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Obama's jobs council hearts environmental destruction

The Fortune 500 CEOs who make up the president's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness are all about building Keystone XL, reinstating deepwater drilling in the Gulf, and fracking up West Virginia. The idea is that these projects will create jobs and economic growth, at least until there's a disaster of some sort that economically depresses […]

Street artists see the city as their canvas

The artist Gaia is part of a young generation using art to revitalize cities, engage residents, and connect to the past.

Virgin Atlantic plans to halve jet fuel’s carbon footprint using industrial gas

Virgin Atlantic is promising that within a few years, they'll be able to make their long haul flights with half the carbon impact that their jet fuel creates now.

The key technology here captures gases from steel production and makes them into jet fuel. It's supposedly better than biofuels, in part because it doesn't raise the same land use concerns. Virgin's not making the transition on its own: the company is partnering with Boeing, Swedish Fuels, and New Zealand-based Lanza Tech.

USDA pushes veggies, but subsidizes meat

The Washington Post reports that the USDA's nutrition guidelines are seriously out of step with food subsidies. The government recommends people eat fruits and veggies as nearly half their daily intake, and protein as less than a quarter — but they subsidize meat in totally different proportions. We whipped up this little graphic to compare […]

Enviros cross out ‘Bush’ on lawsuit, write in ‘Obama’

It's official. Environmental groups are disenchanted enough with the Obama administration that they've decided to hit it with the same tactic they used for Bush, a tactic that the environmental movement has relied on since time immemorial to get done what needs to be done: suing the crap out of the government.

Today, a suite of environmental groups that includes NRDC, EDF and Earthjustice revived a 2008 lawsuit they'd first brought against the Bush administration. Its aim is to keep people from breathing nasty, dirty, health-threatening air by forcing the government to tighten smog standards.

The Washington Post's boneheaded conventional wisdom on Solyndra

The Washington Post is spouting the Very Serious Conventional Wisdom: government is a "crappy" venture capitalist that shouldn't be picking winners.

Where did Obama's mojo go?

Obama's fund-raising emails sound a little pathetic. Nixing the Keystone XL pipeline could be his last chance to prove himself to progressive voters.

Soiled diapers can now end up as roof tiles

Babies! They use so much energy that the best thing you could do to save the human race from climate change might be to avoid having one altogether. But if you choose the reproductive path, at least the 6,000 poopy diapers that your offspring will produce in the course of his or her early years could have a second life as part of your house -- specifically, as the shingles tiling your roof.

This is where your plants will come from after the Ecopocalypse

Wired has posted a series of photos of seed vaults, storage units that bank tens of thousands of seeds in an attempt to preserve biodiversity against threats of extinction and climate change, and we can safely say they're the creepiest way of ensuring that species survive. This is some mad-science stuff!

Food Studies: Try this at-home smell training course

Want to talk about wine without sounding like a snob? Grab some oak chips and butter extract and try this sensory exercise yourself.