Latest Articles

Universal health care and the medium chill

Is U.S. economic policy currently biased against medium chillers? Or is it biased against killers? Or both? The big problem is health care.

Norway terrorist is a climate change denier

Anders Breivik, Norway terrorist, is a climate change denier, like many American conservatives.

Cooperative South Dakota wind farm nets 600 local owners

This post originally appeared on Energy Self-Reliant States, a resource of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s New Rules Project. With the right renewable energy policy, hundreds of individuals can have a stake in a renewable energy future.  That’s what happened with a cooperatively-owned wind project in South Dakota, where 7 turbines from a larger wind project […]

Everyone thinks Obama is doing a bad job on the environment

Yale Environment 360 asked a series of environmental thinkers, activists, and policymakers what they think of Barack Obama's record on the environmental record so far. The overwhelming response was that they didn't think very much of it at all.

Here’s climate writer and activist Bill McKibben:

The EPA does not want you feeding arsenic to your baby

It's only 16 months until the next election, and you know what that means: We are in the thick of political ad season. Mostly that makes everybody want to crawl under a sofa, but sometimes you get arresting ads like this one from American Family Voices.

Top 10 American vacation spots House bill could ruin

The House of Representatives is set to vote for over 40 provisions that would endanger the health of some of America's most beautiful vacation spots.

Is it enough to tax junk food and subsidize good food?

The New York Times' Mark Bittman is right that we need to tax junk food and make healthy food more affordable. But we also need to quash junk-food advertising.

A golden opportunity to please conservatives and liberals alike

The U.S. EPA should opt for a smart, low-cost approach to fulfilling its mandate under a Supreme Court decision to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

Paper antennas pull electricity from the air

The air is full of energy -- not in a woo-woo crystal-gazing way, but in a scientific electromagnetic-radiation-from-TV-stations-and-phone-networks kind of way. That ambient energy is just being wasted. But a team from Georgia Tech is developing inkjet-printed paper antennas that could generate enough energy to power a small gadget, right out of thin air.

The end of Borders and the importance of 'third places' in the city

The liquidation of Borders bookstores in cities raises the question of how to preserve the social value of spaces that are now prime real estate.