Environment and Health
Worried About Climate Change? Ban Fracking on Federal Lands
As world leaders get ready to gather in New York City for the United Nations Climate Summit, it's time to take stock of how the United States is meeting its own climate challenges. While the UN has the power to help forge a world with good jobs, clean air and water,...
A Simpler Solution to Climate Change
Even if climate science is complicated, author Naomi Klein wants you to know that finding a solution to global warming is easy. In her powerful new book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, the Canadian globalization expert drills through the noisy...
Ted Cruz Dreams Up Assorted Fossil Fuel Favors
Let's take a cruise down the narrow byways and twisting turns that form Senator Ted Cruz's mind. The first right turn on our road trip brings us to a sweeping view of the Texas Republican's Energy Renaissance Act, a proposal so studded with fossil fuel favors that it...
California Adds Steam to the Bag-Banning Movement
California is on the verge of becoming the first state to ban plastic grocery bags. Governor Jerry Brown says he intends to sign the bag-banning law California lawmakers approved in early September. The ban will go into effect at grocery stores and pharmacies next...
A Change in the Weather
Why I’m Marching for Climate Action
I've long known how wasteful, destructive, and dangerous the process of extracting oil from tar sands is. You have to dig up four tons of dirt and rock to get one barrel of oil. Beautiful old-growth boreal forest becomes a wasteland. And that single barrel of oil? It...
The Leaf Blower Divide
When new neighbors moved in next door, I didn't hold off long before broaching the Big Question. Even though we live in Washington, D.C., this had nothing to do with politics. For me, neighborly harmony hinges on where folks stand on this divide: leaf blower vs. rake....
Build It and Bikes Will Come
Did you see the baseball movie Field of Dreams? Even if you didn't, you've probably heard the phrase "If you build it, they will come" — which it immortalized. Well, how about "If you don't build it, they won't come"? When it comes to bicycles, cars, and public...
You Can’t Make This Stuff Up
Just in the United States, the cosmetics industry pulls in some $70 billion a year in sales of what's commonly called "makeup." But lipstick, mascara, eye shadow, and the like aren't the only kind of makeup the cosmetic giants are peddling. For years, their lobbyists,...
Golden Weapons of Destruction Take Aim at El Salvador
An obscure tribunal housed at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. will soon decide the fate of millions of people. At issue is whether a government should be punished for refusing to let a foreign mining company operate because it wants to protect its main source of...
