Latest Articles
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Behind the scenes in the big fight against coal
Down with coal!The climate fight hasn’t been going well lately. The Copenhagen conference in Dec. 2009 seemed to mark the effective end of international efforts to control carbon. The U.S. Senate couldn’t even bring itself to vote on cap-and-trade last summer. In November, a GOP committed to climate denial won new strength in the Congress. […]
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Victims of tainted peanut butter outbreak demand criminal charges
Peanut Corporation of America execs knowingly sent out tainted peanut butter — that eventually killed people. Will they pay the price? Last Friday, I spoke at the Government Accountability Project Food Integrity Campaign conference. During the lunch break, food safety attorney and advocate Bill Marler hosted a press event with 10 family members of victims […]
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House Republican budget cuts would strangle innovation
This article was cross-posted from the Center for American Progress. President Barack Obama’s State of the Union on Jan. 25, 2011, waved the green flag for innovation and competition in the cleantech sector. He proposed a number of programs to speed the development and manufacturing of domestic energy efficiency and renewable energy sectors to help […]
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Budget posturing is a game, and the left is losing
Chop chop.Today is Budget Day — Obama unveils his FY 2012 budget proposal — and political reporters the land over are aflutter. I’m being bombarded with press releases, think tank analyses, denunciations, and counter-denunciations. Politico is having multiple Os. Meh. Ryan Avent gets it right: it’s political theater, and poor theater at that. Congress controls […]
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Let’s stripmine life’s birthplace on Earth because we suck at recycling!
The biome around a hydrothermal vent is truly like nothing on the planet, because most candy-ass living creatures can’t hack it in such a hot, sunless, sulfurous environment. But even though it’s inhospitable, it may actually be where life began on earth. None of this, of course, will stop mining companies from reaming the vents […]
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Just how bad is aspartame?
Aspartame in artificially blackened water — tasty.Photo: William HartzWhen I wrote about diet soda and and its health effects last week, I didn’t expect much of a reaction. I guess in the back of my mind, I was thinking, people still drink that stuff? Well, they do — by the bucketful. Overall, U.S. soda consumption […]
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On Valentine’s Day, activists show love for mountains with sit-in and march
Activists in the Kentucky governor’s office.Photo: Chad Berry This post originally appeared at Facing South. This Valentine’s Day marks the fourth day of a historic sit-in at the Kentucky governor’s office calling for an end to mountaintop removal. Meanwhile, thousands of Kentuckians are gathering outside in the state capital of Frankfort for the “I Love […]
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Richard Muller, Charles Koch, and the implosion of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study
Multiple head-vise alert! Let’s say you’re a major national lab, affiliated with a major university, concerned about critiques of the global temperature record. Let’s say you get the bright idea to assemble some really smart scientists and statisticians “to resolve current criticism of the [global] temperature analyses, and to prepare an open record that will […]
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Obama, Chu try to slash the multi-miracle hydrogen program once again
Technology Review: It used to be thought, five to eight years ago, that hydrogen was the great answer for the future of transportation. The mood has shifted. What have we learned from this? Steven Chu: I think, well, among some people it hasn’t really shifted. I think there was great enthusiasm in some quarters, but […]
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Cyclists shouldn’t ‘share the road,’ they should have their own
A physically separated bike lane in Vancouver, B.C. Looks nice, right?Photo: Paul KruegerIt’s long been the most controversial issue in bicycling: Should people on bikes ride in traffic with cars, using the same infrastructure and following the same procedures (a style of riding known as “Vehicular Cycling”)? Should we ride on the sidewalks and off-road […]
