Articles

Why is the conventional wisdom of climate economics so pessimistic?

Cross-posted from Real Climate Economics. The House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology held a hearing yesterday on climate change science, economics, and policy. It was fascinating to listen to, and will no doubt provide much rich food for thought and discussion (for starters see Andy Revkin, or Chris Mooney, or Steve McIntyre for a […]

Paul Baer Science

Farmers in U.S. running out of land

Despite planting record amounts of corn and soybeans this year, U.S. farmers are sitting on unexpectedly small stockpiles of both crops. Meanwhile, the demand for corn is crowding out use of land for other crops, including cotton. The USDA reports underscored that U.S. farmers are reaching the limits of arable land in the world's biggest […]

Christopher Mims Agriculture

Obama to encourage America’s truck companies to do thing they were already planning to do

A group of truck fleet-owning companies that collectively owns 275,000 vehicles is scheduled to get a gold star from the president today, as part of the administration's Clean Fleets Initiative. FedEx, UPS, AT&T, PepsiCo, and Verizon are the charter members of a group that is pledging to reduce its collective petroleum consumption by more than […]

Christopher Mims Technology

‘The beauty of just getting on your bike’ [VIDEO]

The other night I had the good fortune of going to a meetup of bikers and bikers who blog in New York. The evening very specifically was not about the tiresome political wrangling that has been going on in my city over bike lanes. It was about people who just f**king love to bike in […]

Sarah Goodyear Culture

Solar power from the moon is fake, but also real

Solar panels that transform light from the moon into usable quantities of energy: Fake! Solar panels covering the moon that would transmit massive quantities of energy back to earth using lasers and microwaves: Real! Or at least: proposed with a straight face. I think we can all agree that the slide labeled "Master Plan" pretty much sums […]

Christopher Mims Technology

Fukushima workers prepared to die; don’t even know how much radiation they’ve been exposed to

A piece in today's Guardian reveals that TEPCO, the utility responsible for the Fukushima Dai-Ichi reactors, did not until very recently have enough dosimeters for all of the employees who are working to stop an even worse catastrophe at the plant. Normally, dosimeters would be worn at all times in order to measure cumulative exposure […]

Christopher Mims Energy

High-def flyover video of Fukushima shows the extent of the damage

This stunning, sobering flyover video of the Fukushima plant was shot in HD, which means it's probably as detailed as you can get while trying to focus a camera from a plane. Some of the rubble is still smoking.

Jess Zimmerman Energy

International Action on Global Warming: Where is it headed in 2011?

Coming out of the successful global warming negotiations in Cancun, Mexico this past December a key question is where are things headed now? Three words capture where international action on global warming needs to head: implementation, strengthening, and widespread. On each of these there are important discussions about to occur as countries are meeting in […]

Jake Schmidt Uncategorized

When locally sourced food isn’t available, the tough grow it anyway

Ruben and Kristin Hernandez are bakers in Baltimore, Maryland, who wanted to use locally-sourced wheat in their bread. Only problem is, no one grows the required “hard” wheat in Maryland, because the relatively humid climate leads to disease. (Hard wheats are rich in gluten, the protein that gives bread its elasticity and structure.) Ruben briefly […]