Latest Articles

Farmer-consumer group challenges FDA authority to ban interstate raw-milk sales

Don’t cry over raw milk. The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund is taking on the Big Enchilada in the raw milk war: the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s prohibition on interstate shipment of raw milk. The FTCLDF filed suit over the weekend in U.S. District court against FDA commissioner Margaret Hamburg, and the secretary of the […]

Ask Umbra on organic mushrooms, dog toys, and revisiting cloth napkins

Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, I’m a big fan of organic produce (especially when the local version isn’t at hand or I’m eating it raw), and I’m also one of those folks who is obsessed with mushrooms. When I come across organic mushrooms, though, my curiosity is piqued: What don’t I know […]

Does Facebook deserve the hell it’s catching from Greenpeace?

Social networking giant Facebook has been taking heat from enviros recently for its decision to site a massive new data center in Prineville, Ore. The issue? Pacific Power, the utility that serves Prineville, gets most of its power from coal, the enemy of the human race. Greenpeace International has started a Facebook group opposing the […]

AXE bodyspray pays for stinking up the atmosphere

The AXE effect? Air pollution! Photo: Unlisted Sightings via Flickr Calling all smelly guys who AXE too much: We’re scenting you an order to cease and desist your deodorizing. California says your BO paranoia is stinking up the aerosols. Wouldn’t want to get a whiff of the $1.3 million in fines just to smell like […]

When the big guys want to do the right thing

How green are those Cheerios? Well, no — you’re right — Cheerios shouldn’t be green, but I mean green green. Increasingly, restaurants and food service companies are weighing the need to green their operations and products but the results are often not what they anticipated. According to stories in this week’s issues of two food […]

Halliburton secret spurs investigation into gas-drilling practices

Louis Meeks’ well water contains methane gas, hydrocarbons, lead and copper, according to the EPA’s test results. When he drilled a new water well, it also showed contaminants. The drilling company Encana is supplying Meeks with drinking water.Abrahm Lustgarten / ProPublicaThere’s a scandal brewing about hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a revolutionary process for extracting natural […]

Policy fixes to unleash clean energy, part 6

Having outlined ideal utility policy in part 5, we move now to ideal environmental policy. As a reminder, this is not the policy that could be accomplished tomorrow given political realities, but rather the long-term goal we ought to shoot for. If the only thing that mattered was good environmental policy guided by responsible principles, […]

Creative borrowing spurs commercial retrofits

On the heels of San Francisco’s announcement last week that it plans to spend $150 million greening up homes, comes a new report that studies a slew of other innovative ways to finance energy efficiency improvements for all types of buildings. It’s no big surprise that the key to ramping up the energy efficiency industry […]

Arizona introduces bill to redefine renewable standard to include nukes

In Arizona, a new bill has been introduced that would kill renewable energy progress in the state. HB 2701 would establish a legislative version of the Arizona Corporation Commission’s regulatorily-implemented Renewable Energy Standard of 15% by 2020, but with some tragic differences. For one, the bill would redefine renewables to include large hydro and nuclear. […]

Amusement park grows amid rail line ruins

Photo: TreeHuggerIt’s one of Lima’s most unusual spaces: a set of structures that were going to be the railways of an electric train. In 1986, the project was dropped and the construction was left as-it-was. For years, these concrete columns and pass ways ‘adorned’ Lima’s landscape with no purpose, until this February. Spanish group Basurama, […]