Latest Articles

Researchers: Food industry looks to tobacco for inspiration

Apparently, Big Oil isn’t the only industry that has cast an admiring gaze at Big Tobacco’s track record of avoiding regulation and accountability for decades. Over on Yale Environment 360, there’s an interesting interview with Kelly D. Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, on parralels between the […]

Drill, baby, drill

A veteran of the Manhattan Project is developing technology that could make it easier to tap geothermal energy locked deep underground. Potter Drilling It’s the archetypal Silicon Valley story: Unknown entrepreneur toils away on a Big Idea in an anonymous office park until discovered by one of the Valley’s legendary deep-pocketed investors. Another boy wonder […]

Expect sparks as the Senate takes up energy legislation

If debate in the Senate last week over some relatively non-controversial energy measures was any indication of things to come, we can expect fireworks over energy policy when legislators return from their two-week April recess. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee took up the first four components of its pending energy package last week, […]

Stalking the wild leeks of spring

On-ramp to flavorPhoto: dano272Early-spring walks in the woods are rewarding on their own. But while you  enjoy those first few sunny days after a nourishing spring rain, why not look for things that can feed your belly as well as your soul?  The woodlands here in the upper Midwest are teeming with gourmet goodies in […]

Is the Obama administration backing away from LNG terminals?

Will the Obama administration back away from building liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals along the coasts of the U.S.? Obama’s appointee at the head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission suggests that it will. Though George W. Bush talked a lot about weaning the U.S. off foreign oil, he wanted a massive increase in imports […]

Beware utilities seeking free pollution permits

America’s electric utilities (PDF) are waging a no-holds-barred campaign to get 40% of carbon emission permits allocated free to local distribution companies and merchant coal generators. They argue that free allocation will protect consumers better than auctions and cash back. Just give us free permits, they say, and we’ll pass through the savings to our […]

Don’t throw out the biochar baby with the bathwater

When penning his stinging rebuke of biochar and all who support it, George Monbiot not only threw out the baby with the bath water but blew up the bathroom just to ensure no one ever considered bathing again. Admittedly he got in a few good blows but the rest just blows hot air. Biochar is […]

Chrysler opens with a Fiat at the New York Auto Show

Photo courtesy of the New York International Auto Show. How will Chrysler save itself (and maybe even the auto industry)? With a tiny blue coupe tricked out with italian-leather seats, of course.  If there was any doubt about how large a role Fiat will play in Chrysler’s restructuring, Chrysler vice chairman Jim Press silenced those […]

NYC’s attack on salt misses the forest for the trees

Diet dilemmas Photo: George D Thompson In his most recent column the NYT’s John Tierney — a conservative political columnist turned “skeptical” science columnist — objects to NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s attempt to reduce New Yorkers’ salt intake. He compares the proposed new policy to a mandatory experiment in which residents are unwitting (and possibly […]

Bittman takes a bite out of the ocean

Endangered species for sale Photo: MaRonin47 I’m a big fan of Mark Bittman. I’ve been reading him since his Cook’s Illustrated days in the early ’90s; I consider his weekly “Minimalist” column in The New York Times invaluable; and several of his cookbooks sit, stained and dogeared, on my shelf. Bittman made a career by […]