James D. Schwartz of The Urban Country recently calculated that Americans work on average 2 hours out of every day to pay for their cars . Now he’s figured out that a bicycle costs only 3.84 minutes . And that’s being conservative, assuming you’ll drop $1,500 on a new commuter bike ev...
[Climate change is] an absolute travesty of scientific research that was motivated by those who, in my opinion, saw this as an opportunity to create a panic and a crisis for government to be able to step in and even more greatly control your life. … I for one never bought the hoax. I ...
Via the invaluable Maria Popova at Brain Pickings , this video by Marija Jacimovic and Benoit Detalle uses vegetables — so many, many awesome vegetables — to illustrate Michael Pollan’s Food Rules (the version that expands on “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants”). Swoon, right? Car...
If you’ve been vegan for any length of time, there’s a pretty good chance that someone’s asked you the ubiquitous question, “How do you get enough protein?” It’s a common misconception that you need animal products to get enough protein into your diet. In fact, many plant foods are lo...
Arjen Hoekstra and Mesfin Mekonnen/PNAS Early Edition Humankind’s average annual water footprint from 1996 to 2005. With the world’s freshwater supplies under mounting pressure from pollution and galloping consumption, understanding the how, where and why of water use is more importan...
A Strawberry farm near Castroville in Monterey County. (Photo by USDA.) Last month, I wrote about the very real possibility that Monterey County — one of the biggest farm counties in California — would pass a resolution to ban the fumigant methyl iodide. Well, on Tuesday morning, Vale...
Come on, give it a shot. You'll be glad you did. (Photo by Sean Dreilinger.) As if you needed further proof that the oil-soaked transportation bill now making its way through the U.S. House of Representatives is out of touch with reality, look no further than the just-released 2012 Be...
Andrew Hyde owns only 15 things. And he knows what you're thinking right now : The first question is always "Do you do laundry? How many pairs of underwear?" I’ll never get a stranger's obsession with my knickers, but that is *always* question #1. Question #2 is the "What do you own?"...
Researchers from the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies took this picture of a shark eating another shark near the Great Barrier Reef. Nature is crazy! The shark being eaten is a bamboo shark. The shark doing the eating is a tasseled wobbegong(!!...
A new report shows the European Union is continuing to make rapid progress in clean energy: Total gross energy consumption in EU states was 12.4% in 2010, it found, up from 11.5% in 2009. The report, The State of Renewable Energies in Europe , has plenty of good news on other fronts, ...
For 24 years, Pedigree has been the sponsor of the annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, but not anymore. This year, Westminster switched sponsors to Purina. The reason? Pedigrees commercials promoting adoption from shelters are not the image Westminster desires. It is well known ...
On first glance, every piece in artist Chris Jordan’s collection, “Running the Numbers ,” appears to be simply a beautiful work of modern art. But look more closely, and you’ll see that each piece depicts the enormous amount of natural resources we consume and throw away – represented...
I’m not usually a sucker for reptiles and amphibians the way I am for, say, sloths — but when they’re the world’s tiniest, who can resist? First we had this ickle mini frogling , and now there’s a wee precious chameleonette . Actually, there were four distinct species of ittle-bitty c...
Aerial shot of the Nelson Faria Dairy in Royal, Wash. Note the tiny dots that are the dairy cows congregating in the holding pens. (Image by Google Maps.) In a precedent-setting decision earlier this month that received scant national coverage, a federal district court judge in Washin...
COMARE accepted the findings of the KiKK study, but rather than radiation being a causative factor, it pointed to growing evidence of the role of a viral infection, the so-called population mixing theory. ‘There is some potential for this to happen, but no virus has actually been iden...
I think it’s pretty easy to connect the dots here and draw the conclusion that Big Oil—which spends millions of dollars on lobbying and campaign contributions every year, but reaps billions of dollars in record profits—is afraid. Very afraid. It’s kind of funny when you think about it...
Even the most efficient washing machines on the market use a lot of energy and water, especially if warm or hot water is involved . But this revolutionary concept from designer Elie Ahovi could change all that. The Orbit ditches the soap and water for the cleaning power of dry ice. It...
87 marine mammals still eaten by people (01/24/2012) Threats to marine mammals usually include climate change, drowning as by-catch, pollution, depletion of prey, but what about eating marine mammals? A new study in Biological Conservation finds that a surprising 87 marine mammals—inc...
Cross-posted from Climate Progress . As part of the fiscal year 2013 budget [PDF] released on Feb. 13, President Obama proposed to eliminate $40 billion in tax breaks for oil and gas producers over the next 10 years. Yesterday, the Yale Project on Climate Change reiterated its recent ...
1. Energy prices will be materially higher but much more dynamic, with peak cost per kwh being a multiple of base load. What does this mean? Those who optimize their energy usage will pay dramatically less than those who can't or don't. 2. Energy optimization will be an integrated par...
Around the world, breathing a variety of air pollutants – in some cases for a single day – increases the chance that people will suffer heart attacks, according to a new analysis published Tuesday. For the first time, scientists analyzed previous studies from five continents to verify...
The Heartland Institute has confirmed in a prepared statement that it mistakenly emailed its board materials to an anonymous third party - confirming the source of the documents released here on the DeSmogBlog yesterday. Heartland then goes on allege that one of the documents (the Cli...
“My car flooded about four years ago and waiting for insurance to kind of come through with the money…I took the bus and the train and I found that it enriched my life. It actually made my life better to slow down a little bit and walk through this city and interact with people that I...
Protein is directly tied to resource intensity. Vegetarians choose a meatless path to cut down on the vast quantities of land, water, nitrogen, and pesticides required to produce most livestock feed. And many meat eaters are thinking strategically about the greenest sources of animal ...
S. Fred Singer Lied to the IRS about identity of his chair The new report by computer scientist, researcher and DeSmogBlog contributor John Mashey (next post) , completely corroborates the authenticity of leaked Heartland Institute budget, planning and fundraising documents released o...
For the last year, we have been talking at great length about the convergence of technologies that promise to reshape business, people and the planet. The concept of VERGE explores the massive opportunities for business created by innovations in buildings, energy, vehicles and IT (and...
Arjen Hoekstra and Mesfin Mekonnen/PNAS Early Edition Humankind’s average annual water footprint from 1996 to 2005. With the world’s freshwater supplies under mounting pressure from pollution and galloping consumption, understanding the how, where and why of water use is more importan...
Photos: 40% of Madagascar's reptiles at risk of extinction (11/10/2011) 40 percent of Madagascar's terrestrial reptiles are threatened with extinction due to habitat loss and over-collection for the pet trade, reports the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in its la...
My job requires that I often travel for work. Almost every time I arrive in a new place, I am astonished not just by what I find different, but by what seems familiar. The architecture, billboards, stores and restaurants, often remind me of something I'd find in Detroit, San Francisco...
Japan Solar PV Sales From wind and geothermal power to fuel cells, the Great East Japan Earthquake that occurred March 11 off the coast of Fukushima — along with much longer standing energy security concerns — has revitalized clean and renewable energy prospects in Japan. Smoothing th...
