Latest Articles

With berries and bread, you can make a delectable summer pudding

For years, I’ve drooled over photos of summer pudding — a traditional British dessert that’s the same deep blue and purple color as a serious bruise. Summer pudding features a little bread and a lot of berries, and Massachusetts, where I live, is known for its delicious late-summer harvests of raspberries, blueberries, etc. One of […]

Showcase offers electric vehicle test-drives at DNC; review of an eBox

In the midst of the mayhem that is the Democratic National Convention in Denver, 10 electric vehicles can be found zipping along the streets of Denver or idling at the corner of Speer and Champa. Boulder County, Colo. delegate Nate Vanderschaaf brought them to Denver as part of the Electric Vehicle Rolling Showcase — a […]

Right for 27 years: 1981 Hansen study finds warming trend that could raise sea levels

“After all, just 20 years ago scientists were worried about the new Ice Age.” This myth is so potent for deniers from Michael Crichton to George Will to Senator James Inhofe that even word guru and strategist Frank “death tax” Luntz made it a recommended line of attack in his super-slimy 2002 memo to conservatives […]

New York teenagers identify weak link in seafood chain

For anyone who missed it there was a good post in the blog two weeks ago on how to choose sustainable seafood. However, this article from The New York Times (hat tip CC) suggests that about one out of every four fish you eat isn’t the kind of fish you thought it was. It could […]

California to offer pay-as-you-drive insurance plan

Californians who minimize their driving could shell out less for insurance under a pay-as-you-go plan proposed Wednesday by Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner. Under the voluntary plan, annual insurance rates would be based on miles driven, incentivizing Golden Staters to stay out of their cars. “As a strong advocate of healthy market competition and a healthy […]

Cycling news from around the world

Recently, I came across a Time magazine article with the pithy title “Electric Bikes Sell as Gas Climbs.” (Apparently, for the first time in my life, I’m helping to set a trend instead of being oblivious to it.) Here’s a close-up of the bike being ridden in the article. It certainly looks cool. I have […]

Snippets from the news

• Utility Xcel agrees to disclose its financial risks from climate change. • Suit against ExxonMobil for violence in Indonesia can proceed, judge says. • Habitat for endangered elephants and tigers in Sumatra to be expanded. • Some 40 percent of Australia is largely untouched by industrial civilization, study finds. • Indicted Alaska Sen. Ted […]

High oil prices in future could spur plastic mining from dump sites

Sustained high oil prices on into the future could prompt entrepreneurs and scavengers to seek oil and oil derivatives from plastic items long ago thrown away in landfills, according to waste experts. “By 2020 we might have 9 billion people on the planet … and we could be in a really resource-hungry world with the […]

GOP platform acknowledges human-caused climate change, leaves out ANWR drilling

The Republican platform for 2008, hammered out by the Republican National Committee ahead of the party’s convention next week, is mildly greener than in 2004, making it “the greenest platform we’ve ever had,” according to a member of the committee. The draft platform acknowledges humans’ role in climate change but still takes digs at the […]

Joe Biden and Bill Clinton say Obama’s the man to solve the energy crisis

In his convention speech on Wednesday night, Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden said an Obama administration will make “alternative energy a national priority … creating 5 million new jobs, and finally breaking us from the grip of foreign oil.” Biden accused John McCain of being wrong on everything “from Amtrak to veterans,” and said, […]