Latest Articles

One Year After BP Oil Spill: Communities Lead While Congress Fails

An urban garden in New Orleans.One year ago today, British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling unit exploded in the Gulf of Mexico — a catastrophe that most Americans will never forget. 11 people lost their lives. According to Good, roughly 5 million barrels of oil gushed uncontrollably into the Gulf – eventually covering more than […]

Sci-fi skycrapers of the future

The cities of the future could combine dense living arrangements with energy innovation, according to the winners of architecture mag eVolo's annual skyscraper design competition. This design collects lightning and uses it to power hydrogen fuel cells. Some of the other winning skyscrapers are habitations, but others are recycling centers, turbines, and water purification facilities […]

Meat Wagon: Undercover video shows sick calves getting brains bashed in with pickax, and more

In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries. ——————- A grim ending awaits sick dairy calves on factory farms.Photo: Garrett ZieglerAs I’ve written so many times before, much of the dysfunction in our food system stems from its hyper-consolidation: It’s controlled by a handful of companies whose business […]

Silver Buckshot

Wars in the Middle East and oil rig blowouts in the Gulf have given us gasoline in the range of $4 to $5/gallon. Growing concerns over asthma-inducing pollution from coal fired power plants, not to mention mercury pollution in food supplies and greenhouse gas emissions, have resulted in the termination of numerous coal projects and […]

Five ways to green your marijuana habit

Happy 4/20! Sorry to harsh your buzz, but indoor pot growing is a major bad trip for the environment. (All right, no more mixed drug metaphors. Maybe a couple.) Let’s be blunt (okay, one more): If marijuana ever becomes legal in the U.S., we'll have to start thinking about how to keep it from bogarting […]

Major fracking spill happening now in Pennsylvania

We have the makings of an environmental disaster in northern Pennsylvania at the moment. According to local Pennsylvania television station WNEP, a natural-gas well blew out in the middle of the night while crews were engaged in “fracking” activities: Bradford County’s director of public safety said a Chesapeake well went out of control late Tuesday […]

Barton denies any ‘medical negative’ from mercury, smog, or soot pollution

Cross-posted from the Wonk Room. At a congressional hearing on Friday designed to lay the groundwork for an effort to delay critical EPA toxic pollution standards, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) claimed that reducing emissions of toxic mercury, sulfur dioxide, and soot would not bring health benefits. Though conceding he is “not a medical doctor,” Barton offered […]

Like the desert mouse, PepsiCo’s factory to survive on the water in the food it consumes

Some animals don't drink water — and now some factories might not, either. The potatoes that PepsiCo turns into Walker's Crisps — those sinisterly addictive potato chips that people in the UK can't seem to get enough of — arrive at the factory containing as much as 80% water by weight. So why not harvest it […]

Obama hosts Facebook town hall, because what could go wrong when you combine politics and Facebook?

Listen up, Facebook nation: Obama would like you to stop friending and unfriending each other for a second and pay attention. He's hosting a Facebook town hall today at 4:45 Eastern, in order to, you know, get down verbally with the youth. The subject is "Shared Responsibility and Shared Prosperity," which sounds like a great excuse to bring up questions about energy policy, sustainability, and the environment.

One year after the BP oil spill, dangers remain

A year ago, the American public, government regulators, and Gulf of Mexico families had been lulled into a false sense of security over the safety of offshore drilling and the ability of the oil industry to respond in the event of a severe spill. After years of systemic complacency and mismanagement by the U.S. government […]