Latest Articles

No Looking Back

Los Angeles Times series looks at NOLA’s rebuilding effort two years later The two-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina is a largely grim occasion, but a Los Angeles Times series has found cause for inspiration. In a 10-story installment, the paper appraises the rebuilding effort in New Orleans and the innovation it has sparked — particularly […]

Gorges Ain’t Gorgeous

China’s Three Gorges Dam plagued by environmental problems China’s Three Gorges Dam got a lot of flak during construction for its environmental impact and for uprooting over 1 million people. A year after its completion, critics’ concern about the world’s largest hydroelectric project has only increased. The weight of the water behind the dam, along […]

How globalization is smothering U.S. fruit and vegetable farms

Earlier this month, President Bush roiled U.S. vegetable farmers by announcing a crackdown on undocumented workers. Last week, industrial-meat giant Smithfield Foods goosed the hog-futures market by inking a deal to export 60 million pounds of U.S.-grown pork to China. These events, unrelated though they seem, illustrate a common point: that despite all the recent […]

… for real

It sounds like an unappetizing combination, I know, but it's for real: http://www.shrimp-petrofest.org/

USDA brings the enforcement hammer down on nation’s largest organic dairy producer

This, fresh from the Cornucopia Institute, is big news: Tonight at 7:20 p.m. EST, August 29, the USDA issued an emergency news release announcing that they had sent a Letter of Revocation to the Aurora Organic Dairy. In lieu of revoking Aurora’s organic certification, the Agency has instead entered into a consent agreement requiring the […]

Is Burning Man living up to its Green Man intentions?

The headline refers to a sign that appears as you drive (or as I drove, in a huge white pickup truck) into the Playa at five miles an hour, and it's not a bad summary of the enviro discussion here at Burning Man. How can you really be green at an event you have to drive hundreds of miles to, mostly through desert, with all your heavy crap in the car? Where will all those plastic water bottles end up? Is there such thing as a petroleum-free camp? What about all those Zip Ties, the preferred technology for securing dome coverings and lights on your bike?

Is Burning Man this year anywhere close to carbon-free?

No, says Andie Grace, the woman who ably answers the media here. "We're doing everything we can to lessen the footprint, but we can't make it disappear. After all, to do that we'd all have to sit home, strip naked, and eat grubs."

Which is not to say there isn't good stuff going on here. Says BMan's enviro czar Tom Price, "We are at or slightly ahead of our expectations. We switched 90 percent from red diesel, which comes from places like Saudi Arabia, to biodiesel that comes from Minden, Nevada." (Problems with biodiesel clogging generator filters -- which is does, because it scours out previous petroleum deposits in those gennies -- have been resolved by changing filters.)

The Man, which is currently in the process of being rebuilt, is lighted with neon powered with a 30 kilowatt solar array, which also powers the entire man complex. It's also powering the power tools the powerful construction people are using to rebuild the Man (which burned unexpectedly early Tuesday morning during the lunar eclipse. It was epic and historic, and a good time was had by all).

When that solar array, donated by Renewable Ventures, MMA, comes down on Saturday before the burn, "we're going to build 120 kilowatts in the town of Gerlach," says Price, "and 60 kilowatts in the town of Lovelock. That's two million dollars in free renewable energy."

Plus, once you get here, you ride your bike everywhere. Or your scooter. Or something. But you don't drive your car for a week. As Burning Man founder Larry Harvey said, "that offsets something."

I will take this back after I've been home for a month, but right now, sitting here in my skimpy pink dress, using a solar-powered WiFi connection on my solar-powered laptop looking out that the spectacular Esplanade full of solar-powered art and just digging the ambient laughter and music of strangers, it seems like Burning Man really could change the ... okay, okay. I'll stop now.

Next post: How Albertson's grocery store became a beacon of environmental ethics after its execs visited the Playa last year.

A good analysis of the fateful hurricane’s political aftermath

There are lots of Katrina retrospectives floating around today, on the 2nd anniversary. If I were a better man, maybe I’d write one, but thinking back on those events makes me feel sick, helpless rage all over again, and I’m about to head to a picnic with my two boys, so I’m gonna choose to […]

When it comes to climate change, prevention is more important than adaptation

G. Gordon Liddy's daughter repeated a standard Denier line in our debate: Humans are very adaptable -- we've adapted to climate changes in the past and will do so in the future.

I think Hurricane Katrina gives the lie to that myth. No, I'm not saying humans are not adaptable. Nor am I saying global warming caused Hurricane Katrina, although warming probably did make it more intense. But on the two-year anniversary of Katrina, I'm saying Katrina showed the limitations of adaptation as a response to climate change, for several reasons.

Miltary tech goes eco

Earth2Tech brings us seven ways the military is using green technology. And don’t forget how they’re tackling overpopulation!

Animal-rights groups point out the climatic effect of meat-eating

With which instrument do you cause more greenhouse-gas emissions: your car key or your fork? It’s a question asked in an advertising campaign by the Humane Society, which, along with other big animal-rights groups, is striving to open consumers’ eyes to an oft-overlooked connection: the climatic impact of eating meat. Bolstered by a recent United […]