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Participate in the National Teach-In on Global Warming Solutions, Feb. 5

A guest post by Eban Goodstein, Professor of Economics at Lewis & Clark College and project director of the National Teach-in on Global Warming Solutions. —– One thing you can do to stop global warming right now is tell a teacher — a friend, your kid’s teacher, a cousin, or a colleague — about The […]

Supertrain a-comin’

“There’s a reason when you turned on the Olympics to watch them this past summer, you saw mag-lev trains going over 200 miles an hour in supposedly a third world country [i.e., China] in terms of its economy, blowing into town, dealing with environmental problems they have as well as transporting people in a way […]

Gov. Ed Rendell says Kathleen McGinty has taken herself out of the running for an Obama post

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell says he “heard” that Kathleen McGinty has taken herself out of the running for EPA administrator, according to the Capitol Ideas blog. Until July, McGinty headed his Department of Environmental Protection. Just last week, Rendell was pushing her as a strong candidate for a prime spot in the Obama administration, either […]

Florida Republican Sen. Mel Martinez says he won’t run again in 2010

Florida Republican Sen. Mel Martinez said today that he’s not planning to seek reelection in 2010. Martinez, who is still in his first term in the Senate, has been one of the few Republicans who has generally opposed offshore drilling (which isn’t totally surprising, given his state’s geography). Even in the rush to open up […]

Not as threatening as missing bees, but another odd symptom

Even when they are not immediate threats, weird symptoms like this are troubling: WASHINGTON, Nov. 30 (UPI) — Botanists say they’re puzzled about why oak trees from Virginia to Kansas and north to Nova Scotia failed to produce acorns this year. “It’s a zero year. There’s zero production. I’ve never seen anything like this before,” […]

Study links fast-food diets to Alzheimer’s

As the economy plunges into an abyss, consumers are cutting back on spending. They’re desperately seeking bargains, including culinary ones. While most companies deal with declining demand, McDonald’s saw its U.S. sales jump 5.3 percent in the last quarter. At the supermarket, meanwhile, sales of stuff like Spam and Dinty Moore canned stew are surging. […]

Somebody’s going to get rich

“There is going to be a generation of Googles and Ciscos in the cleantech area. It’s coming.” — Alan Salzman, co-founder and chief executive of VantagePoint Venture Partners, which has more than $1 billion allocated to the clean-tech sector

Electronics, biomimicry, and design advances improve a mature technology

Solar energy sucks up a lot of research attention, partly because solar energy systems still have so much room for improvement. Wind turbines, on the other hand, have been around for over 1,000 years, and although the modern versions are vastly larger and more efficient than their ancient counterparts, the basic concept hasn’t changed much. […]

NYT: Maryland poultry CAFOs snuff out Chesapeake oyster industry

In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries. —– I write this on the second day of December — one among a string of months that end in “r.” That means, for those of us who live near the sea, it’s time to consider the oyster, that glorious […]

SanFran anti-transit activist puts $1 million between the city and bike infrastructure

Streetsblog brings word of a bafflesome episode in the life of San Francisco: Two-and-a-half years after a judge issued an injunction preventing the city from adding any new bicycle infrastructure to its streets, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) and the San Francisco Planning Department have released a 1353-page Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) […]