Latest Articles

The EPA doesn’t regulate farm dust, it regulates air pollution

One cardinal rule of American politics is "Thou shalt not piss off the farmers." (Remember how farms were going to get a free pass on cap-and-trade?) Conveniently for Republicans, earlier this year, air monitors in Arizona found high levels of particulate matter in the air, and the EPA traced it to farms and had to work with farmers to minimize the amount of dust their work was creating.

Now, Arizona is very, very dusty place, and particulate matter is a hazard to air quality. But for what a reasonable person can only assume were political reasons, Republicans started claiming that the EPA was going to start imposing "farm dust" regulations on Midwestern farms, and now they are trying to get Congress to vote against "farm dust" regulations.

Of course, these "farm dust regulations" don't govern farms or dust in particular. 

Democrats who campaign for climate action win more

Listen up, Obama: Analysis of recent elections shows that expressing and pursuing goals for climate action pays off politically.

Fighting climate change in the Navajo Nation

A physician-turned-street-artist takes an urban art form to a landscape where most of the walls are eons-old stone.

Solar is getting cheap fast — pay attention, Very Serious People

Solar PV could be the cheapest source of electricity within 15 years. You'd think utilities, regulators, investors, and political leaders would want to take note.

The top 10 Fox News lies about the EPA

Media Matters has compiled a list of the top 10 falsehoods Fox News has spread about the EPA this year. Click for more detail!

Is the next Steve Jobs in Geneva, Beijing, or Abu Dhabi?

Reading tributes to the fallen tech hero, Steve Jobs, from around the globe, two things are clear to me — his successor is likely to be in the clean energy sector and working somewhere other than the U.S. I’m not saying Americans have lost their inventive mojo, just that I have met 50 innovative, inspirational […]

Here's what wind power looked like in 1951

This video of vintage wind turbines is super cool. EnergyNOW reports that the U.K. started supplementing its energy needs with wind power during World War II, then kept using wind for daily needs — like shop window lighting — after the war was over.

Climate change could cause a chocolate shortage

Chocolate lovers have two decades to consume all the Godiva they can before climate change drinks their milkshake. After that, global warming will cause production to dwindle in current cocoa-producing regions, like Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire, according to a new study by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture.

That doesn't necessarily mean that humanity will lose chocolate, though. It just might have to come from somewhere else.

Genius shopping cart gizmo helps you eat local

This shopping cart attachment lets you compare the food miles on your purchases in a way that's quick, easy to interpret, and less complicated than the self-checkout. That is cool as hell! Also, this demonstration video, which was made for a conference, is a complete hoot. (I am a sucker for a British accent, though.)

New small hydro could add significantly to state renewable power

Over at Climate Progress, Stephen Lacey recently asked why there isn’t more development of micro hydro in the U.S., given its potential to provide more than 30,000 low-cost megawatts of power to U.S. states (and bipartisan political support). We can’t answer that question any better than Stephen, but we can provide a good illustration of […]