Climate Climate & Energy

Watch a dust cloud engulf Texas

Holy moly. Lubbock, Texas, is really seeing the effects of its record-breaking drought. Is this another indicator of the Southwest becoming a new Dust Bowl? At any rate, it's super amazing/weird/pants-wettingly scary to watch.

Ecologists and loggers join forces to examine rainforest destruction

A group of ecologists from Imperial College London is taking a rather unusual stance towards logging: "This is going to happen whether we like it or not, so we might as well understand the impacts a little bit better." The group is working with a logging company on the island of Borneo to study how habitat fragmentation plays out when companies cut down rainforest.

At the researchers’ request, the loggers are leaving some patches of rainforest standing, of various sizes and at different distances from each other. 

Japanese companies turn bras into fuel

The whole "feminists burn their bras" thing is kind of a canard, but now you can do it for real and for an equally good cause. Japanese lingerie manufacturers are collecting bras and recycling them into solid fuel.

The top 10 Fox News lies about the EPA

Media Matters has compiled a list of the top 10 falsehoods Fox News has spread about the EPA this year. Click for more detail!

Bill McKibben: 'Wall Street has been occupying the atmosphere'

Here's Bill McKibben speaking at an Occupy Wall Street "mic check," where the crowd repeats back everything he says and acts as a sort of human-powered amplifier. The reason that it’s so great that we’re occupying Wall Street is because Wall Street has been occupying the atmosphere. That’s why we can never do anything about […]

Rick Perry's energy plan: drill more, pollute more, spew a lot of hot air

Rick Perry released a new attack ad and op-ed that lay out a strategy of drilling for more oil and gas and rolling back clean air and water standards.

Environmentalist was barred from U.S. because FBI feared he'd glue himself to Palin

Last week, the U.K.'s "most effective environmentalist," John-with-an-H Stewart, had his entry visa revoked mid-flight when he tried to visit the U.S. for a speaking tour. All we knew for sure was that customs officials had grilled him for six hours about his plans for his visit, then sent him back to Britain with nary a pat on the rump. But Kate Sheppard at Mother Jones has uncovered the real reason Stewart was barred from the country: Super-glue.

Laugh at the crying Indian all you want — the joke’s on us

Remember the crying Indian in the 1970s TV commercial? Well, he's back, and this time, he's not sad -- he's pissed.

South Pacific islands are in water crisis

Man, Tuvalu just can't catch a break. The island nation is getting slowly submerged by climate-related sea level changes -- and now, in addition to having too much water, they have not enough water. Tuvalu and nearby Tokelau have declared water emergencies because of fresh water shortages; they're relying on bottled water for drinking, but some areas have no more than a two-day supply. Samoa is starting to ration water as well. Maybe they can get some from Fiji.

Jerry Brown wishes we could treat clean energy like we treat stuffed lions

California Gov. Jerry Brown (whose full first name is Edmund, who knew) has reached across the aisle for the sake of dead mountain lions. Now he'd like to gently suggest to the California senate that things like clean energy might be almost as important.