Articles by Katharine Wroth

Now we know where it all went.

According to a new report, U.S. drivers stuck in traffic wasted 2.3 billion gallons of fuel in 2003 -- 69 million more than in 2002. This sobering fact brought to you by the Texas Transportation Insitute's most recent -- and somewhat incongrously named -- Urban Mobility Report.

Even the beer industry is running out of energy

Noted, in a Slate article about declining domestic beer sales: "Why are brewers crying in their beers? In part, they're facing the same difficulties as other manufacturers. Costs for raw materials and energy are rising, and they're having difficulty passing costs along to consumers."

The writer goes on to say, at great and happy length, that the real reason Bud and its ilk are a bust is because Americans have turned into a bunch of namby-pamby Cosmo drinkers. But his quick economic aside is a nod to the fact that the energy crisis creeps into all kinds of corners. How long do you s'pose the brewers will "have difficulty" passing those costs along?

And you thought the only environmental beer fear was genetically modified crops.

Men pollute so they can take over the world

Men: Can't live with them. Can't overpopulate without them.

A new study of Swedish fishermen suggests that pollution alters the ratio of chromosomes in sperm. But the news isn't half-bad: those in the study -- which focused on exposure to POPs, or persistent organochlorine pollutants -- harbored more Y chromosomes than X. Which means, if any of them settle down with a Swedish fisherlass, they might just create more boys than girls.

Dudes, we're on to you. Pollute this place with your "mercury's good for you!" logic and feeble regulations. Mess with your own sperm. Then make more of you to inherit the earth.

Hell, you can have it.

Indoor ski slopes are the desert’s hot new thing

A while back, I wrote about indoor ski slopes blooming in countries including Japan, England, and the U.S. of A. Seems it's an upward trend: The United Arab Emirates has just joined the herringboning hordes. Yes, that's right, the world will soon have its first desert skiing area, thanks to enterprising developers in Dubai.

Will we end up in a world where all the snow and ice is gone, and the only way to ski is indoors, in the desert? Will the desert still be the desert? And in the meantime, how much power does it waste to run these mounds of gluttony?

Suddenly I feel like Andy Rooney.