Latest Articles

Free ride: Rising oil prices boost electric cars’ affordability

Will car buyers get the message?Photo: Tom LafteryOne of the biggest knocks against electric cars, other than their current range, is the rather steep upfront cost due to the price of the battery. Of course, you’re essentially pre-paying much of your fuel costs for the life of the car. But that’s a hard message to […]

Bike-lane-hatin’ Rep. Anthony Weiner hates paying parking tickets, too

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) hates bike lanes. He also, Roll Call discovered, hates parking legally — or paying the penalties when he gets ticketed for doing it illegally. Until very recently — that is, until someone caught him at it — Weiner owed $2,180 in unpaid tickets to D.C. How exactly does he suggest we […]

All about the food: The NYT on the ‘future of manufacturing’

Coffee roasting at San Francisco’s Ritual: the future of manufacturing? Photo: Scott Beale of Liquid SquidI wanted to love Allison Arieff’s New York Times opinionator piece on how “The Future of Manufacturing Is Local.” It presents a vision of a world I want to live in: cities revitalized by small, artisanal manufacturing; a revival and […]

The safest place in Japan right now might be inside a nuke plant

Just 75 miles from where workers try to stave off nuclear disaster at Fukushima, another nuke plant is doing double duty as a tsunami shelter. The nuclear facility at Onagawa is currently home to 240 people displaced from the local town, who are hanging around watching TV and making phone calls while they wait to […]

New ‘Tactical Urbanism’ guide for aspiring guerrilla urbanists

With a few trees, some sidewalk tables, and lots of community input, a Dallas street was transformed.Photo: Go Oak Cliff Do you have the power to make your city a better place? It might be easier than you think. The Next Generation of New Urbanists (yes, these are young New Urbanists, because New Urbanism has […]

How to get cleaner cars and use less foreign oil

This post was coauthored by Sierra Club Chairman Carl Pope and League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski. It was cross-posted from the Center for American Progress. America is suffering from another oil price shock less than three years after prices hit a record of $147 per barrel in July 2008. Over the past month, […]

The conflict at the heart of U.S. energy policy: domestic extraction vs. cheap energy

Imagine you’re out to dinner with your spouse. When the waiter comes, she says, “I’m trying to decide between the house salad and the deep-fried twinkie. Which would you recommend?” You might think many things, but “she sure knows what she wants” is not one of them. Now shift to Washington D.C., where we are […]

Protect the Clean Air Act, Protect Americans

Lance Weyeneth really dislikes leaving northern Michigan and he rarely heads south of the Au Sable River. The avid angler works at one of the most popular fly fishing lodges in the U.S. – and when he’s not doing that, he’s selling real estate in the same area.  “I’m selling dreams up here. People want […]

Dilbert on clean energy innovation

Wisconsin Gov. Walker rejected high speed rail but wants the money anyway

Before he was the guy who tried to kill Wisconsin unions, Scott Walker was the guy who campaigned on a promise to kill high-speed rail in Wisconsin. There wasn’t a lot of room for interpretation or anything — I mean, one of his campaign websites was NoTrain.com, for chrissakes. But now Walker is asking for […]