Latest Articles
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Using Coal Ash to Melt Ice?
Co-written by Lyndsay Moseley, Associate Washington Representative for the Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign. On Thursday, the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will start using coal ash to melt the thick ice on the Platte River in Omaha, Nebraska, to prevent ice jams and severe flooding. From the article: […]
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A $22 Billion Decision on Water Heaters? Tell DOE to do the right thing
Most of us only think about water heaters when forced to take a cold shower – shudder – but those boring tanks in the basement actually account for up to 25% of the energy used in your home. No surprise then that the current rulemaking on new federal minimum standards for water heaters would turn […]
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Live chat with David Roberts
Editor’s note: The chat’s now over, but you can replay it in full. February’s Friends with Benefits Live Chat with staff writer David Roberts covered topics ranging from “beard music” to Senator Cantwell’s CLEAR bill. The conversation had a little something for everyone. Join us for March’s Live Chat with food expert Tom Philpott. Want […]
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80 percent of the world’s emissions are taking steps to curb their global warming pollution
As I mentioned here by the end of January countries were to register their actions to reduce global warming pollution as agreed under the Copenhagen Accord. And by deadline countries accounting for over 80 percent of the world's global warming pollution (and a bit more) have registered their actions to reduce their pollution. So what does this all mean?
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Why Congress must revise the Clean Air Act
Most Americans breath dirty air — in many places, levels of pollutants like nitrogen dioxide and ozone are in violation of federal air quality standards. And now, those standards are getting even stronger, which will put even more of the country out of compliance: EPA recently upped standards for nitrogen dioxide and is working on […]
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When will the EPA enforce coal ash laws in Alabama?
What is the EPA’s excuse now? Waiting for more torrential rain to host Olympic Black Water rafting competitions? As heavy rains and snow worsen landfill conditions, this is the sentiment of besieged residents in Perry County, Alabama, who have been designated as the official keepers of toxic coal ash from the nation’s worst environmental disaster–the […]
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Katie Couric chews the food-system fat
In “Chewing the Scenery,” we round up interesting food-related video from around the Web. ——— Obesity, it seems, is the popular frame for looking critically of the food system: it’s the respectable pathway through which public figures can criticize industrial food. I wish there were another one. While the expansion of the American waistline is […]
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Complaint cites health threats at Alabama dump taking TVA’s spilled coal ash
An Alabama creekkeeper has filed a complaint with the Environmental Protection Agency citing health threats including runoff containing alarmingly high arsenic levels at a bankrupt landfill that’s taking hundreds of millions of gallons of coal ash spilled from the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston coal plant. The Arrowhead Landfill — owned by Perry County Associates and […]
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Smarter grids, appliances, and consumers
More and more utilities are beginning to realize that building large power plants just to handle peak daily and seasonal demand is a very costly way of managing an electricity system. Existing electricity grids are typically a patchwork of local grids that are simultaneously inefficient, wasteful, and dysfunctional in that they often are unable, for […]
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More biofuel waste for cows, plus a California beef packer pulls a Toyota
What the hell are you feeding us?In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries. ————- Agricultural societies, I imagine, have always fed waste products to livestock. On diversified farms, pigs and chickens get lots of kitchen scraps and “culls”–produce that can’t be sold. And it’s worthwhile to keep […]
