Articles by David Roberts

Braungart in Seattle

Hey all you Seattle readers: Michael Braungart, co-author of the seminal Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, will be speaking at Seattle Center this Thursday. As you know, I'm an unabashed fanboy of his co-author William McDonough. I don't know as much about Braungart, but one can only assume he kicks equal ass.

Anyway, I'll be there, and I'll probably share some impressions with y'all. If you'd like to go, you can read about it here or buy tickets ($10) here.

International group attempts to tame China’s dustbowl.

A few days backed I asked readers to send me a copy of a (subscription-protected) New Scientist story that tantalizingly promised to cover "the biggest ecological project the world has ever seen."

Well, thanks to the magic of the worldwide internets, I now have a copy of the story (thanks Mike!).

Here's the deal: Every spring, winds kick up and start blowing dust off the plains of Inner Mongolia and northwestern China. This is a natural event -- been going on for millions of years -- but overgrazing and deforestation have dramatically increased the amount of dust and the damage it does:

TPMCafe RSS

Political junkies will be happy to learn that the recently launched TPMCafe now has a full menu of RSS feeds. Greens will be sad to note that it -- like so many mainstream political blogs -- is virtually devoid of environmental coverage.

Do they ever really work?

This Treehugger post on a Toronto bikeshare service reminded me of my hazy days in Missoula, MT. (The weather was plenty clear, mind you ...)

While I was there, a bikeshare service called Freecycles was launched with great fanfare, flooding the streets with clunky green refurbished bikes -- free to use for anyone! For a while they were an iconic sight around town. Of course, I never rode one, and didn't know anybody who did, except as a novelty. Then there were fewer, and fewer, and then the program disappeared with a whimper.

And it's not a surprise, I guess. Who exactly is supposed to be the target user for bikeshare services?