Latest Articles
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WI GOP Senate candidate Ron Johnson owns over $100,000 in BP stock, supports Great Lakes oil drillin
Ron Johnson, a wealthy business executive and leading Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Wisconsin this year, is beginning to receive scrutiny for his extremist views. Last month he was asked whether or not he agreed that “man-caused global warming is a proven fact.” His reply: I totally disagree…I’m always surprised that people think this […]
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Energy efficiency helps homeowners avoid foreclosure
Energy-efficient homes have significantly lower default and delinquency rates than typical homes, according to an internal analysis conducted for a major financial institution last year. Here’s yet another reason why it makes no sense that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have effectively killed Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE), a financing tool that has helped make […]
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Seven reasons BP would like to forget last weekend
It’s been 81 days since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank in the Gulf.Photo: U.S. Coast GuardIt should have been a good weekend for BP. Its latest plan to staunch the geyser — lowering a tighter cap over the spewing pipe — is ahead of schedule, and its two relief wells, which could stop […]
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A good question from the Sierra Club’s chief
The Sierra Club can claim some expertise in stopping dimwitted ideas: It’s helped block the construction of 128 coal-fired power plants, concrete and measurable victories in the oft-murky struggle against climate change. New Executive Director Mike Brune turns this record into a good question in the new Sierra magazine: Here’s an immediate challenge for all […]
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Are kickbacks from Kellogg and others driving school-food purchasing?
D.C. Public Schools in the last two years have taken in more than $1 million in corporate rebates — referred to by some as “kickbacks” — paid by giant food manufacturers as an inducement to place their brands on kids’ cafeteria trays at school. Documents I obtained through the Freedom of Information Act show that […]
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Ask Umbra on the dangers of BPA in canning lids and canned food
Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, My wife and I belong to a CSA. We are getting some cucumbers that I would like to try and pickle. My wife says the lids to the classic mason jars have BPA in them. Do you know how much of a concern this is in the context […]
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Climate & Energy Bill Will Do More For Health Than Health Care Legislation
This post was co-authored by Dr. Rahul Rajkumar, a physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. As oil and gas continue to spew out of a broken pipe at the BP spill site in the Gulf of Mexico, those of us who rode on the health care reform bandwagon have to wonder if we […]
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On World Population Day, take note: population isn’t the problem
Is population growth the cause of our troubles?A green myth is on the march. It wants to blame the world’s overbreeding poor people for the planet’s peril. It stinks. And on World Population Day, I encourage fellow environmentalists not to be seduced. Some greens think all efforts to save the world are doomed unless we […]
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Bald Eagle Take Out (Red-Tailed Hawk)
Last week a bunch of crows (called a murder for reasons unknown) were making so much noise I stepped out of my house to see what was up. Most of my neighbors did as well. We discovered a pair of red-tailed hawks in a nearby tree, one of which was eating a crow. Today I […]
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Corn Ethanol's Enemy List
Photo courtesy of, er, Hidinhumiliation via Flickr A short, relatively innocuous post on an obscure farming blog created a small stir last week when it caught the attention of some less obscure bloggers, Robert Rapier in particular, who was was on the corn ethanol enemy list presented in this article. I didn’t want to open […]
