Latest Articles
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I’ve got a good food story to tell: yours [VIDEO]
The Perennial Plate has been creating weekly videos about real food in Minnesota for the past year. Today, we released our 52nd video: a trailer for our upcoming project. This spring, I will be travelling across the country for six months, documenting stories about good food in America. Each week we will be filming, editing, and releasing […]
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Politifact finds Republican claim to be false; Republicans don’t give a sh*t
Today and tomorrow, the House Energy and Commerce Committee is holding a markup of H.R. 910, the bill sponsored by committee chair Fred Upton (R-Mich.) that would overturn EPA’s findings on climate science and block the agency from addressing climate pollution. You can watch the webcast here if you have the stomach for it. One […]
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So much for all that new nuclear energy we were going to build
Photo: Joost J. Bakker The possibly-impending meltdown of three very shaky nuclear reactor cores at the Daiichi plant in Fukushima, Japan, isn’t doing much for the public image of nuclear power, a source of energy about which fans of planet Earth are divided. Kate Sheppard, Mother Jones‘ enviro reporter on the Hill, speculates on Twitter […]
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Talking with Andy Revkin about climate communication [VIDEO]
Last Friday I did an episode of bloggingheads.tv with Andy Revkin of The New York Times and Pace University. Here it is (try not to be distracted by my constant nodding): If you don’t want to watch the entire thing, you can watch individual chapters: The three things Japan has going for it (02:46) Fighting […]
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In post-quake Tokyo, bicycle transport is newly popular
A new bike commuter? Maybe.Photo: Byron KiddIn the aftermath of Friday’s earthquake, which disrupted public transit, residents of Tokyo are turning to bicycles to make the trip to and from work. That’s the word from Byron Kidd, who blogs at Tokyo by Bike. I had seen him tweeting after the quake about an increase in […]
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What will the Japan disaster mean for U.S. nuclear power?
The Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant is several miles from a seismic fault.Photo: MaryaCNN just published an opinion piece that I wrote with Richard Caperton, a policy analyst at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Here it is: The recent history of the U.S. nuclear industry suggests that nuclear power can be a safe […]
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Another week, another attempt to shield factory farms from public scrutiny
Above: Last spring, a Humane Society of the United States investigtor, posing as an employee, got a camera into an egg factory to film conditions there. If Iowa lawmakers have their way, such muckraking will be illegal. ——— It’s not just Florida. In what appears to be a growing movement, industrial farmers have convinced Iowa […]
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Setting sail for climate action
A man and his boat.Photo: John David SheltonMy name is John David Shelton, and I’ve been a proud member of the U.S. Navy for 18 years. A few months ago, I found out that I am being transferred from Florida to Virginia. I could have taken a bus or a plane. But I decided to […]
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Tearing down urban freeways to make room for a new bicycle economy
This is the second column in a series focusing on the economics of bicycling. Here’s one way to fund bicycle infrastructure: Stop building freeways in cities. Better yet, tear down the ones we already have. Cities are starting to catch on that becoming bicycle friendly is one of the best investments they can make. Cities […]
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What exactly is happening with the Japanese nuclear reactors?
The nuke plant in Fukushima, Japan.Photo: Beacon RadioThe Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan, currently has three boiling water reactors in danger of “meltdown.” Here are the basics on what’s happening and what that means. How does a boiling water reactor work? The nuclear core transfers energy to water by heating it. This cools […]