Latest Articles
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Radiation-tainted milk in Japan, Pollan on food movement elitism, and more
When my info-larder gets too packed, it’s time to serve up some choice nuggets from around the web. ——— Nuke disaster hits Japan’s food supply Note to planners: Don’t plunk highly volatile industrial projects onto rich farmland. Doing so ensures that industrial disasters will quickly cascade into food crises. Tragically, Japan’s Fukushima region isn’t just […]
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What we can learn from Japan’s nuclear disaster
Nuclear plants: unsafe, uneconomic, and unnecessary.Photo: Thomas AndersonCross-posted from the Rocky Mountain Institute. As heroic workers and soldiers strive to save stricken Japan from a new horror — radioactive fallout — some truths known for 40 years bear repeating. An earthquake-and-tsunami zone crowded with 127 million people is an unwise place for 54 reactors. The […]
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Awesome chart puts nuclear radiation in perspective
Chart: Randall Munroe (Click to embiggen.) Hungry for some perspective on the nuclear situation? This mindblowing chart of relative radiation doses, made by XKCD‘s Randall Munroe, is basically a Total Perspective Vortex. It’s got something for everyone: Proponents of nuclear power can point to the difference between living near a nuke plant and living near […]
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Ask Umbra on how much food Americans waste, and what to do about it
Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, Do you have a reliable source/figure for the total amount of food wasted by Americans? I read somewhere that up to 40 percent of the food we buy may be thrown away. That means people spend an additional 66 percent on food products they don’t/can’t actually consume. […]
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The sane person’s guide to bringing kids on public transit
Kids on the bus can be fun for everyone. Really.Photo: Roar PettersonRiding public transportation, as I’ve said before, is good for kids. And the presence of children on transit can enrich the experience for all riders. (Settle down, people! I said can.) So it’s unfortunate that the reality of taking little ones on buses and […]
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World Wildlife Fund gets in bed with McDonald’s, gives birth to darling sustainability program
McDonald’s is going to be less bad for the future of life on Earth, it promises. With the help of the World Wildlife Fund, the 32,000-store chain has pledged to do the following to improve its sourcing of raw materials: Ban beef that comes from within the “Amazon Biome,” aka Brazil’s rainforest. No more soy […]
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Congressional asshats get the old, white parody they deserve
Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl” has never felt fresher than in this stirring rendition from our friends at the Natural Resources Defense Council. But that’s sort of damning it with faint praise. Upton BillYou know Fred Upton’s Bill will make you ill I thought he’d never be a smokestack guyBut now he hates clean air I […]
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Global Heating Causes Earthquakes
Number of earthquakes worldwide in 1990: 16,590—-number in 2008: 31,777 -U.S. Geological Society National Earthquake Information I have to say that when I first started hearing about this possible connection a couple of years ago, I was kind of a skeptic. Part of me reacted, “Hey, we’re already contending with head-in-the-sand people—like the […]
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Lesson from Japan: We don’t need nuclear power to solve the climate crisis
Anyone watching the aftermath of the earthquake in Japan can see: The human and ecological costs of nuclear power far outweigh those of any renewable energy.Cross-posted from New Deal 2.0. On March 14, an editorial in The New York Times stated, “This page has endorsed nuclear power as one tool to head off global warming. We […]
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Instead of putting the brakes on nuclear plants, should we be building safer ones?
In the wake of a massive quake and a tragic, deadly tsunami, Japan is also dealing with a nuclear catastrophe. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) has said that this should inspire us to “put the brakes on” nuclear development until further notice, and China and Germany are shutting down development and existing reactors. But what about […]
