Articles from Contributor
Niger Delta Oil Spills in Spotlight
With the world’s gaze focused on the dangers of oil spills, attention turned this week to a relatively overlooked environmental calamity: oil spills in Ogoniland, a part of Nigeria’s Niger Delta. If the BP rig disaster was a geyser, the spills in Ogoniland have been a slow bleed
Don’t Print This Blog Post!—the losing fight for paper conservation.
Please don’t print this blog post! Ach, who am I kidding, paper conservation is a losing battle. Don’t believe me? Check out this survey of 1000 employees in the UK conducted by consultancy firm Loudhouse on behalf of Japenese manufacturing giant Kyocera.
How To Feed The World By Going Veggie
I don’t eat bacon cheeseburgers. About three years ago I gave up red meat and pork. I am American, and brother do I love bacon cheeseburgers. But I decided that as part of the imperfect project of trying to live a decent, moral life, I could no longer chow down on bacon cheeseburgers. I could not put my preference for the taste of a …
Gold Prospectors Versus Conservationists
There’s no doubt that recent economic instability has sent gold prices soaring. But gold doesn’t grow on trees–would that it did!—and higher prices for the yellow metal has encouraged companies to go to greater lengths to retrieve the precious element, setting up battles with conservationists.
Extreme Heat Sends Chills Through the World
“2010 is becoming the year of the heatwave, with record temperatures set in 17 countries,” The Guardian newspaper reported today.
For those following the deadly heatwave that has hit eastern Europe in the last 6 weeks, it should comes as no surprise that record highs have been recorded in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. But also Iraq, …
Cloned Food Feeds Controversy in Britain
A furor erupted in Britain this week after The New York Times reported that an unnamed British dairy farmer had sold milk from a cow produced from a cloned parent. Britain’s food watchdog, The Food Standards Agency, launched an immediate investigation and announced yesterday that it had found that, in fact, meat from the offspring of a …
British Government Cuts Green Group
Shortly after taking office in May, Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron said that he wanted his new administration to “be the greenest government ever.” He’s not off to a good start.
On Thursday, Cameron’s Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman announced that the government will stop funding the Sustainable Development Commission …
European Coal Mines Lose Subsidies
It has long been said of renewable energy sources that they cannot survive without subsides. But the dirty secret of fossil fuels is that they, too, receive tax payer support—even in environmentally friendly Europe.
On Wednesday, the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union, announced that state subsidies for …
Europe-based Fusion Project Draws Heat Over Funding
There is probably no more sorry field of clean energy research than fusion. The quest to harness the power of the sun—without carbon emissions—has long attracted quixotic dreamers, amateur fusioneers and straight hucksters.
But by its own, low standards, fusion research is in a sorry state. The only large, serious, potentially …