Latest Articles

An Old Lease on Life

U.S. Interior Department negotiating to recoup lost royalties Not yet recovered from its embarrassment at a contractual omission that lost the U.S. a hell of a lot of money, the Interior Department is negotiating with 22 oil and gas companies to try and recoup the dough. When the feds issued deep-water drilling leases for the […]

Board Gomez’s biodiesel tour bus

What was it like boarding the Gomez tour bus last year to chat with Tom Gray about the band’s efforts to go green? Well, a bit like this:

My aborted adventure on Fox

I’ll tell you a little secret. Late last week, for a few brief, surreal hours, I was scheduled to appear on the Fox News show Hannity & Colmes to discuss … well, allegedly the greening of the Oscars, but as anyone who’s seen the show knows, the real topic was always going to be the […]

Global warming sheds light on uncharted frontier

Captain Kirk said that space is the final frontier. But scientists studying marine life throughout a newly revealed portion of the Antarctic sea floor, which had been buried under solid ice for the last five millennia before global warming kicked in, beg to differ.

The collapse of two ice shelves on the eastern shore of Antarctica has exposed a Jamaica-sized section of sea floor teeming with thousands of species of marine life, including 30 believed to be completely new to science.

Can religion help save our biodiversity?

I listened to a lecture given by E.O. Wilson at the Harvard Divinity School a couple of weeks ago. I guess I'm spoiled by the slick documentaries on the Discovery Channel, and by the internet. For me, listening to a professor give a lecture is like watching grass grow. It was at a lecture just like this one that a self-righteous young college student, swayed by the arguments of her professor, once poured ice water on Wilson's head for what she thought were the racist and sexist ideas embodied in sociobiology.

Could you do it?

Could you limit your food and bev choices to all organic or all fair trade? Or both? What would be left on your plate and (eek!) in your wallet? Two men (one a Seattle-based reporter and one a U.K.-based nonprofit organizer) recently took on food-related challenges to answer those very questions and bring attention to […]

Share with friends and family

I just talked with a reporter from CNS News — a right-wing media site — about the Al Gore pseudo-scandal. Who knows how my comments will end up being represented in the piece. Probably something like, "Al Gore … does it … with … hogs." But just to keep a public record, here are the […]

Foodie kisses all around

We've got a pretty funny take over at Chews Wise on what went down at the Mackey-Pollan debate last night: It turned out to be more of a mutual love fest than a smackdown.

Please?

Edible Media takes an occasional look at interesting or deplorable food journalism on the web. Of mites and men (and bees) [Insert perfunctory “buzz” reference into lead:] Buzz about the collapse of domesticated honeybee populations hit the front page of the New York Times yesterday. The steep drop in bee numbers is alarming: A bee […]

Aliens!

Here’s an idea that hadn’t occurred to me: A former Canadian defense minister is demanding governments worldwide disclose and use secret alien technologies obtained in alleged UFO crashes to stem climate change, a local paper said Wednesday. … Alien spacecrafts would have traveled vast distances to reach Earth, and so must be equipped with advanced […]