Latest Articles

Is the Dow Jones Sustainability Index worth a damn?

Recently, the web has been abuzz with stories about (and press releases from) companies ranked highly by the Dow Jones Sustainability Index review. The vaunted stock ticker-picker turned its eyes to green a full ten years ago to track the financial performance of “sustainability-driven companies worldwide.” Each year it releases a review of the companies […]

Ask Umbra on sex … chicken sex, that is

Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, Vegans don’t eat eggs because it’s an animal product like honey and milk and also because of how animals are treated. However, does eating an egg kill a baby chick that could have had a life? I am a vegetarian and people often argue that the eggs […]

Breaking: OSMRE Suit Cites Chronic Pizarchik Failure

Invoking an earlier promise to “use the best science and follow the letter of the law,” Lisa Jackson’s EPA, with a little help from her friends at the Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Interior, announced Friday that 79 pending mountaintop removal mining permits in the Appalachian coalfields were in violation of the […]

EPA turns the lights on mountaintop removal

This post originally appeared at TheNation.com. The Environmental Protection Agency made good on its promise today to assert greater scrutiny and “use the best science and follow the letter of the law” with regard to controversial mountaintop removal mining permits in the Appalachian coalfields. In a highly anticipated announcement, the agency declared that all seventy-nine […]

This 9/11, urban communities remember and serve

This September 11th, communities are honoring those who lost their lives eight years ago by participating in service activities. Churches, schools, and community groups are holding nearly 100 Green the Block service events in more than 24 states. All across the nation, people are choosing to act on encouragement instead of discouragement, on hope instead […]

New film ‘Earth Days’ takes a sometimes devastating look at the history of environmental activism

In the 1970s, just after the first Earth Day and in the midst of oil shortages, recessions, and uprisings by restless youth, politicians were suddenly expected to show concern for the environment. President Jimmy Carter went above and beyond by installing solar panels on the White House in 1979. Solar panels on the White House! […]

Newly confirmed regulatory czar needs to close OIRA’s backdoor for special interests

Cass SunsteinAfter weeks of sustained attack from the right-wing on issues that are marginal to the job the President asked him to do, Cass Sunstein has emerged from the nomination process bloody but apparently unbowed (here’s yesterday’s roll call). He is now the nation’s “regulatory czar,” Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, […]

Friday music blogging: Röyksopp

Fact: At some point, everyone could stand to give in to a little cheesy Euro-disco-electronic music. Do not try to dispute this. To celebrate this late-summer sunny day in Seattle and my upcoming birthday, here’s something more upbeat than usual. Röyksopp is a Norwegian duo that makes music that lends itself to television — their […]

How much energy does the U.S. waste?

We must save all the energy we can!At the broadest level, everything we can do to address climate change/national security/energy balance of trade and just about any other meaningful social question associated with our energy use falls into one of three categories: 1. Use less downstream energy.  Turn down the thermostat, ride your bike to […]

Supreme Court justices say the darnedest things

During the widely-watched Supreme Court re-argument Wednesday morning of Citizens United v. Federal Election Coalition – a case that challenges the constitutionality of over a century of campaign finance laws restricting corporate spending during elections – the Justices’ varying opinions on corporations were on full display. While some, notably Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, […]