children since SpongeBob

I'm sorry, I will never get sick of right-wing wig-flipping over children's entertainment. Apparently anything but VeggieTales is Marxist indoctrination to some people — and what with Big Government pushing healthy eating, it's not long before a wholesome Christian message isn't enough to keep talking vegetables conservative-friendly.  You'll remember, of course, the "Fox & Friends" […]

The Onion warns that global warming could be irreversible within negative five years

If you've ever felt confused about the definition of "lolsob," read this Onion headline: "Report: Global Warming May Be Irreversible By 2006." Oy. The Onion has been on a roll lately of just reporting the news straight and letting it satirize itself (see also: "Rumors Of Extramarital Affair End Campaign Of Presidential Candidate Who Didn't […]

This is what Antarctica looks like naked

Scientists have made a detailed map of Antarctica's rock bed — what the land looks like underneath the ice — as part of their attempt to predict how the continent might respond to global warming. Figuring out what will happen when Antarctic ice melts requires an understanding of what's going on down below: Scientists are […]

What record emissions growth really shows us

2010 saw the single biggest jump in carbon emissions ever. It's like we're addicted to perpetrating the most heinous crimes possible on our own children, and we can't stop! What's up with that? It's easy to blame countries like China, which is now the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases on the planet, what with its […]

Cloning a mammoth: Totally gonna happen

Back in August, a team of scientists uncovered a woolly mammoth's thigh bone, which had been so well preserved in Siberian permafrost that it offered the possibility of creating a mammoth clone. And this weekend, a team of Japanese and Russian scientist announced that, yes, they are going to do this thing. Mammoth clones. They're […]

Efficiency standards are the SINGLE BIGGEST CLIMATE DEAL EVER

The U.S. federal government teamed up with all of the major auto manufacturers and hammered out a deal to double the average fuel efficiency of all vehicles on the road by 2025 — to 54.5 miles per gallon. New vehicles sold under the program will save "a total of four billion barrels of oil and […]

Food Studies: The invisibility of modern hunger

A scene from Rock Center with Brian Williams.Food Studies features the voices of volunteer student bloggers from a variety of different food- and agriculture-related programs at universities around the world. You can explore the full series here. A couple pulls into a grocery store parking lot at exactly midnight on the first of the month. […]

New study shows three-quarters of global temperature rise is humans’ fault

A study published this weekend in Nature Geoscience has double-checked, and confirmed, the idea that climate change is mostly human-made. It uses "an alternative line of evidence" to prove that most observed climate change — 74 percent of it — comes from greenhouse-gas emissions, not natural variability. We basically knew that already, but it's always […]