Latest Articles
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Inaction on climate change is risky business
Even Tom Cruise thinks some risky business should be avoided.Like a family that has no homeowner’s insurance, no fire detectors, a gas leak in the basement, and a bad case of denial, the global community remains unprepared for irreversible and potentially catastrophic changes to the Earth’s climate. What’s needed — quickly — is an international […]
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This is Flint, Michigan, in all its pain and all its glory
Buick City parking lot, 2010.Photos: Wes Janz, except when notedCross-posted from Places [at] Design Observer, an online journal of architecture, landscape and urbanism, published in partnership with Design Observer. “Distressed are big chunks of Detroit, Flint, Gary, Chicago, East St. Louis, and Cincinnati.” This is what I wrote after completing the weeklong Midwess Distress Tour with […]
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Peter Calthorpe on why urbanism is the cheapest, smartest way to fight climate change
Peter Calthorpe.Cities may be the trendy topic du jour, but Peter Calthorpe has been talking about the benefits of urbanism since the 1970s. In 1993, he was one of the founders of the Congress for the New Urbanism, an influential national organization that promotes walkable, mixed-use, transit-rich development. Now Calthorpe has come out with a […]
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Budget for rainforests puts Obama’s $1 billion pledge at risk
Photo: Rhett A. Butler, MongaBayBoth President Obama’s proposed budget and especially House Republican proposals fall significantly short of the administration’s $1 billion pledge for short-term forest finance made at the Copenhagen climate summit – putting the United States’ climate credibility at even further risk. However modest, the $1 billion pledge was one of the few […]
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TreeShagger: 10 great green date ideas
Welcome to TreeShagger, our new column on green dating. If you’ve got green dating questions, send ’em our way! So Valentine’s Day came and went, and you’re in the doghouse since you couldn’t get a reservation at Olivebee’s Factory? Cheer up, smuckers! Lean in close for some non-obvious, mostly cheap green date ideas, many of […]
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Why raising the price of school lunch is a bad idea
Scene from Dickens’ Oliver Twist. Drawing by George Cruikshank, circa 1837.At a time when many families are struggling with money — and racking up millions of dollars in debt at school cafeterias — school lunch is about to get more expensive. The hike is mandated by the recent Child Nutrition Reauthorization passed by Congress and […]
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Obama’s International Climate Budget Proposal Would Make Key Investments
President Obama released his Fiscal Year 2012 budget request that will invest in global efforts to reduce carbon pollution, tap into the growing global demand for clean energy, and make countries more resilient to the impacts of global warming. It takes a scalpel to the international funding at a time when we need more international […]
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Hey, Tina Fey, one kid is OK — and greener too
“Don’t even ask.” Photo: George ArriolaThe ever-entertaining Tina Fey has a piece in the latest New Yorker on my designated topic of the week: whether to have more than one kid. “The second-worst question you can ask a woman is: ‘Are you going to have more kids?'” Fey writes. (The first-worst question: “How do you juggle […]
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Chicken, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and regulatory independence
In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries. ——— Would you like that chicken tainted with salmonella with resistance to one, two, three, or four different antibiotics? We also have six and seven. Consumer choice! After my post Monday on aspartame’s wild and wacky path from pharmaceutical-company lab […]
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California to green its grid with energy storage
With intermittent sources like wind and solar becoming more common, energy storage is increasingly seen as crucial for greening the grid.Photo: mike_tnIn just about every story on renewable energy, there’s a familiar cast of characters: green power developers, utilities, and sundry state and federal regulators. But there’s one key player that often lurks in the […]
