Latest Articles

Alabama city backing away from destruction of ancient Indian mound?

Following local protests and international outcry, the city of Oxford, Ala. appears to be backing away from plans to destroy an ancient and archaeologically significant Indian mound in order to use the dirt as fill for a new Sam’s Club, a retail warehouse store operated by Wal-Mart. A local landowner says his property will now […]

EPA fails to inform public about weed-killer in drinking water

This story was written by Danielle Ivory. One of the nation’s most widely used herbicides has been found to exceed federal safety limits in drinking water in four states, but water customers have not been told and the Environmental Protection Agency has not published the results. Records that tracked the amount of the weed-killer atrazine […]

The fallacy of climate activism

In the 20 years since we climate activists began our work in earnest, the state of the climate has become dramatically worse, and the change is accelerating — this despite all of our best efforts. Clearly something is deeply wrong with this picture. What is it that we do not yet know? What do we […]

Ask Umbra on green cleaning

Send your question to Umbra! Editor’s Note: It being the dog days of August and all, Umbra Fisk has trotted off for a well deserved vacation. In her absence, we’ve decided to dust off some oldies but goodies from the archives. And since we were dusting, we thought we’d start with this timeless green cleaning […]

Competition dreams up new ways to harass suburbanites

Dwell magazine and Inhabitat have teamed up to sponsor a “Reburbia” competition in which designers re-envision suburbia in ways that make environmentalists seem as scary and dingbatty as possible. The finalists include a lot of inspiring ideas, but my favorite by far is the proposal to have menacing 3,000-foot-tall robots stomp into suburban villages, rip […]

Digital downloads are greener than CDs

Several studies have looked at the climate impact of internet infrastructure and information technology, and other studies have attempted to compare the relative efficiency of internet retailing vs. traditional bricks-and-mortar stores. A new study takes a different spin on the subject, comparing the energy embodied in physical products with their digital, network-based counterparts. The result […]

What does it mean for a car to get 230 miles per gallon?

GM has created a bit of buzz around its claim that the Chevy Volt gets 230 miles to the gallon in city driving. From the internet a great chorus has replied: “This number doesn’t make any sense!” And it doesn’t.

Majority of ‘Energy Citizens’ rallies organized by oil-industry lobbyists

Here’s more evidence that the “Energy Citizens” rallies against climate legislation are anything but grassroots uprisings.  We already knew that the American Petroleum Institute was behind the whole idea.  Now it turns out that even the local organizers of individual rallies are oil-industry lobbyists.  Grist obtained a copy of API’s list of coordinators for the […]

Friday music blogging: Lightning Dust

Last year I FMB’d Black Mountain, a druggy, bell-bottomed Canadian indie band that does fantastic stoner rock. Two members of that band, Amber Webber and Joshua Wells, formed a side project a few years ago called Lightning Dust. They have a new album out, Infinite Light, and it’s well worth your time. Where Black Mountain […]

Four ways the U.S. & China can start cooperating now to tackle climate change

This post is from my colleague Barbara Finamore (Director of our China Program).  It is a set of important first steps that China and the U.S. could undertake to help reduce global warming pollution.  Moving these two countries together will be critical to securing a strong global commitment in Copenhagen.  And there have been some important signs […]