Latest Articles

Lisa Jackson’s Reaction To Mountaintop Removal Activist Lock Down At EPA

Wanted to share an update from our recent breaking news about activists locking down at the EPA. This comes to us from Nell Greenberg: At 7:00 am this morning, a dozen brave activists released a 25-foot banner on the lawn of the EPA headquarters in Washington, DC. The message on the banner calls on the […]

Poll results handily explained by what bloggers think

First things first: Another week of waiting for details of Senate legislation left little public grist this week. The Economist runs a climate package, which is worth reading. Beyond that, it’s a good time to take a step back. Last week, Gallup released results of its latest global warming poll. They found that nearly half […]

Blanche Lincoln’s dismal school-lunch bill

Blanche Lincoln, chair of the Senate Ag Committee. Tight purse strings for kids and conservation; loose ones for large-scale farmers. Remember when Obama rolled out his proposal for increasing the school-lunch budget, and lots of folks, including me, groaned that it wasn’t nearly enough? In his budget proposal earlier this year, Obama called for an […]

Four obstacles facing electric bike popularity

In part 3, I promised to describe the obstacles that are keeping electric bikes from taking hold in the Pacific Northwest in the way they have in China. Here are four. 1. Immature technology As BikeHugger’s master blogger (and e-biker) DL Byron points out, electric bikes may be past the garage-tinkerer phase of development, but […]

Performance issues in Chicago men’s room reek havoc on water conservation

Sustainable Sanitation via FlickrThe backup in the bathrooms of Chicago’s City Hall is so foul that no amount of Pepto Bismol is going to help. Well-meaning politicians installed waterless urinals in the public men’s room to save a little water, but they were pissed to learn about the stinky flood of urine building up behind […]

Racing for cleantech jobs: Why America needs an energy education strategy

In the aftermath of the Great Recession, the United States faces serious questions about the future of its economy and jobs market. Where will the good jobs of the future come from, how do we prepare the American workforce, and what is our strategy to maintain economic leadership in an increasingly competitive world? A growing […]

Sorry, we can’t cook: D.C. schools say ‘no’ to more veggies

Cheer up, kid — the chicken nuggets and tater tots are sticking around. In a move that could signal a serious fault line in the argument for more vegetables as a tonic for childhood obesity, drafters of “Healthy Schools” legislation pending before the D.C. Council have scuttled a push for additional produce in school meals […]

New York City gets big reaction to new sex symbol

When the Big Apple’s health department tried putting out free condoms, it found the recipients were less than stimulated by the wrapper’s appearance. To sex it up, the city held an online contest to design a new package, 15,000 voters got in on the action, and of course, one hot symbol nailed it. The condom […]

Stop Government Funding of Coal

This post was co-written by Mark Kresowik, Corporate Accountability and Finance Representative for the Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign. “How good will the business judgment of companies that make high-carbon choices now look in five, 10, 20 years, when it becomes clear that heavily polluting infrastructure has become deadly and must be phased out before […]

The (almond) joy of cooking your own candy bar

Editor’s Note: In his book Food Rules, Michael Pollan declares, “Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself.” The idea is that by cooking at home, you’ll avoid all the unpronounceable chemicals found in store-bought junk. And even though you might gorge on it, you can only eat as […]