Latest Articles
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Gulf oil rig in danger of tipping after explosion [UPDATED]
The Deepwater Horizon rig, pre-explosion and pre-tipping.Photo: TransoceanReuters is reporting that the 11 workers missing after an explosion on a Gulf Coast oil rig have been found safe. Update: 11 workers are still missing and 17 are injured after a large explosion on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the AP, […]
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Coked-out Coca-Colla [sic]
High-fructose corn syrup in soda? Bad. Cocaine in soda? Depends on whom you ask. We all know Coca-Cola used to contain trace amounts of the narcotic back in the day, but, according to the UK Guardian via Fast Company, Bolivia’s kicking it old school with its coca-leaf containing soda, Coca-Colla (note the second L—I smell […]
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Duke seeks approval for expensive coal
More breaking news from the Coal Isn’t Cheap department. Duke Energy reports that the new 620 MW coal plant they are building in Indiana is now expected to cost $2.9 billion, or 23 percent more than they last estimated in November. It’s worth always taking the time to do some math whenever these type of […]
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On Earth Day, a senator’s demand for public policy based on real science
As we celebrate the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, the most serious environmental problem that we face is not global warming or the pollution of our air, water, land and food. It is whether or not our country moves forward in developing public policy based on science or whether we make decisions based on politics […]
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Clean energy jobs can be shipped overseas; here’s what to do about it
Politicians talking about clean energy jobs like to claim “they can’t be shipped overseas.” From President Obama’s State of the Union to Rep. Ed Markey stumping for the climate bill he co-authored with Rep. Henry Waxman, the promise of new “green jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced” is an all too common refrain. […]
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Labor and environmentalists have been teaming up since the first Earth Day
The approach of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day on April 22 provides us an opportunity to reflect on the “long, strange trip” shared by the environmental movement and the labor movement over four decades here on Spaceship Earth. A billion people participate in Earth Day events, making it the largest secular civic event in […]
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Perpetuating the myth that climate policy is all cost
A portfolio approach to climate change — a price on carbon coupled with a suite of complementary policies — can serve as a net economic boost. Put more simply: tackling climate change can help the economy. As I lamented yesterday, however, this fact tends to be obscured by the political establishment’s excess focus on carbon […]
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Community Carts Remove a Barrier to Walking.
When I was growing up in Seattle in the sixties, the neighborhood grocery where my mom shopped let her and other regular customers push purchases home in the store’s shopping carts. We lived two blocks away, and we returned the carts promptly to safeguard the privilege. It was sometimes my older siblings’ job to return […]
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How Dirty Are We Willing to Get?
At the alternative climate summit currently underway in Cochabamba, Bolivia, criticism is sharp and unrelenting about false climate change solutions. Rightly so. Most of the solutions proposed through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) process are based on poor science, lucrative carbon markets and only measly changes in the production and consumption […]
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Why it matters that the FDA is beating USDA for control of food system
Small-scale food producers and farmers have been vocal about their concerns that the Senate will pass highly burdensome food-safety legislation. Equally worried, but much less vocal, is the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It frets over major gains by its arch-rival, the U.S. food and Drug Administration, over local food producers and small farms. USDA is […]
