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When the going gets cold, mushroom hunters get going [VIDEO]
Finding stories about local and sustainable food in Minnesota has been easy and enjoyable. But as another foot of snow drops on this very cold state (and so many episodes have already been done about root vegetables and meat), I have begun to stretch for ideas of other winter foods. I’ve often thought that there […]
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Palin and Bachmann trash Michelle Obama’s breast-feeding advocacy
Photos: Roger H. Goun, Lord Mariser, and Gage Skidmore Once again, the Tea Party heavyweights are using food to cast First Lady Michelle Obama as a proponent for an all-controlling nanny state. Last month, the first lady’s efforts to rein in the junk-food industry drew the ire of right-wing scolds. More recently, her promotion of […]
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The shaky foundations of free-market environmentalism
Photo: Steve RhodesCross-posted from Sightline Daily. [CORRECTION: As mentioned in the comments under this post on Sightline, this discussion of the “Coase theorem” contains several errors — most notably, that Coase himself did not present his arguments mathematically. In fact, according to a number of sources, there really is no single “Coase theorem” — instead, […]
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Philips wants to reward some innovative urban ideas
A rendering showing how rooftops in Sana’a, Yemen, could be used to collect water.The ideal of smart cities — technologically advanced, forward-thinking, and green — is big in corporate circles these days. IBM has its “Smarter Cities” program, Cisco has its “Smart+Connected Communities,” and the giant electronics corporation Philips has been promoting the concept of […]
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Report: Californians paying too high a price for renewable energy
Is solar costing Californians a wad more than it should?Photo: Emergency Dentists USAAre Californians forking over too much green for green energy? A new report [PDF] from a ratepayers advocacy group found that the price of electricity in 59 percent of renewable energy contracts signed by the state’s three big utilities exceeded the market price […]
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It’s like Gadhafi is telling us to get off oil or something
Self-congratulatory poster of Gadhafi in Green Square in Tripoli, LibyaPhoto: QuigiboMoammar Gadhafi is a crazy dictator who is murdering his populace and needs to get a cruise missile shat down his neck, but what we all really want to know is: how are the actions of this homicidal crazypants going to affect our summer vacation? […]
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Are the British building the perfect town?
The U.K.’s greenest, cutest town. Image: Red Tree (2004) LLPCharles, the prince of Wales, is building the U.K.’s greenest town. We know what you’re thinking, because we’ve seen Hot Fuzz too: It’s important to be suspicious of British villages that look too good to be true. But Sherford, a planned eco-town that was just approved […]
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Climate activist Tim DeChristopher goes to trial
An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law. — Martin Luther King, Jr. Dearest readers, I want to share a story […]
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The Chamber of Commerce is darkening our skies
It’s always darkest before it goes pitch black.Photo: Twig is the FutureThis essay was originally published on TomDispatch and is republished here with Tom’s kind permission. In Beijing, they celebrate when they have a “blue sky day,” when, that is, the haze clears long enough so that you can actually see the sun. Many days, […]
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Climate reformists challenge old economic models
A few weeks ago I wrote about the seemingly different futures foretold by climate science and climate economics. The former is filled with peril and haunted by the unthinkable, the latter blithely assured of continued prosperity. Most economic modeling, you’ll recall, forecasts the continued rise of global gross domestic product (GDP) — people in the […]
