Latest Articles
-
![]()
![]()
The only kids are alright: Good reasons to consider stopping at one child
This only kid is A-OK.Photo: Omar GurnahSnooki of MTV’s Jersey Shore is immature, whiny, and self-involved — in other words, your typical reality-show star. But a New York Times article about her improbable rise to fame pinpoints one of her less typical qualities: “Not surprisingly, Snooki is an only child,” writes Cathy Horyn. Ouch. Harshing […]
-
![]()
![]()
Why is Trader Joe’s short-changing farmworker justice?
Hey Trader Joe’s: respect the people who harvest the food you sell. Photo: Scott RobertsonOver the past two decades, Trader Joe’s has grown rapidly as bargain-hunting foodies swarmed into its outlets. The chain now runs more than 350 stores with sales topping $8 billion in 2009. The secret to its dazzling success? Fortune magazine describes […]
-
Collegians for a Constructive Tomorrow want to destroy tomorrow
How self-destructively anti-science are the next generation of conservatives? The New Republic’s Bradford Plumer visited the booths at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in DC and reported this: The Collegians For a Constructive Tomorrow let passersby hurl eggs at pinup photos of Al Gore and Penn State paleoclimatologist Michael Mann; I saw one girl […]
-
![]()
![]()
Possible breakthrough: Indonesian palm oil giant pledges zero deforestation
Oil palm concession in Indonesia. Photo: Hayden Potential good news for orangutans, tigers, and the climate: Indonesian palm oil giant Golden Agri-Resources (GAR), a subsidiary of all-round planet pulper Sinar Mas (palm oil, illegal logging, coal) is promising not to destroy forests and ultra carbon-rich peatlands for palm oil. Photo: Rhett A. Butler, MongaBayHere’s the […]
-
![]()
![]()
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. […]
-
![]()
![]()
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 […]
-
![]()
![]()
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 […]
-
![]()
![]()
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 […]
-
![]()
![]()
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 […]
-
![]()
![]()
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 […]
