Latest Articles

Wal-mart’s organic bomb

Melanie Warner at the NYT reports today that Wal-Mart is about to dramatically increase its organic food offerings.

In very understated fashion, she says, "Wal-Mart's interest is expected to change organic food production in substantial ways."

Um, yeah, it sure will.

Wal-Mart's plan is to sell organics ~10% over the price of non-organics -- a much closer premium than you can get elsewhere. It's also getting brands like Pepsi, Rice Krispies, and Kraft Mac 'n' Cheese in the game.

There's good back and forth in the article about the pros and cons of further industrializing organics -- availability and expansion of the market in the pros, weakening standards and increased overseas production in the cons.

Trailer: Who Killed the Electric Car?

Somebody's probably posted about this already, but if not: The trailer for Who Killed the Electric Car? is available here.

We've written previously about the movie here, here, here and here.

Push to raise fuel-economy standards gaining new support

Cringe as we might over record-high gasoline prices, they could be the best thing to happen to automobile fuel economy since the Arab oil embargo. Nowhere to go but up. The soaring cost of oil in recent weeks has sent Washington lawmakers into an election-year frenzy. Some of their proposals — like one from Senate […]

RealClimate on An Inconvenient Truth

Over at RealClimate, where actual scientists hang out, Eric Steig offers a brief review of An Inconvenient Truth, focusing mainly on the science. The verdict: Aside from a few small and largely inconsequential errors, the science is right on.

The folks in the lively comment section seem woefully, nay, tragically unaware of my interview with Gore, in which he answers many of their questions.

Hummer tax

The editors of The New Republic endorse what they call a “Hummer tax.” Wonks, in their pithiest mode, refer to the Hummer Tax as a “feebate” system. Under such a system, the government would either slap a tax or offer a rebate on newly purchased vehicles based on the vehicle’s fuel-efficiency rating. For instance, a […]

More interview with Mike Davis

Part two of Tom Engelhardt's interview with Mike Davis is up. Davis is the author of City of Quartz and, most recently, Planet of Slums.

More great stuff. I particularly like this:

Activists are fighting a new agreement between the U.S. and Peru

A logger drives his freshly cut mahogany logs upriver toward Ivochote, a scratchy, low-slung jungle town in Peru’s eastern Amazon. Hoping to convert his illegal revenues into some weekend lovin’, he takes maca, a traditional Peruvian libido enhancer. He heads to a nearby brothel, but its employees are too busy protesting pollution caused by a […]

Survivaballs!

Halliburton Solves Global Warming
SurvivaBalls save managers from abrupt climate change

An advanced new technology will keep corporate managers safe even when climate change makes life as we know it impossible. [Speech, photos]

"The SurvivaBall is designed to protect the corporate manager no matter what Mother Nature throws his or her way," said Fred Wolf, a Halliburton representative who spoke today at the Catastrophic Loss conference held at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Amelia Island, Florida. "This technology is the only rational response to abrupt climate change," he said to an attentive and appreciative audience.

Read the rest.

Wind farm follies

So, it seems they're going to build the nation's largest wind farm off the coast of Padre Island in Texas. Environmentalists are up in arms about ... wait for it ... the birds. Oy.

This bit from Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson is amusing:

"Those who are concerned about view sheds shouldn't have a problem," he said. "There's nobody there to look at it."

Nice bank shot!

Speaking of view sheds and wind farms, I confess I haven't been following the latest drama over the much-discussed Cape Wind project all that closely, cause it makes me want to pull my hair out.

First Sen. Don Young (R-Alaska) offered an amendment to kill it. I think that one died. Then Young offered another amendment giving Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney, a longtime project opponent, the power to kill it. In conference committee, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) whittled the amendment down so it only applied to wind projects in Nantucket Sound and then attached it to a Coast Guard funding bill.

Worldmapper

Sarah Rich is right -- this Worldmapper thing is pretty effing cool. (See Sarah's post for details.)

In particular, check out this map of oil imports. The U.S. looks a bit chubby!