Latest Articles
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Watch a tricycle spank a bus in a low-speed race
[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.1011888&w=425&h=350&fv=] It’s the Thunderdome of transportation: Comedian Mark Malkoff on a child’s tricycle, going up against the famously slow M42 bus. Two modes of transport enter, one mode of transport leaves … well, okay, they both leave, but one gets there a minute and a half faster. And it isn’t the bus. Malkoff framed […]
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Me, talking about the Clean Energy Standard [VIDEO]
Last week, I sat down for an interview with EnergyNow about the Clean Energy Standard that Obama introduced during his State of the Union. Senate Energy Committee Chair Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and ranking member Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) recently put out a white paper soliciting ideas for how the policy should be constructed. In the first […]
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Putin test-drives, makes fun of radical new hybrid
Mikhail Prokhorov, Russia's richest man and owner of the New Jersey Nets, has bankrolled an all-Russian natural gas-electric hybrid car called the ë-mobile (pronounced yo-mobile), but that wasn’t enough to impress Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his tiger blood. Putin: "This yo-mobile of yours, I hope it won't fall into pieces, will it?" Before a […]
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Biodegradable wool coffins keep you cozy six feet under
Here’s a win-win if we ever saw one: You can spend eternity in the postmortem equivalent of a Snuggie, AND it’s better for the environment. Corpses are one thing we’re never going to be able to stop throwing away, so it’s worth finding lower-impact methods. Wool coffins are all-natural and fully biodegradable, making them a […]
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Fukushima in a decade: Bucolic beach resort or Road Warrior-esque hellscape?
Technology Review's Kevin Bullis points us to a package at Nature, on the long-term impacts of the Fukushima disaster. It's kind of a nice antidote to all the hysterical day-to-day coverage (the leak's stopped, by the way) as viewed through the cold, dispassionate eye of science. That doesn't mean it's rosy: Fully decommissioning the plant […]
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Would you vote for the Koch Brothers Appreciation Act?
After watching end-of-life planning become “death panels” and estate taxes become “death taxes,” Democrats are finally figuring out that owning the spin is all about owning the terminology. Accordingly, they’ve been having a grand time proposing amendments to give a more accurate name to the “Energy Tax Prevention Act,” which would “prevent energy taxes” by […]
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Obama did not ‘promise’ to veto an EPA-blocking bill
Journalism is hard.Photo: Alex ProimosA few weeks ago, the House of Representatives voted through H.R. 1, their continuing appropriations act. It was full of tax cuts for the rich and slashed funding for the poor, elderly, and vulnerable — the usual GOP stuff. The White House released a statement [PDF] vowing to veto it: If […]
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Seven lessons from nature on how to make change
Look closely — what can you learn?Photo: Steve WallThe Center for Ecoliteracy has worked for more than 15 years to make schools greener. During the course of our work, collaborating with thousands of educators and change agents, we’ve learned invaluable lessons about how to tackle the challenge of changing often-entrenched systems. We’re pleased to share […]
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The American diet in one chart, with lots of fats and sugars
This is a non-interactive version of the chart. Also check out the interactive version, by Civil Eats and the UC-Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism News21 course.Over on Civil Eats, Andrea Jezovit has put together a terrific interactive chart on the U.S. diet. Using USDA data for “average daily calories available per capita, adjusted for spoilage […]
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Solar is contagious
This post originally appeared on Energy Self-Reliant States, a resource of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s New Rules Project. Adam Browning of Vote Solar wrote about a recent study of the peer pressure effect of solar photovoltaic (PV) adoption. The study [PDF] notes that for every 1 percent increase in the number of installations in […]
