Latest Articles
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Things you didn’t know about your furnace
At a dinner this week in San Francisco, I found myself seated between Matt Golden, co-founder of energy efficiency retrofitter Recurve — the startup formerly known as Sustainable Spaces — and Cisco DeVries, co-founder of Renewable Funding, the Oakland outfit that pioneered municipal financing of residential solar arrays. The hot topic was Home Star — […]
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The inevitable ‘What Does Health Care Reform Mean for Climate Legislation’ post
Health care reform has passed and Obama will sign it into law Tuesday. By the end of the week, most experts forecast at least twelve katrillion thumbsucking “what does health care reform mean for X” pieces. This is one of them. Barack Obama and Joe Biden react to health care voteWhite House First, politics aside, […]
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‘The Story of Bottled Water’ and big fun learning about water
It’s World Water Day, which means there’s no better day to, um, pour yourself a glass of water and, uh, dive into our planet’s dismal water problems. Let’s not kids ourselves: If we’re going to learn about water use, we’re going to need snappy videos with animation and peppy music. There’s just no other way […]
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Ask Umbra on dating, individual actions, and coffee stirrers
Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, I’m a single gal, living in Seattle, where one would think it might be easy to meet a socially and environmentally conscious, yet non-douchey fellow, but it’s actually really difficult to find any suitable guy to go out with. It’s like if I meet a dude who […]
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For the food industry, has organic surpassed its sell-by date?
Organic and the mega-market: an uncomfortable fit? Photo: Tim Psych on FlickrIs organic ag doomed to permanent niche status? Yes, according to this report from the Reuters Food and Agriculture Summit in Chicago. Based on the article, the summit appears to have been a gathering of food-industry execs and Wall Street analysts. And for this […]
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Why aren’t climate scientists talking about healthcare reform?
Health care reform dominates the news as Dems struggle to push their reform package through Congress. I applaud the effort, but can’t help wondering why climate change is being left out of the debate. Research shows that climate change is harmful to our health, raising rates of cancer and of respiratory and neurological diseases. So […]
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Why we shouldn’t bury bluefin tuna just yet
The mighty bluefin: Are rumors of its death at least slightly exaggerated? “Nations free to fish bluefin tuna to extinction,” thundered Tom Laskawy’s headline on Grist. On the Politics of the Plate blog, Barry Estabrook’s title was more concise: “Bye-bye bluefin.” They were reacting to the decision by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered […]
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What can China teach us about electric bikes?
In part 2, I described the extraordinary growth of electric bikes in China, which grew from novelty items in 1998 to almost one e-bike per ten people today. What caused this growth? What can we learn from China about overcoming the Northwest’s four barriers to e-bikes? The economic context of e-bikes is radically different in […]
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Open letter to Sens. Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman: a bipartisan path forward on energy and climate
Sens. Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman, Thank you for the work you’re doing to to address America’s climate and energy challenges. As you meet with a broader group of stakeholders and begin to structure a bill, you face an enormous challenge of your own: crafting legislation that can get 60 votes in a fractured and somewhat […]
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A water commons clash in the coliseum
The battle to preserve water as a common good takes to the Roman streets this weekend. As you turn on the tap to hydrate yourself today, please take a moment to think of our Italian colleagues fighting to overturn the water-privatizing Ronchi law.
