Latest Articles

ANTM premiere features vegan photoshoot

Alright, y’all know by now that I have a train-wreck-type fascination with bad TV. A Manhattan socialite sent to live and work on a rural hog farm for two weeks? I’m in. Tim Gunn telling a wannabe fashion designer to grab some bubble wrap and a banana peel and "make it work"? All over it. […]

She Will Have Her Way

Hearing held on Inuit climate and human-rights claim against U.S. In the northern reaches of the world, climate change is more than a theory. For years, native Inuit have seen extreme weather and weak ice interfere with their lives, and they say big emitters like the U.S. are to blame. Today — more than a […]

That’s, What, Two Days in Iraq?

U.S. Department of Energy to grant up to $385 million for cellulosic ethanol The U.S. plans to sink up to $385 million into cellulosic ethanol, doling out grants for six bio-refineries across the nation. The funds, spread over four years, will cover up to 40 percent of a $1.2 billion push expected to result in […]

Meany in a Bottle

Baby bottles found to leak chemicals, California may ban them Most parents discourage their kiddos from ingesting known toxics, so a new study from green group Environment California is a bit of a bummer: when run through a simulated dishwasher 50 to 75 times, name-brand baby bottles leach the chemical bisphenol A, or BPA, in […]

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 […]