Articles by Sarah Laskow

Critical List: 24 hours later, climate change still a reality; EPA will miss GHG deadline

Al Gore said some stuff.

Texans return to their burnt-out homes. If these droughts keep up, it won’t be too long before the state gets on board with Gore.

The EPA won't make a deadline for regulating greenhouse gas emissions.

Here's what an imaginary, perfectly green Obama would do on environmental issues. Democrats should run this guy in 2012!

Tea Party: Don't build public transit, because the terrorists might attack it

Apparently public transit is now helping the terrorists win. That's according to a Tea Party group in Georgia, at least. The group wants to 86 a light rail project because "when they [THE TERRORISTS!!] blow up a rail, that just brings the system to a grinding halt." So we should not build rail in the first place, because in the event of terrorism it would cease to work. Makes sense!

To be fair, the dude who said that also seemed to be ok with a bus system, because in his words "if the terrorist blow up a single bus, we can work around that." 

You want a war on cars? Fine, here's your war on cars

The Stranger, Seattle's alt-weekly, has had it with the nasty attacks from car-loving, carbon-spewing, anti-bike crazies. The city's bike advocates have been accused of waging a "war on cars," and after too many hours trying to defend itself, the Stranger got angry:

For cars we have paved our forests, spanned our lakes, and burrowed under our cities. Yet drivers throw tantrums at the painting of a mere bicycle lane on the street. ... No more! We demand that car drivers pay their own way, bearing the full cost of the automobile-petroleum-industrial complex that has depleted our environment, strangled our cities, and drawn our nation into foreign wars. Reinstate the progressive motor vehicle excise tax, hike the gas tax, and toll every freeway, bridge, and neighborhood street until the true cost of driving lies as heavy and noxious as our smog-laden air.

Other demands: mass transit should serve the masses, and walking and biking should be safe. Maybe it is war.

Critical List: Climate change kills jobs; making a bridge out of live trees

Climate change kills jobs: A new study says California's economy could take a hit in the hundreds of millions of dollars as climate change takes it toll. So really, any program that fights climate change should be considered a job-saving program.

Job creation may be a different story. Loan guarantees for green energy projects aren't creating as many jobs as the Obama administration promised.

Green groups in Texas are growing, which means staffing up. (Now green is good for jobs again!)