Chow Pain

Faced with contaminated food, Chinese shoppers pony up for organics Got a hankering for lard made from sewage and industrial...

Sixty-Two and You

U.S. EPA places limits on carcinogenic benzene in gasoline Late last week, the U.S. EPA announced a new rule that...

Farming for fuel will drive up the cost of your favorite brew

According to this story in the Financial Times, strong demand for biofuel feedstocks such as corn, soybeans, and oilseed rape (canola) is encouraging farmers to plant these crops instead of barley, driving up its price.

And what is barley a key ingredient of? Beer.

There’s more room than you think

(Part of the No Sweat Solutions series.)

As almost everyone who studies the subject concludes, one key to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions is efficiency. Renewable sources generally provide energy at a slightly higher market price than fossil fuels. Oh, there are exceptions: passive solar heating, wind electricity, biofuel from waste. But overall, if we get all our energy from low-emitting sources, we will spend more overall per BTU. If we can use those BTUs efficiently, our overall energy bill can be the same or lower.

A visual history of the industry

Avast, me hearties! Seems the landlubbers ’round here have it in for me column. But I refuse to Arrr. I....

Coal is still the enemy of the human race

When I talked to Rep. Jay Inslee, he specifically asked me to emphasize to readers the distinction between coal gasification...

The scoop on the new IPCC climate-change report

What is the IPCC, and what’s the deal with its new report? When climate change emerged as an important environmental...

Creation care idea is spreading

Jehovah's Witnesses. Two of them just knocked on my door. I mention it because they had a brochure detailing their version of "creation care." I told them I was happy to see more Christian sects beginning to interpret Bible passages in an environmentally positive manner. "Oh no," they assured me. "We aren't environmentalists."

Over global warming, of all things

As you’re probably aware, the old guard of the conservative evangelical movement has lashed out against the new guard over...