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Mic checking Big Food

The Occupy Big Food rally at Zuccotti Park on Saturday.“Whose food? Our food!” This was the rallying cry at the first Occupy Big Food event on Saturday in Zuccotti Park. The rally, which I led with Erika Lade, a graduate student in NYU’s Food Studies program, gathered about 100 people with the goal of connecting […]

The art of talking climate science

By tweaking their language, scientists can communicate better with the public on climate change.Cross-posted from Sightline Daily. This is part five in the series “Talking Weather and Climate.” Read parts one, two, three, and four. Let’s face it: Few of us speak in perfect, clear, stirring, and memorable soundbites. But scientists are particularly apt to […]

Stuffed to the gills: How crap took over my life — and how I intend to take it back

Photo: Peretz PartenskyIt’s hard to put a finger on the exact moment the crap took over Americans’ lives, but I know exactly when it happened to me. And as we head into a day of national gluttony followed by a collective, orgiastic display of shopping, I’ve resolved to do more than weather the onslaught. I […]

Unboxing Occupy Wall Street: We still don’t know what it is, and that’s good

Photo: Martin ReisWhen I first heard about Occupy Wall Street (henceforth OWS), I was dismissive. Worse, I was dismissive in a smug, insider, hippie-punching sort of way. I immediately put it into a box: confused and easily dismissed lefty protests filled with Free Mumia signs, giant puppets, and drum circles. As it turned out, I […]

Fox viewers are the most misinformed about climate change

Yet another study has shown that Fox News viewers are the most misinformed about important political issues — this time, global warming. This is no surprise, of course; Fox News openly advertises its agenda on climate change, and this isn't even the first study to show that Fox viewers are less likely to accept the […]

Pepper spray is not messing around

If this weekend's attack on students had you wondering how bad pepper spray really is, science writer Deborah Blum has you covered. Answer: It's five times more intense than the hottest natural pepper in the world. (Commercial pepper spray is twice as intense, but the police-grade stuff is supercharged.) That's because it's made of capsaicin, […]

How extreme weather almost aborted this year’s Thanksgiving meal

It’s a miracle Thanksgiving is happening this year at all, given all the extreme weather we’ve had. If you’re wondering when climate change will start affecting us in ways that are heartbreaking as well as economically painful, here’s how this year’s feast almost didn’t happen.

Report: Homeownership is keeping unemployment high

The U.S. is suffering crushing unemployment, yet workers can't move to where the jobs are because they are trapped in underwater mortgages, explains a new report from Brookings. This, it turns out, is the ultimate fate of the "ownership society" that our government has been pushing for so long through Fannie, Freddy, and tax policy: […]

Walmart’s promised green product rankings fall off the radar

In 2009, Walmart created a stir when it announced that it would develop a Sustainability Index to assess the environmental impacts of every item on its shelves and provide an easy rating system to help shoppers make greener choices. CEO Mike Duke described [PDF] the index as “a simple tool that informs consumers about the […]

Water. Coal. Texas. Sanity. One of these words does not belong.

Texas’ water problems won’t be over anytime soon.Photo: SeanIn case anyone missed it, Texas had a big drought last summer — the worst one-year drought in the state’s history. Lakes dried, animals were slaughtered, cities imposed lawn-watering restrictions, the governor prayed for rain. Among the doom-and-gloom sector of the left, talk has been circulating of […]