Environment and Health
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 encouraged....
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
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
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
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 weeks ago...
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...
Big Oil’s Lethal Game
Forging Our Future
Flush with their victory in the midterm elections, the Republicans in Congress promised fresh leadership. Instead, both the Senate and House GOP majorities made the speedy and symbolic approval of Keystone XL pipeline bills one of their first priorities. They did this...
King Coal Catches Black Lung
What do the executives who run money-losing companies make? Millions of dollars if they’re coal overlords. Take Gregory Boyce. He's pocketed more than $60 million over the past nine years while steering Peabody Energy into a ditch. Shares in Peabody, the world’s...
Green Believers
By framing measles vaccinations as a matter of choice, Senator Rand Paul made himself — along with all politicians who value individual liberty more than the common good — look silly. Bruce Jenner is sporting nail polish and a ponytail. If the Olympic gold medalist...
