Latest Articles
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Knowing what you spend on energy can cut usage by more than half
Feedback: It works for robot monkey arms and Scientology auditing, so shouldn’t it work to help you save electricity? Networking company Silver Spring Networks and Oklahoma Gas & Electric think so (and so do we). They’ve teamed up for a year-long experiment in Norman, Okla., to test smart grid solutions, allowing users to get feedback […]
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New poll: The public trusts EPA, loves the Clean Air Act, and wants Congress to butt out
That’s love.Original photo: Matt CramptonAs everyone knows by now, Republicans have launched a massive, coordinated assault on EPA, attempting to block its greenhouse gas regulations, its air and water regulations, and in some cases its very existence. In the surreal hothouse atmosphere of the Beltway, where anti-government radicals are ascendant and everybody’s watching the same […]
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Ask Umbra Book Club: How coal lit a fire under human society
Bring in the chimney sweep!Photo: Thiophene GuyDearest readers, In our last book club conversation about Bill Bryson’s At Home: A Short History of Private Life, we discussed some of the sordid history of the food we eat. Now let’s turn our attention to the way we heat. Back in the Middle Ages, people were in […]
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What is coal’s true cost?
For coal, the real costs outweigh the benefits.Photo: Andrea AbbottPaul Epstein, associate director of the Harvard Center for Health and the Global Environment, will publish a study entitled, “Full cost accounting for the life cycle of coal,” later this month. The study has 10 coauthors, including public health and environment experts. A news release explains […]
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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 […]
