Photo via the New Republic It's a widely held notion that politicians have long been in the pocket of Big Oil. And there's good reason for that perception: oil companies' huge campaign donations, vast lobbying power, and close ties to politicians have ensured that their taxes remain low , that hidden subsidies are around to provide extra funding, and that they receive preferential treatment in US energy policy. But there could be a new, ... View original post here: The Next Big Oil: Big Smart Grid?
So there really isn't anything that deep to this image. It's just a (more or less) life-sized blue whale eye. And on the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society site you can educate yourself/be mesmerized/ waste some time for a while staring at it while the entire life-sized animal scrolls across your browser window. Believe me, it's way cooler than you might think:... Read more from the original source: Ever See a Blue Whale Life-Sized on Your Computer? Now You Can
published March 24, 2011 and has No Comments
Photo credit: Klobetime / Creative Commons In 1994, I wrote an article in World Watch magazine entitled "Who Will Feed China?" that was later expanded into a book of the same title. When the article was published in late August, the press conference generated only moderate coverage. But when it was reprinted that weekend on the front of the ...
Read more...published March 18, 2011 and has No Comments
Image: Rachel Cernansky This doesn't seem a victory so much as common sense, but these days those aren't mutually exclusive. The Democratic Republic of Congo's Environment Minister Jose Endundo has rejected a bid by UK oil firm Soco International to search for oil in Virunga National Park , part of the region that the world's only remaining and critically ...
Read more...published March 18, 2011 and has No Comments
Some good news/bad news or at least good news/interesting news on fracking , good news first: As TruthOut reports, New Jersey legislators have put forth a bill that would ban fracking in the state, making it the first state in the nation to do so. So far the bill has been approved the New Jersey Senate Environment Committee. Let's ...
Read more...published March 18, 2011 and has No Comments
The idea of a decent standard of living without economic growth runs counter to much of what we've been taught about economics, development and even human nature. Yet as Leonora's review of Professor Tim Jackson's book Prosperity Without Growth showed, there are plenty of convincing arguments for why we should rethink our relationship to GDP for the good of ...
Read more...published March 17, 2011 and has No Comments
The nuclear crisis is worsening every day in Japan -- last-ditch attempts to cool the reactors are proving fruitless, and the world is watching with dread. No matter what happens next, nuclear power will have its brand tainted something awful -- which in turn will have serious impacts on nations' plans for meeting future energy demand. Germany has already ...
Read more...published March 17, 2011 and has No Comments
Photo: vxla . Flickr This should serve as an indication of how old and toxic some of our nation's coal-fired power plants are: Just a day after the EPA announced its new proposal for limiting the amount of toxic emissions power plants can spew out, Georgia Power released a statement saying it will be taking two of its plants ...
Read more...published March 17, 2011 and has No Comments
Photo: jetalone , Flickr, Creative Commons 2.0 In an apparent attempt to secure the title of 'world's most despised oil company', BP has announced that its contracts with the Gaddafi-controlled state oil company are "still valid", according to Reuters. I suppose causing the largest environmental disaster in US history, lobbying governments to release terrorists , and rushing to drill ...
Read more...published March 16, 2011 and has No Comments
Please forward this post to your Republican Congressman I was just thinking a bit about the GOP's unanimous vote in the House Energy Committee to deny the existence of climate change , and it occurred to me that there's probably a good explanation for it: Nobody's ever taken the time to explain to you guys what climate change really ...
Read more...published March 16, 2011 and has No Comments
According to documents released by Wikileaks and seen by The Telegraph , as recently as December 2008 an official from the International Atomic Energy Agency expressed concern that strong earthquakes posed a "serious problem" for nuclear plants, that safety rules were out of date.... Read the full story on TreeHugger Go here to read the rest: Japan Warned Three Years ...
Read more...published March 15, 2011 and has No Comments
Photo credit: Jesslee Cuizon / Creative Commons This guest post was written by Care2 , the largest online community of people making a difference in healthy and green living, human rights and animal welfare. While international relief organizations are pouring into Japan to help people after the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami, a handful of animal welfare groups are pulling ...
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This hand operated gramophone is as simple as it gets. Original post: Minimalist Gramophone Makes Playing Music Super Simple
Contrary to previously held notions of how whale songs are shared between neighboring populations, a surprising study finds that whales living the same ocean basin are singing different songs. Read the original post: Study: Humpback Whales Living in Same Ocean ...
