Latest Articles

Air pollution hurts motorists more than cyclists

If the thought of sucking down bus exhaust has you hesitating to take up that bicycle commute, you're in luck: It turns out you're better off on two wheels than four, even if it means breathing more particulate matter. That's the finding of a study conducted in the Netherlands, comparing the lung function of car […]

Maybe fracked natural gas isn’t dirtier than coal, after all

The climate story on natural gas is gnarlier than ever. First there was a paper from Robert Howarth of Cornell claiming that natural gas from fracking is worse than coal, as far as net warming effect on the earth. Now the Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) has fired back, sort of, with […]

Feral camels are coming to eat your air conditioner

… if you live in Australia, that is. Perhaps as a punishment for making me think about giant snakes, Australia is suffering yet another attempted takeover by non-native species, which periodically come in and disrupt the continent's carefully balanced ecosystem of massively deadly freaks of nature. This time, it’s feral camels. And they eat air […]

Can barcodes enforce sustainable logging in Liberia?

Liberia, semi-miraculously, is still covered in rainforest, even though at one point in its history, warlord Charles Taylor was more or less giving arms traffickers logging tracts in exchange for weapons. The U.N. eventually noticed this problem and ended up saving the country's forests by putting an embargo on the country's "logs of war.” But […]

Great places: reorienting progressive politics for the 21st century

This is part one in a series on “great places.” Read parts two, three, four, and five. I asked a while back what new vision or principles could unite the left’s fractious coalition. As you probably guessed, I’ve got a pet idea along these lines. It’s a bit out in left field, at least in […]

What to do about ‘plastic soup’ in the ocean

Is there a less appetizing phrase than “plastic soup”? (Don’t answer that.) The New York Times Green blog reports on what happens to plastic in the oceans — it turns into a soup of seawater and plastic particles — and what we can do about it. The answer, basically: Try to stop putting so much […]

Freewheeling: Bicycling and the art of being broke

This is the seventh column in a series focusing on the economics of bicycling. More and more of us have less and less money these days. Fortunately, there are a lot of things you don’t need money to do, and bicycling is one of them. When you’re broke, a bicycle can help a lot. Financially, […]

Critical List: Tornado hits Joplin, Missouri; Chicago preps for climate change

A half-mile wide tornado leveled a Missouri town. And another volcano in Iceland poured ash into the sky. Cut it out, nature, we get it: you don't like airplanes. In Chicago, government officials not only believe in climate change, they are preparing the city for a steamier future. Local officials have been leading on adaptation […]

Cup o’ woe: Ask Umbra on single-serve coffee alternatives

Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, I work in an office of serious coffee drinkers. We have a Keurig single-cup coffee brewer that everyone loves because it allows them to choose their own roast and flavor. But all those little plastic K-Cups add up to lots of waste fast! Is there a more […]

Apocalypse now? Lessons for the climate movement from the ‘Rapture’ that didn’t happen

So, the world did not end on Saturday. Harold Camping’s predicted Judgment Day and “Rapture” failed. I wonder how disappointed his followers are. I also wonder if this might be a good time for the environmental community to reconsider its use of apocalyptic terms when describing our fears for the future. There’s no doubt that […]