Latest Articles
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PETA wants to change ‘Tenderloin’ to ‘Tempeh District’
Is PETA a day early for April Fool’s, or have they simply whizzed past the point of self-parody? The group’s executive vice president has petitioned San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee to change the name of the city’s historic Tenderloin area to something that doesn’t glamorize meat. Of course, the Tenderloin isn’t actually named after a […]
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The nuts were right — airplane contrails WILL kill you
Wow, Fortean Times was right about something: Airplane contrails really are dangerous. The carbon emissions from air travel are profound, but the water vapor planes emit is just as bad, or worse. And airplane-spawned water vapor is what makes up the high, thin clouds known as contrails. Michele Bachmann would surely object — water vapor […]
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Hot-and-cold running crisis: cities, water, and climate change
Woman carrying water through the Dharavi slum of Mumbai.Photo: Meena KadriCross-posted from Cool Green Science. Imagine living on less than a bathtub of water for all your daily needs: drinking, cooking, bathing, washing clothes … and everything else. By 2050, more than 1 billion city dwellers may be doing just that if we don’t build […]
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California goes balls to the wall on renewables
As of 2020, California will be getting fully one third of its energy from renewable sources. So says a bill passed yesterday by the state assembly. It's a "renewable portfolio standard" so aggro that it makes a WWE elbow drop to the throat look like a tiddlywinks match played by pink cloud-people in a straight-to-DVD […]
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Small number of senators ready to act like grownups
In the midst of a hair-pulling, face-scratching tussle over the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases, a number of senators are looking into reviving 2008’s bipartisan “energy gang.” The last gang crumbled under bickering about high gas prices — but not before swelling its ranks to 20 senators, and putting forth a bipartisan plan that […]
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Sen. Stabenow jumps on climate denial train
Debbie Stabenow says no to M!ch!gan!Cross-posted from the Wonk Room. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) has joined the pro-polluter frenzy sweeping the U.S. Senate, introducing legislation to permanently cripple Clean Air Act rules on global warming pollution. The small business legislation, the SBIR/STTR Reauthorization Act of 2011 (S. 493), introduced by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), is […]
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China’s ghost cities and the biggest property bubble of all time
A couple of months ago, a lot of people were passing around the news about China’s plan to create a megacity that would be home to 42 million people, the so-called “Turn the Pearl Delta Into One” idea. The reporting was generally favorable, painting a picture of economic growth and opportunity — the narrative of […]
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Arnold Schwarzenegger and the mayor of London walk into a bike share …
That's not a joke setup, it's just Thursday. The Governator and the London mayor tooled around on two-wheelers today, looking awkward and getting hollered at by photogs, to promote Mayor Boris Johnson's new bike share plan for the city. Schwarzenegger praised bikes' ability to let you "eat a few extra wiener schnitzel and … get […]
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Where does Obama stand on climate change?
Obama didn’t say much about climate change in his speech yesterday, even as he laid out some ambitious energy goals. This leaves the media and activists guessing at what his next move will be — he’s a sort of Schroedinger’s President, who can be interpreted as a climate hawk or a climate wuss. Here are […]
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Alexis Madrigal chats about Danish wind power and how to fail well (also, sensors)
This is the fourth in a series from my conversation with Atlantic tech channel editor Alexis Madrigal about themes and stories from his new book, Powering the Dream: The History and Promise of Green Technology. DR: Something that comes up again and again in your book is this seemingly irreducible mystery of wind and how […]
