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The last place you’d expect to see the folks from CSI sleuthing around is the bowl of soup you’re having for lunch — unless, of course, you’re having shark fin soup. In that case, you may be enabling an environmental crime, and now there’s DNA evidence that can give you away. People who grew up [...]
The South is reeling from what could be one of the deadliest tornado systems in U.S. history. Yesterday storms and tornadoes ripped through Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia and Virginia, killing as many as 200 people, and potentially far more. At least 139 separate tornadoes were reported yesterday. That number is almost certain to rise, and [...]
An interesting debate showed up in my Twitter feed today. A few followers of China’s green energy policies have taken climate skeptic Bjorn Lomborg’s recent opinion piece in the Washington Post to task for using some information that undersells what China has accomplished. I hadn’t read Lomborg’s article, which ran on April 21, but it [...]
Crossposted from Healthland: It can sometimes seem that we spend most of our journalistic time trying to scare you. Or maybe that’s just my posts — I tend to get the environmental danger of the week. But, sorry to say, I’ve got another thing for you to be frightened of, and it’s something you might [...]
For smokers, the world has always been one big ashtray, with cigarettes flicked away pretty much anywhere. That’s especially true now, since smokers are increasingly forbidden to light up in restaurants, office buildings and even new no-smoking condos. In the great river of litter human beings create each year, so tiny a thing as a [...]
For all the—very necessary—focus on the 21st century problems of climate change and shifting to a cleaner energy economy, we’re still beset by industrial pollution that hasn’t changed a whole lot since the 19th century. Air pollution—from smog to sooty particulates—is still a major health threat to much of the country. How much? According to [...]
Better hope you’ve got a little extra closet space. Sometime today, American industry will manufacture or import 250 lbs. of chemicals just for you. There will be another 250 lbs. tomorrow and another the day after that — every day, in fact, throughout the year. That’s a pretty big mountain of chemistry, but if we’re [...]
In this week’s Going Green column, I have a piece on Ray Anderson, the founder of the modular carpet manufacturer Interface and quite possibly the greenest CEO in America. Some of that reputation stems from what Anderson has done with Interface, setting the company on a path to total sustainability—meaning zero waste—by 2020. But to [...]
After cap-and-trade finally died in the U.S. Senate last year, it didn’t take long before we all started asking what went wrong—and who was to blame. There was no shortage of explanations: a plummeting economy and high unemployment made it impossible to sell major environmental legislation; the White House chose to prioritize health care legislation [...]
FUKUSHIMA — A Geiger counter isn’t something you ever want to know how to use. It’s definitely not something you want to need. Not that it’s an intimidating piece of equipment – the one I used last week in Japan was roughly the size of a mobile phone circa 1998. Our Terra MKS-05, made in [...]
