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Living Buildings, Living Cities, and $125,000 up for grabs
$125,000 to play SimCity? Sort of. A new contest from the Cascadia Region Green Building Council is offering serious cash for the best visual renderings of an existing city transformed into a place that’s sustainable. Like, really sustainable. The Living City Design Competition is calling for: Photo-realistic three-dimensional modeling and renderings (a napkin sketch won’t […]
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Top 10 countries ruining the planet — and more news from around the world
We’re #2! We’re #2! Sure enough, here’s a new study out of the University of Adelaide in Australia, naming the Top 10 Countries Ruining the Planet, and the U.S. isn’t even the leader. It ranks second behind Brazil, followed by China, Indonesia, and Japan. The research focused solely on environmental impact, using seven indicators of […]
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Solid at the core: the integrity of the emission limits in the American Power Act
David Doniger posted an overview based on NRDC’s “first read” of the Kerry-Lieberman American Power Act discussion draft. Here I will delve more deeply into the environmental integrity of the core emission limits in the bill. There is good news here. While the reductions fall well short of what the latest science suggests is needed, […]
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BP chief says catastrophic oil spill really not all that big
“The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.” — Tony Hayward, CEO of British Petroleum, attempts to put the now-underestimated Deepwater Horizon oil spill into perspective with that big, blue ocean thing
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Whether bikers should wait at red lights and more on transportation ethics
Biking around a fascinating city, pondering urban landscapes and human welfare, shaking fists at cabs in a goofy sort of way — what’s not to like? Streetsfilms talks transportation ethics with New York Times Magazine “The Ethicist” writer Randy Cohen while riding around NYC. He unpacks the ethics of riding through red lights and “salmoning” […]
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The federal MMS: a wholly owned subsidiary of the oil industry
The Deepwater Horizons rig goes boom, killing 11 people and starting a massive and ongoing oil leak. If the Minerals Management Service had been a functional, independent oversight agency, this disaster would likely have never happened. (Photo: U.S. Navy) Has the government surrendered its ability to rein in corporate excess? Yes, says the New York […]
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Brits are aghast at us Yankee “greens”
U.K. farm owner, “eco-dwelling” builder, and Grist reader JRWoodman offers some perspective on the apparently greenish platform of the new Conservative-LibDem coalition government: The UK’s Conservative party springs out of the old families that lived in stately homes in the countryside and enjoyed country pursuits. To this day if you look at an electoral map […]
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Spill-rate lowballing reflects badly on government cleanup oversight
Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.): “Okay. What is the current spill per day today?”Lamar McKay, President and Chairman of BP America: “The current estimate is 5,000 barrels a day.”— From hearings (PDF) held by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Wednesday, May 12, 2010 Still from a May 11 video of oil and gas streaming […]
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Two Berkeley chefs make healthy food that kids will eat
Part 3 of Cafeteria Confidential: Berkeley, in which Ed Bruske reports on his recent week-long, firsthand look at how Berkeley, Calif., schools part ways from the typical school diet of frozen, industrially processed convenience foods. Cross-posted from The Slow Cook. And check out the rest of the Cafeteria Confidential series. Berkeley Public Schools Executive Chef […]
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Ask Umbra’s Book Club: Time to take action
Dearest readers, Photo: GreenpeaceThanks so much for all your foodie insights this week related to Anna Lappé’s Diet for a Hot Planet (if you missed the live chat with her, catch the replay). One more big question to tackle today. Let’s brainstorm some ideas about how to put the pressure on agribusiness offenders. In the […]
