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Debt-ridden and sclerotic Japan hasn’t been the go-to example of smart foreign governments since about 1991—that slot is now occupied by China—but there’s one program from Tokyo that the U.S. would be wise to copy. It’s called Top Runner, and it helps explain why Japanese appliances perennially top the table when it comes to energy [...]
Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart famously said the phrase in 1964: “I know it when I see it.” It, in this case, was obscenity, and Stewart was making a point about the trickiness of properly defining the term. How do you have an argument about pornography if you can’t quite say what it is? For [...]
Heard of germanium? How about neodymium? Or terbium? Or rhenium? They’re not extras from a Star Trek film—these are real world elements are some of the rarest members of the periodic table. But as hard as they are to find, these substances are increasingly important to green tech, clean tech and high tech—and the U.S. [...]
For all the complaints about government gridlock, the 111th Congress proved to be incredibly productive, passing health care legislation, an unprecedented stimulus, major tax cuts, allowing gays in the military and vindicating a landmark arms control treaty. When President Obama addressed the press before Christmas, he celebrated those achievements, many of which came in the [...]
Over on the Time.com mainpage, I have a Going Green column about the Prop 23 battle in California. The ballot initiative would all but repeal California’s landmark global warming law, but during an election cycle where fossil-fuel interests have dominated the money game, green forces have a distinct cash advantage in California. Check out the [...]
Thanks in part to the Supreme Court’s decision to allow unlimited political spending by corporations and unions, money is flowing into this election like never before. A lot of that funding is coming from corporate sources, and conservatives are receiving the lion’s share of those funds—although because many of those donors are keeping their identities [...]
