The Hazards of Your Daily Commute

The Hazards of Your Daily Commute

Stuck in standstill traffic in downtown Baltimore, I catch this message emblazoned across the side of a city bus: “Did you know? This bus operates in ‘zero emissions’ mode on battery power up to 40 percent of the time.” Maybe I should be impressed or...
Talk Climate to Me

Talk Climate to Me

Guffaws punctuated a Florida legislative hearing the other day. Lawmakers and onlookers chuckled as Florida Division of Emergency chief Bryan Koon tied his tongue in knots to avoid saying “climate change” while talking about — well, climate change. Reveling in this...
Saving Tax Dollars by Treading More Lightly

Saving Tax Dollars by Treading More Lightly

I can’t easily reduce my own footprint on the planet in some of the ways that I’d like. Sure, I can walk and take the bus instead of driving some of the time, and I can turn off the lights when I leave a room. What about the big stuff? I’m talking about retrofitting...
Edison’s Bright Idea

Edison’s Bright Idea

It dawned on Thomas Edison that sunshine could drive both his inventions and his friend Henry Ford’s horseless carriages. “I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy,” he told Ford and Harvey Firestone, another enterprising inventor. “What a source of power! I hope...
World Capital of Weather Wimps

World Capital of Weather Wimps

What’s wrong with Washington? I’m not talking about goofy political antics, like James Inhofe’s latest bid to disprove climate change. In case you missed it, the chairman of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee gave a mind-numbing speech a few...
Going off the Rails

Going off the Rails

When 27 CSX tanker cars loaded with fracked North Dakota crude tumbled onto a West Virginia riverbank on President’s Day, the ensuing fireballs leveled a house and forced hundreds of people to flee amid a heavy snowstorm. Even though 19 of the derailed cars — each...