Latest Articles

A review of six non-dairy ice creams

This is part two of a two-part series on organic ice cream; see our previous review of conventional, dairy-based ice creams by Tom Philpott. Cow juice alternative?The Sheppard family has what you might call an ice cream problem. When I was 8 and my brother was 5, we went to Disney World. After a day […]

Yet again, Vilsack bows to ethanol gods

“The President has been very, very clear about this. He wants the biofuel industry to take hold in this country. He wants us to break our addiction to foreign oil. The only way we can do that is by producing our own fuel and the biofuels industry is the way we are going to do […]

What About the Homeland Security of the Coalfield Residents?

Editor Jon Queally at Common Dreams has just posted the testimony of Goldman Prize winner Maria Gunnoe from last Thursday’s historic Senate hearing on mountaintop removal.  Below is the full text from Gunnoe, who is a community organizer with the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition. by Maria Gunnoe The following was submitted as prepared testimony to […]

IBM places big bet on lithium-air batteries

Big Blue is rolling out a wide range of “green” services, including research into a new generation of batteries that could double the range of electric vehicles.Courtesy IBMBack in the day when I had to convince East Coast editors that green tech wasn’t some crunchy California fad but Big Business, I often cited IBM as […]

Wind: still enough to save the world

Back in 2008, Christina Archer and Mark Z Jacobson published data (PDF)[1] showing worldwide commercial wind potential exceeded world energy use by many times. A new peer reviewed study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences now confirms (PDF)[2] this, and further shows that this potential is not limited to a lucky few. […]

E. coli O157 comes back with a vengeance, and other nasty toxins in meat

Tainted burger, coming soon to a plate near you? In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries. ——————————— (This is the first Meat Wagon column in months. No, the meat industry hasn’t suddenly become socially and ecologically responsible. I’ve just been distracted by other topics.) Where’s the tainted […]

MoveOn asks members whether it should launch major campaign to strengthen climate bill

The progressive activist group MoveOn is trying to rally its 5 million members behind an aggressive campaign to strengthen the climate and energy bill that passed the House last week. If at least two-thirds of voting members consent, the group will begin a “full-court press to fix the bill, and turn up the heat on […]

Analysis of Waxman-Markey vote from around the web

What does Friday’s close Waxman-Markey vote in the House tell us? (The 219 yes votes represented exactly one more than the minimum necessary.) In an excellent analysis (complete with interactive map), National Journal‘s Ron Brownstein notes: Of the 49 House Democrats who represent districts that McCain carried last year, fully 29 voted against the measure. […]

Rothbury Music Festival rocks sustainability mission

Photo: kuba425 via FlickrWhile your standard summer music festival may consider its primary mission to be “rocking out,” the Rothbury Music Festival being held this weekend in Michigan states its purpose to be “harnessing the spirit of the music festival community into a durable social movement.” Then again, Rothbury isn’t your standard summer music festival. […]

California is new front line of BPA fight

The following is a guest post submitted by Elisa Odabashian, Director, West Coast Office and State Campaigns, and Dr. Urvashi Rangan, Director of Technical Policy, Consumers Union. It’s the stuff of a good Hollywood movie-a potentially toxic chemical lurking in the bodies of most unwitting Americans; a decade of mounting but scuttled scientific evidence; government […]