Latest Articles

Climate change could ruin the internet

Sure, climate change threatens animals and people and cities and all that life-as-we-know-it stuff, but apparently it can also make Bejeweled Blitz run super-slow. OUTRAGE! Something must be done! Seriously, I half suspect this of being a hoax by old people who think young people are only motivated by the Facebook anymore, but a government […]

D.C. will bribe people to shorten their commutes

If you live in the D.C. area, the Office of Planning wants you to get paid up to $12,000 to avoid a car commute. Wait, really? Car commuting costs a metric pantload in fuel and destroys your soul — isn't this like trying to pay someone not to slowly pummel themselves to death with Faberge eggs? But some […]

Breaking the link between energy consumption and economic growth

Cross-posted from the Natural Resources Defense Council. There are skeptics of energy efficiency who claim that, paradoxically, all the energy and money we have been saving due to energy efficiency, across all sectors of the economy, has actually caused us to increase our energy consumption. This “economy-wide rebound” theory is a startling, but ultimately unsupportable, […]

Rail gets a $2 billion shot in the arm from Rick Scott’s rejected funds

Remember when Florida's governor turned up his nose at $2 billion in federal funds for rail projects? Now his loss is everyone else's gain. The Department of Transportation today announced the redistribution of Florida's rejected wealth today, and it looks like Scott's tantrum will mean improved speed and performance in the Northeast Corridor, a high-speed […]

Green buildings can now eat smog for breakfast

The aluminum giant Alcoa has designed a building panel that cleans both itself and the nearby air. The secret to this feat is titanium dioxide, the same compound that allows sunscreen to block the sun. In this application, when the sun hits a coat of titanium dioxide, the compound begins spewing electrons. According to Alcoa, […]

The big question: What story about America’s future can unite the U.S. left?

Liberty and _____ for all.Photo: Ludovic BertronU.S. politics is at an interesting inflection point. On one side, the American right grows ever more homogeneous: ethnically, socioculturally, and ideologically. On the other, the American left is an unwieldy coalition of minorities, unions, single working mothers, Blue Dogs, feminists, young people, knowledge workers, culture and entertainment elites, […]

Awesome concept design makes buildings into bike racks

Floor space is at a premium in cities — everyone wants to walk, bike, drive, and park their various human- and gas-powered vehicles on the same precious real estate. Vertical space, on the other hand, is available in abundance. And while the obvious use for this space is crazy-ass trompe l'oeil murals, the second-best option […]

Rep. Earl Blumenauer wants better tax benefits for bike, transit commuters

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.)Photo: Thomas Le NgoWhat is a sensible political reaction to rising gas prices? Standing around shouting “Drill, baby, drill”? Or offering material support to commuters who increasingly opt for public transportation or biking to work? Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), who often sports a bike pin in his lapel (and rides a bike […]

New app lets you identify the few remaining trees

Wouldn’t it be nice to get to know trees while they’re still around? Leafsnap can help. The new app, developed by a team of researchers at Columbia, University of Maryland, and the Smithsonian Institution, contains a database of beautiful photos of leaves, barks, flowers, and fruits. All the lazy naturalist has to do to identify […]

Renewable energy saving lives in Afghanistan

The Wall Street Journal today reports on efforts to make U.S. troops safer by reducing dependence on fossil fuel-powered generators and batteries: Batteries make up as much as 20% of the weight of the 100 pounds of gear a Marine infantryman typically carries. A Marine uses four times as much fuel as his counterpart did […]