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VIDEO: Is Gulf seafood safe to eat after oil spill?

New Orleans is world-famous for its seafood, but the Gulf Coast oil spill has left the future of the industry and those who rely on it for their livelihoods in jeopardy as fishing grounds close and diners fear for the safety of their meals. In this video, OnEarth magazine examines the impact of the Deepwater […]

BP oil spill highlights our broken immigration system

A Health Safety and Environment (HSE) worker collects pieces of an oiled snare boom on Port Fourchon beach in Louisiana.Photo: U.S. Coast GuardFeet in 2 Worlds reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is searching for illegal immigrants among people working to clean up the BP oil disaster. ICE conducted two investigations in May at […]

King Corn subjects Washington to ad blitz

The debate around the farm bill, and its generous support for corn production, is already heating up. Long-enshrined subsidies for ethanol production stand on the verge of being phased out. The EPA is mulling whether the nation’s auto fleet can handle more ethanol to be blended into the gasoline supply. In other words, the exalted […]

This building is so great it doesn’t fall down

“I don’t think sustainability is a design aesthetic, any more than having electricity in your building, or telephones, or anything else … In 10 years we’re not going to talk about sustainability anymore, because it’s going to be built into the core processes of architecture.” Advertising sustainability will be like an architect getting up in […]

Snapshots of the ‘tough oil’ era

There are vigorous debates about when we reached, or will soon reach, peak oil, the stage at which we’ve used more of the planet’s oil than we have left in supply. But it’s plenty clear that we’re deep into the age of tough oil, in which the most easily accessible oil has long since been […]

Five reasons why a comprehensive climate and energy plan beats the energy-only approach

As the Congress returns to D.C., President Obama and Majority Leader Reid will need to keep making the case to the Senate that a comprehensive clean energy and climate bill deserves their attention now, so the president can sign a bill this year. The president has been intensifying his rhetoric in support of climate legislation, […]

Four oil-spill questions scientists can’t answer

A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service worker carries an oiled pelican to a boat for transport to a recovery center.Photo: Deepwater Horizon ResponseCoast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, Barack Obama’s talking head of choice, made news on the Sunday talk shows with his grim prediction that the battle against BP’s oil blobs will last well into […]

Denver busts urban farming’s yuppie stereotype

January 2011 update: Many of the photos have been removed from this series so they can be published in a Breaking Through Concrete book, forthcoming this year from UC Press. When we were still in Seattle, preparing for this project, a few friends asked if this was a tour of ‘yuppie urban farm projects.’ Isn’t […]

The Murkowski Resolution: A step backward for American clean energy

This post originally appeared on The Huffington Post. In the last 18 months, the United States has taken major steps forward in the transition to a clean energy economy. With historic investments in solar, wind, and other innovative renewable energy sources, we are positioned to compete for the clean energy jobs of today and tomorrow, […]

IEA stunner: global subsidies to dirty energy top $550 billion a year

File this one under “news that ought to be the top headline across the world but will likely be ignored.” An early draft of a comprehensive new study from the International Energy Agency reveals that total global subsidies to dirty fossil-fuel energy amount to $550 billion a year — about 75 percent more than previously […]