Latest Articles

Crazy idea from the feds: Maybe companies should stop shipping contaminated meat

Here's a good way to prevent a food recall: Don’t ship contaminated food in the first place. Companies that process meat have to test it for salmonella, E. coli, and other buggies, but they can send it off to stores before they get results. The Department of Agriculture has recently caught on to the fact […]

Climate change breaks NASA temperature chart

The temperature anomaly in the Arctic — the amount that current temperatures differ from historical norms — is now so severe that NASA's James Hansen had to add a new color to his charts in order to accurately depict it: Hot pink. In other words, last winter the Arctic was more than 10 degrees C […]

Race, class, and the demographics of cycling

This post original appeared on Sightline’s Daily Score blog. If you’re reading this, then the phrase “interesting demographic data” probably doesn’t sound like an oxymoron to you. That’s a good thing, because you’ll find a heap of it in a new analytical report out on bicycling. Among other things, we get a clearer view of […]

New wind now costs the same as new coal — the tiebreaker is one of them kills you

The radical environmentalists at Bloomberg have declared that the world's best new wind projects now produce electricity that costs about the same as electricity produced from new coal-fired power plants. A lot goes into these calculations, but here's the bottom line: wind costs $65 a megawatt-hour, while power from new coal-fired power plants costs about […]

Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts are a hot, famous, rich advertisement for biking

Stars: They’re just like us! They bike around town with their kids in a trailer! They get annoyed at taxis! They really should be wearing helmets! New York Magazine has an interview with city natives Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts, in which the famous couple dishes about their bike lane usage and their frustration with […]

How green are those solar panels, anyway?

SolarWorld’s ratings aim to keep the photovoltaic industry on the sunny side.So which is the sunniest solar manufacturer of them all? I don’t mean companies whose photovoltaic panels generate the most carbon-free electricity, but which are the most environmentally friendly in their manufacturing, labor, and recycling practices. Solar modules can contain toxic materials, and they […]

In honor of Glenn Beck leaving Fox, the top 10 dumbass things he said about the environment

What one man can accomplish in a few short years. Just let the crazy wash over you: Bill McKibben's climate change activism group 350.org is a communist plot March 2011 Winter disproves global warming March 2010 Beck peddles 'food insurance' kits: "More than peak oil or financial crash, I fear angry men armed to the […]

The Congressional Carbon Circus

Photo: Thomas TotzCross-posted from the Natural Resources Defense Council. There’s lots going on in the center ring of the Congressional Carbon Circus today. Both the House and Senate are expected to vote this afternoon on bills to block the Environmental Protection Agency from doing its job under the Clean Air Act to safeguard Americans from […]

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 […]

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 […]