Latest Articles

Suburban corporate campuses are going out of fashion

Is the corporate suburban stampede finally reversing? Photo: KevinCross-posted from the Natural Resources Defense Council. In the late 1990s, when Don Chen, Matt Raimi, and I were researching our book, Once There Were Greenfields, we lamented the flight of business from America’s central cities to increasingly outer suburbs and farmland. In that book we frequently […]

The wind money windfall in Sherman County, Oregon

Residents of Oregon's Sherman County used to hate on the strong winds endemic to the area. But now they pull in $590 per year, per household, just for tolerating the wind and the many wind turbines marring their viewshed. It’s like the oil payout for living in Alaska, only it’s not blood money from cannibalizing […]

Canada omitted 20 percent increase in oil-sands emissions from U.N. report

Canada reported to the United Nations that the country's greenhouse-gas emissions were dropping, down 6 percent in the last year. But the government left out one teensy little detail in its report. The emissions from the oil-sands industry, which extracts hard-to-reach oil from tar sands, increased by 20 percent in 2009. Pollution from the oil […]

Great places: smart density as part of economic flourishing

Bring people together in a great place and great things happen.This is part four in a series on “great places.” Read parts one, two, three, and five. So far I’ve written that great places are green and groovy. (Yeah, I said groovy.) Lest I make the whole notion sound like a smelly commune, though, it’s […]

Sarah Palin loves the smell of emissions in the morning

Sarah Palin is still being coy about whether she's going to run for president, but as usual, she's enjoying whatever attention she can get. Her latest stunt: Hopping on the back of a Harley to ride with 400,000 bikers through D.C., like she was Hell's own angel. Palin's take on the ride? Pollutalicious! "I love […]

Buildings that make more energy than they use gain steam

If every building made more energy than it uses, would all the world's power plants pack up and go home? Maybe education would be fully funded and the military would be forced to have a bake sale! But really: There is a building in Bellenberg, Germany that produces more energy than it consumes, mostly by […]

Only 15 U.S. states even have a plan to deal with ‘new normal’ extreme weather

Climate change has arrived, says Newsweek science correspondent Sharon Begley, and the good ol' U.S. of A. has more or less been caught with its pants down, preparations-wise. Only 15 states have completed or even started a plan to cope with climate change, which will bring profound changes over the next 20 to 30 years, […]

New data show how warming leads to wider variation in global weather

Right on the heels of America's spring of extreme weather, scientists at the Columbia Earth Institute have unveiled a package of historical data that shows greater variation in weather when the Earth is warmer. The 1,100 years of data, derived from tree rings, show that the difference between El Nino and La Nina — large, […]

Tea Party reveals: ‘Sustainable Development’ is sinister attempt to destroy American Dream

Did you know that the seemingly geeky, mild-mannered profession of urban planning is actually a breeding ground for social engineers — part of a sinister international plot to rob you of your American Dream? Well wake up already, people! The East Bay Tea Party is here to tell you all about it. They have the […]

Record carbon emissions show world has not been listening to a thing we’ve said

Despite a global recession, high oil prices, a growing awareness of the seriousness of carbon emissions, those reusable grocery bags you bought, and constant scolding from Grist et al., the world managed to put out a record amount of greenhouse gases last year. The International Energy Agency estimates that burning fossil fuels added 30 billion […]