Latest Articles

Food Studies: What’s up with gluten?

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. Gluten is what makes bread dought elastic enough to risePhoto: Three Points KitchenIt’s clear that Americans have an obsession with gluten. Just begin typing the […]

Watch Rick Perry forget that the Department of Energy even exists

Energy. The word you're looking for is energy. Not a big priority, maybe?

An aging rust belt town becomes a laboratory for sustainability

Environmental Studies professor David OrrPhoto: Lisa DeJongThis story is the first of two pieces excerpted from a feature story in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Read part 2 here and the full Chronicle story here. Oberlin, Ohio — This northern Ohio college town is barely a blip on a map, far away from national centers […]

How electric vehicles can give a boost to local clean energy

A plug for plug-ins.This post originally appeared on Energy Self-Reliant States, a resource of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s New Rules Project. The Northwest could get an additional 12 percent of its electricity from local wind power if one in eight of the region’s cars used batteries. That’s the conclusion of a study [PDF] from […]

Pasadena gets to keep its giant fork

This piece of guerilla art was originally put up as a joke — Pasadena, Calif. resident Bob Stane made a lot of corny jokes about putting a fork in the road at this fork in the road, so his friend made him an 18-foot-tall one for his 75th birthday. It wasn't technically legal (the fork's […]

Instead of buying kitchen gadgets, why not share?

If you’ve ever looked at a wedding registry, you might have a sense of how many uni-tasking kitchen appliances there are on the market. Most kitchens have more gadgets than they can hold, and most people aren't using their canning equipment/bread machine/cider press very often. So wouldn't it make more sense to share? In Portland, […]

Critical List: Rick Perry is a flake; all sorts of rhinos are dying

As president, Rick Perry would eliminate the Department of Energy, if he could remember he wanted to eliminate the Department of Energy. Do countries have to officially declare a trade war? How will we know when the U.S./China trade war over solar power actually starts? Canada continues to prove that it’s just masquerading as a […]

Don’t bug me, I’m eating [VIDEO]

Join us on a bug hunt with David Gracer, an entomophagy (bug eating) expert who makes a pretty good case for making wider culinary use of insects. In a world of factory farms and genetically modified foods, catching your own eight-legged friends might just be the sensible way to go. And chances are, you eat […]

Extreme pollution agenda in Senate targets lifesaving clean air standards

Is this the GOP’s vision of a happy, healthy future?Image: Devin HuntCross-posted from Natural Resources Defense Council. Last week, the U.S. Senate rejected an extreme agenda disguised as a jobs and transportation bill. This unsuccessful effort was founded on the absurd notion that more pollution would mean more jobs, and that what the country really needs […]

California study is NOT about technological limits. Why glass is 100% full

A recent state sponsored study shows that California could reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 60% compared to 1990 by 2050 with today’s technology(pdf).  That has sparked a debate.  The glass-half-full crowd, among whom I usually count myself would argue that if we have the technology today to achieve a 60% reduction, if we start implementing […]