Environment and Health
Mountaintop Decapitation
Greening Spring Cleaning
What’s that smell in the air? It's fresh and floral — and probably filled with formaldehyde. It's spring-cleaning time once again. And in the name of cleanliness, people everywhere are dousing their homes and workplaces with dangerous, even toxic, cleaning products....
Fossil Fuel Extinction
The Hairball That Gagged a Fracker
Imagine a political campaign against environmentalists that's so negative, so ridiculously slanted and downright dirty, that it actually repulsed executives of some of America's biggest fracking corporations. It's got to take a big wad of ugly to gag a fracker. But in...
Wine over Brine
My home near Seneca Lake in New York is famous for a lot of things — good wine, fine food, and the Finger Lakes region’s beautiful scenery. Now, though, Crestwood Midstream — a Houston-based company that drills, stores, and distributes fracked natural gas — wants to...
It’s Not Easy for Obama to Prove He’s Green
President Barack Obama’s spokesman, Josh Earnest, recently boasted that his boss will “go down in history as the greenest president we’ve ever had.” Yes, cars, trucks, and buses will increasingly burn less fuel because of this White House. If the courts don’t spike...
Life in Anxietyland
Greetings from Anxietyland. Or as some might know it, graduate school. I've got just a few weeks left of teaching and taking classes before the semester ends. You might see that as hectic yet manageable. It's not exactly fun, but it's only temporary. Logically, I can...
Blowing Past Political Turbulence
The gaggle of workers in Montana’s Carbon County hacking at the barely thawed ground in late December were on a mission: Secure Mud Springs Wind Ranch’s eligibility for a green-energy incentive. Why were they racing to catch a tax credit in that sparsely inhabited...
Thawing Cuban Relations Could Prove Good for Your Health
As soon as President Barack Obama announced his plan to thaw long-frozen diplomatic relations with Cuba, the speculation began about what it would mean for the island. Would it help the Castro brothers? Empower activists? Create jobs? There’s no question that the...
Addicted to Stress
Not long now until freedom — or temporary freedom, anyway. I'm just one month away from the end of my first year in graduate school. It's my first year out of a projected six, if I complete my PhD. In theory, it was a great idea to move from California to Wisconsin to...
