Latest Articles

At Chernobyl, it was all under control

A memorial rests in the shadow of the Chernobyl nuclear plant.Photo: Matti PaavonenThis piece was written by John Perlin. As a visiting scholar last year at the Linz Institute for Organic Solar Cells, I met Valery N. Bliznyuk, a visiting professor at Linz and a permanent faculty member at Western Michigan University. His fascinating work in […]

Rahm Emanuel could be f**king great for America’s cities

Rahm Emanuel as mayor of Chicago? This is going to be f**king great.Photo: Adam FagenSo can the bull-headed, bare-knuckled, notoriously foul-mouthed Rahm Emanuel help save America’s cities? In May, the former Obama chief of staff will be sworn in (and yes, his ex-boss has made that joke) as mayor of Chicago. And the nation’s mayors […]

Ewan McGregor makes biking almost disgustingly adorable

The sound you just heard was my ovaries exploding. Ewan McGregor knows the cool way to get around town: On a bike, with an absurdly adorable dog, in a little tweed cap, being as hot as possible as fast as possible without stopping for any reason. Fashion bloggers Tom and Lorenzo are on to him: […]

Drilling down on oil

It may be true, but domestic oil drilling won’t help.This post originally appeared on the Great Energy Challenge blog, in partnership with National Geographic and Planet Forward.  It’s an unfortunate fact that stress has a way of making people crazy. At the moment, rising oil prices are creating a lot of stress. One of the […]

New York’s bike lanes are ‘homegrown terrorism,’ say red-faced opponents

Photo: Kyle Gradinger“Share the Road” has one potential fatal flaw: It involves sharing, which a lot of purported adults haven’t really mastered. Matthew Shaer’s exhaustive history of the NYC bike lane struggle, in this week’s New York magazine, shows just how much people have to mature before a community — even Brooklyn — can become […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]