This post is part of Protein Angst , a series on the environmental and nutritional complexities of high-protein foods. Our goal is to publish a range of perspectives on these very heated topics. Add your feedback and story suggestions here . Most people erroneously think proper nutrit...
Swedish company Plantagon International is taking the urban greenhouse to the next level, and then the 17 levels beyond that. Their new vertical greenhouse in Linköping, Sweden will be 177 feet high. Plantagon’s goal is to make large-scale sustainable farming realistic in urban enviro...
College campuses across the country have been fighting to ban bottled water from campuses, and the International Bottled Water Association is fighting back . The trade group put together this pretty inane video, which we recommend you watch for the giggles. (We particularly like the s...
URGENT: Chief Raoni and the Kayapo under attack! Chief Raoni has called for support to pressure the Brazilian government to protect his people's lands against armed thugs sent by ranchers and illegal settlers to intimidate them and encroach upon their lands. Chevron turns to "Arbitrat...
A NASA animation showing regional temperature changes on a map of the Earth from 1880-2011. On the map, blues represent temperatures lower than baseline averages, while reds indicate temperatures higher than the average. As the 131 years pass, the map turns from bluish-white to increa...
Love can happen anywhere, anytime - that's part of the wonderful magic of life - but the odds are much higher in nature or in a walkable city neighborhood (or both at the same time!) than in sprawl, or while driving in traffic. So this week, let's celebrate some of the world's more ro...
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“I think if we had a major health problem with pesticides, we would have already known about it,” Jean-Charles Bocquet, the managing director of The French association of crop protection companies, UIPP, told Reuters . But that’s a typical dodge – don’t conduct widespread studies, hid...
We’re supposed to be happy about tapping new tar-sands oil reserves from our friends in Canada because that means we’re buying less oil from other, less-friendly nations in the Middle East, Latin America, or elsewhere. But even pipeline proponents admit that most of the tar-sands oil ...
Jared Criscuolo wants to go where no videographer has gone before: onto all of America’s rivers. Riverview A demo view in southwestern Alaska. Using the same technology harnessed by Google Maps, he is working to document the nation’s rivers as well as pollution levels in the water and...
Madison Vorva, left, and Rhiannon Tomtishen also took their campaign against the use of palm oil to the White House. Two high school juniors from Michigan have won the first-ever United Nations Forest Heroes Award for leading a campaign to remove palm oil from Girl Scout cookies. Insp...
“Most TV ads run 15 seconds, 30 seconds or 60 seconds, but Chipotle decided to buck the tradition by running the full version during the Grammy Awards on Sunday. That venue was chosen in part because of the song’s pedigree — Nelson has won 10 Grammys and the Coldplay version of the so...
Photo: Luther Blissett /CC BY 1.0 A French court has declared Monsanto—the American biotechnology giant driving growth of genetically engineered crops around the world , and the world's largest seed company—guilty of chemical poisoning of a French farmer, Reuters reports . The case in...
As tar-sands oil is much dirtier and worse for the climate than regular old oil, this plan has climate hawks and many other sane people quite unhappy. The route as originally proposed would have gone through Nebraska and crossed about 250 miles of the Ogallala Aquifer, the nation’s la...
By 2016, most home builders say that green building technologies will be used in 90% of projects and 33% say they will be dedicated to green building in 2016, up from 17% today, reports McGraw-Hill's Construction arm. Green homes comprised 17% of the overall residential construction m...
Americans’ ideal home size declined to 2,100 square feet from a peak of 2,300, according to real estate research firm Trulia. (The full account of this trend was laid out by Kaid Benfield at Atlantic Cities , and it’s worth checking out.) Meanwhile, the U.S. Census bureau has found th...
What was the most surprising thing that came out of Andrew Ross’s two-year research stint in Phoenix, Ariz.? For my money, it’s this: People who live there (weirdly) don’t expect their desert civilization to collapse around them at any moment. “One of New Yorkers’ favorite things is t...
Going green could significantly increase your chances of snagging a date this Valentine’s Day, according to a recent survey from Timberland . The outdoor apparel brand surveyed more than 1,000 men and women to find out how important green behaviors are when it comes to finding – and k...
This adorable/emotional Chipotle ad, featuring Willie Nelson justifying Coldplay’s existence, has been knocking around the internet since at least September . But after its TV debut during the Grammys, it stole the heart of … Fox News . Fox News describes the ad as “stealing the Gramm...
Scientists discover over 19,000 new species in 2009 (01/19/2012) In 2009 researchers described and named 19,232 species new to science, pushing the number of known species on Earth to just under two million (1,941,939 species), according to the State of Observed Species (SOS). Discove...
he UNEP Year Book 2012 shows that we have been experiencing an exceptional level of ecological extremes. However, scientists and policy makers have been making headway on addressing some of the most pressing environmental issues. The 2012 Year Book presents the most important events a...
Can Smarter Growth Guide China’s Urban Building Boom? The world has never seen anything like China’s dizzying urbanization boom, which has taken a heavy environmental toll. But efforts are now underway to start using principles of green design and smart growth to guide the nation’s fu...
As communications guru Andy Goodman points out in his “free-range thinking” column [PDF] this month, most of us opt for the escalator instead of the stairway. Highway speed trap cameras do little to reduce speeding. And handy garbage cans in public places haven’t stopped littering. So...
When we started the fight about Keystone there were just a few of us, and no one thought we had a chance. But with hard work and lots of great organizing we scored an unlikely victory when the President eventually rejected the pipeline last month. However, the oil industry’s represent...
Thank you for rescuing this sweet dog. It is really disheartening how many people think it's okay to chain a dog. The lack of education on this topic is really appalling. Also the lack of consequences. I'm willing to bet that if people who chained their dogs were given public whipping...
Over a dozen of the nation's top climate scientists just released this letter to Congressional Leadership that we will deliver along with the over 500,000 signatures against Keystone XL that we hope to collect during out "24 Hours to Stop the Pipeline" drive. Feb 13, 2012 Dear Senator...
In Congress, bad ideas never die — they just get tacked on to unrelated bills. And so we really shouldn’t be too surprised that the Keystone XL pipeline walks again in the Senate, zombie-like, oozing tar and pumped with petrodollars. Keystone XL is the continent-spanning pipeline proj...
The carbon dioxide intensity of Japan’s energy mix rose after some nuclear plants were shut down last year. In an era when almost every energy technology is unpopular with somebody, the people who don’t want wind turbines, generating stations or new transmission lines installed in the...
Coldplay's haunting classic 'The Scientist' is performed by country music legend Willie Nelson for the soundtrack of the short film entitled, "Back to the Start." The film, by film-maker Johnny Kelly, depicts the life of a farmer as he slowly turns his family farm into an industrial a...
The Hershey's Chocolate World Attraction also attained zero waste status in 2010. The site is a visitors' center, rather than a plant, but has several features whose waste is diverted from landfills. There's a restaurant, a store, and an area where visitors can order up and help make ...
