Latest Articles
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Flying over the tar sands
More earth is being scraped, dug, blasted, and plowed in northern Alberta than anywhere else on Earth. Here's what it looks like up close.
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Heartland grows new crop of anti-climate governor candidates
In Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Wyoming, four Democratic governors who have supported clean energy may be replaced by Republicans who have expressed fealty to big oil. The Republican candidates -- Terry Branstad in Iowa, Sen. Sam Brownback in Kansas, Rep. Mary Fallin in Oklahoma, and Matt Mead in Wyoming -- hold commanding leads in the polls over their Democratic opponents.
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Deadly deception: How some industry lobbyists peddle deception to block clean air protections
As industry lobbyists attack standards to cut deadly toxic air pollution from industrial boilers, they are resorting to obfuscation and deception.
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What Monsanto’s fall from grace reveals about the GMO seed industry
Once the darling of Wall Street and the Darth Vader of the agribiz universe, Monsanto has fallen on hard times. The reason may have to do with the essentially over-hyped nature of GMO technology.
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China antes up, bets, and bluffs in the new world oil game
Future historians may well agree that the 21st century Silk Road first opened for business on Dec. 14, 2009. That was the day a crucial stretch of pipeline officially went into operation linking the fabulously energy-rich state of Turkmenistan to Xinjiang Province in China's far west.
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Farmers and travelers in a tar-sands boomtown
Stratospheric wages draw laborers from around the world to Fort McMurray, Alberta. So how does a booming oil workers' camp become a town?
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Anatomy of a Senate climate bill death
Ryan Lizza's recent New Yorker piece provides an interesting insider view of the rise and fall of climate legislation in the Senate. But Lizza gives short shrift to the real reasons Senate passage of climate legislation was impossible in 2010: the deep recession, unified and uncompromising opposition in the Senate, and big spending by oil, coal, and other energy interests. Let's take a close look at these factors.
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The city that said no to garbage
If you want to keep garbage out of landfills, you have to stop thinking about it as garbage. Instead, think of it as resources. This is how Jack Macy thinks. He developed San Francisco’s trailblazing composting program and is currently Zero Waste Coordinator for the city. Here, he shares the city’s secrets to success.
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San Francisco watches its waste line
Most cities send thousands of tons of unwanted flotsam and jetsam to landfills every day. But in San Francisco, garbage is treated like a resource that shouldn't be wasted. And that means formulating a plan to reduce the city's garbage output to zero. Yes, that's right: zero.
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Google makes big bet on offshore wind power along East Coast
Google is backing an underwater power transmission system that could bring a wind turbine boom to the Atlantic.
