Latest Articles

While the rich get richer, the rest of us pay more for less at the supermarket

The New York Times reports that food companies are embarked on a “stealth” strategy to hike prices by significantly shrinking packages without changing the price. For example, canned vegetables are down to thirteen from sixteen ounces (one shopper observed that she found an eleven ounce can of corn recently). Sugar is now sometimes sold in […]

WattsUpWithThat attack on Berkeley temperature findings was pure fabrication

UPDATE:  Watts has posted two comments below that contain a disingenuous admission of error and several more outrageous falsehoods.  While Watts asserts below, “I was not aware of the issue until Dr. Muller communicated with me,” the truth is that Watts has known for six days that his post was in grave error — but […]

NASA’s James Hansen: ‘This decade will be the warmest’ on record

The country’s leading climatologist has a fascinating analysis on “Perceptions of Climate Change:  Can people recognize changing climate?”  Hansen had predicted as part of his famous 1988 testimony “that the perceptive person would notice that climate was changing by the early 21st century.”  He revisits that subject in this paper with his coauthor, Makiko Sato. […]

Smize! You’re on America’s Next Top Energy Innovator

Sure, we’ve learned to harness the power of the sun and the wind for renewable energy, but have we harnessed the awesome power of reality TV? That may be what Secretary of Energy Steven Chu is going for with “America’s Next Top Energy Innovator.” Okay, you don’t get coaching from Solar Tim Gunn, or critique […]

I’m coming out — as a farmer

Steph Larsen down on the farm. Or not?Last spring, our sheep had six lambs. Now five of them have taken a one-way trip to the meat locker, bound for not only our freezer but those of five other families, too. The chickens are laying eggs moderately well, and we might actually be turning a small […]

Chile crisis of 2011 reveals need for more resilience and diversity on the farm

Chile crops just couldn’t take the heat from the February cold snap.Photo: Demetri MouratisWhat a difference a few days of aberrant weather can mean to our food security, our pocket books, and our penchant for hot sauce. The record freeze that hit the U.S. Southwest and Northern Mexico in early February is still affecting vegetable […]

The omnivore’s other dilemma: expanding access to non-industrial food

Buying sustainable pork shouldn’t involve breaking the piggy bank.A couple of years ago at a farmers market, a woman approached my stall, a little apprehensively. She looked old and beaten down. Her face was weathered and worn. Her hands looked rough and gritty. But, it was clear that she was younger than she looked. Her […]

Bob Herbert’s savvy advocacy for better infrastructure will be missed

Bob Herbert.Photo: Damon Winter/The New York TimesCross-posted from New Deal 2.0. Dear Mr. Herbert, I was sad to hear that you will no longer be writing for the op-ed page of the New York Times. Your critical perspective on the class war being waged against the middle and working class and the poor, on the waste […]

Is Germany’s nuke shutdown a Pyrrhic victory for climate hawks?

Germany’s Green party staked its historic win on promises to accelerate the shutdown of the country’s remaining nuclear reactors. But Europe’s energy commissioner says their plans will only lead to more coal-fired power. Guenther Oettinger — who may have his own ax to grind, as he is also a “former premier of the Baden-Wuerttemberg state […]

Reactor 2 at Japan’s Fukushima plant in full meltdown, says expert

The radioactive core of the second reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant appears to have melted through the its steel casing, and is now pooling on the concrete floor below, Richard Lahey tells The Guardian. (Lahey is former head of safety research for boiling-water nuclear reactors at General Electric, so he would probably know.)