Follow EarthBlips on TwitterOnEarth Magazine Articles
| Recent Articles |
Slow, Slow, Quick-Quick, Slow
Since Japan opened its first high-speed rail line in 1964, superfast rail services have spread across Europe and Asia. But the U.S. government has taken a more conservative approach, appropriating small sums of money to help states make scattered ...
Tags:
Energy/Transportation
Alternative Transportation
Between the Lines: House Stimulus Bill
From the economic stimulus package to the renewal of the federal transportation bill, 2009 is a big year for the nation's cars, trains, and buses and their accompanying infrastructure. What does Congress have planned for us? NRDC experts parse one ...
Tags:
Other
Stimulus Plan
Bill Clinton
Graze Anatomy
Will Winter and Todd Churchill have a plan. It's simple, it's workable, and if enough people do it, it will shrink our carbon footprint, expand biodiversity and wildlife habitat, promote human health, humanize farming, control rampant flooding, ...
Tags:
Green Living
anatomy
Global Warming
On the Fast Track
With its soaring, arched ceilings, 20-story bell tower, and gilded frescoes, the Gare de Lyon rail station in Paris feels like a kind of church. This cathedral of transport was built for the World Exposition of 1900, a Belle Époque celebration of the ...
Tags:
Other
California
Alternative Transportation
Gravity
Grief lies close to the roots of laughter. Both love the cabin open to the traveler, The ocean apple wrapped in its own leaves. How can I be close to you if I'm not sad? The animal pads where no one walks. There is a gladness in the not-caring Of ...
Tags:
Other
Jellyfish and Transformation
Jellyfish You might be the one to find lightning's roots in the sea. Transformation The fighter jet landed with appletrees on her wings. Illustrations by Blair Thornley
Tags:
Other
Why, What a Smart Grid You Have!
On the blustery December morning I had set aside to preview the new high-tech, digitally enhanced smart grid coming soon to Boulder, Colorado, the gusting 50-mile-per-hour Chinook winds that had been rattling my home city for more than a week briefly ...
Tags:
Environment
Green Grid
Colorado
Baylor University
Energy Efficiency
Made for Each Other
If you have a pet or enjoy visiting zoos or simply watching wildlife, or if you've experienced or witnessed childbirth-most of us could tick off at least one thing from that list-this book may change the way you see the world. I read most of it in ...
Tags:
Environment
Water Conservation
Diagnosis: Mercury
Nine years ago, Jane Hightower was simply a doctor with a bustling practice in internal medicine and 2-year-old twins at home. But when she started seeing patterns in her patients' symptoms-commonalities that included fainting, headaches, hair loss, ...
Tags:
Energy/Transportation
Mercury
U.S. Food and Drug Administration
Environmental Protection Agency
The Middle of Nowhere
At two o'clock in the afternoon on July 16, 2007, a bolt of lightning struck the tundra along the Anaktuvuk River, 20 miles from Toolik Lake, Alaska. This was unusual. Toolik Lake lies on the gently listing and all but untrammeled North Slope of ...
Tags:
Environment
Alaska
Climate Change
Spotlight: Elephant Reflections
A day in the life of a Kenyan elephant is utterly exhausting for the youngest of the herd-parading to watering holes, running from lions, learning to balance an enormous weight on four wobbly legs. The smallest among them are often spotted lying ...
Tags:
Other
Are We Going Nuclear?
A series of mishaps in the 1980s-the nuclear energy industry has come roaring back into the spotlight, eager to save a world frantically seeking a carbon-free alternative to dirty fossil fuels. In the past six months, 17 American utilities have ...
Tags:
Environment
Wind Power
Letters from Our Readers: Spring 2009
I'm Going to Moab Again I was amused to see the reference in "Loving the West to Death" [Winter 2009], by David Gessner, to the Moab MUni Fest, for that is the event that first drew me to the area in 2003. I've returned every year since. ...
Tags:
Energy/Transportation
Selling the Sun
"I am a capitalist," announces Jigar Shah, the 34-year-old founder of SunEdison. We have just sat down for dinner at a bustling noodle joint in Washington, D.C. Upon hearing Shah, who is wearing pressed khakis and a crisp blue oxford ...
Tags:
Energy/Transportation
Clean Calgary Association
Green to the Core
I've been thinkging a lot about my grandma lately. If we really have entered the second Great Depression, maybe it's time to adopt some of the ideas she learned from the first. For example: A canning jar was never just a canning jar. After its life ...
Tags:
Other
You Light Up My Life
You've probably seen Ross Lovegrove's work many times, even held it in your hand, though the name may not be familiar. The Welsh-born designer first made his reputation with such iconic products as the Sony Walkman and the Apple Computer. More ...
Tags:
Energy/Transportation
Milan
Sony
Apple
Reading the Hot Type
Believe it or not, some people still like to read books and newspapers, which means we still need ink. But perhaps we should use less of it. That's the idea behind Ecofont, an ingenious new typeface from the Netherlands, in which each printed letter ...
Tags:
Other
Netherlands
Assisted Swimming
Fish farming is a dirty business. Uneaten food pellets and feces contaminate the seabed, and disease is a constant threat in the static, overcrowded cages. Chile's salmon farming industry-the world's second largest-has been devastated in the past two ...
Tags:
Other
Chile
Puerto Rico
New Jersey Cool
The prefab industry has been around for decades; it's not exactly what we think of as a force for revolutionary change. But developer Avi Telyas thinks prefab-or modular design-is key to transforming the way we think about our built environment. The ...
Tags:
Energy/Transportation
New Jersey
Dirty Scoundrels
When we think of America's most wanted, the agency that usually comes to mind is the FBI. But in December the Environmental Protection Agency released a list of its own, naming 23 environmental "fugitives." Airline mechanic Mauro Valenzuela ...
Tags:
Environment
Environmental Protection Agency
Mississippi
Bangladesh
Death Warmed Over
Spain has a proud record as a world leader in renewable energy. But solar panels in a graveyard? That's bold even by Spanish standards. Santa Coloma de Gramanet, near Barcelona, has installed 462 solar panels atop a row of mausoleums in the town ...
Tags:
Other
Spain
Q & A: Motown Blues
The U.S. auto industry is on the brink of collapse, with two of the not-so-Big Three saved from bankruptcy only by a last-minute federal loan. Now President Obama has made it clear that he not only wants to uphold California's emissions standards, ...
Tags:
Energy/Transportation
Hybrid Energy
The Yuck Factor
These days it seems anything is fair game in the search to turn organic matter into biodiesel-olive pits, coffee grounds, fungus from the Amazon. Last December a Beverly Hills doctor even managed to fuel his SUV on the fat he removed from patients ...
Tags:
Green Living
Amazon
Let There Be Light
Pope Benedict XVI has been in trouble recently for lifting the excommunication of a bishop who is a Holocaust denier. So it may be refreshing to hear news of the papacy's more enlightened side. Last November the Vatican activated an array of 2,400 ...
Tags:
Energy/Transportation
Pope Benedict XVI
Fiat
Good Day Sunshine
Get ready for spray-on sunshine. Scientists at the University of South Florida have created some of the world's tiniest solar cells, about one-quarter the size of a grain of rice. The minuscule proportions potentially offer a huge advantage over ...
Tags:
Green Living
Good Day Sunshine
Baylor University
Florida
The Rock That Ate CO2
When Peter Kelemen started his fieldwork in the Omani desert several years ago, he wasn't looking for a solution to global warming. His research, which concerned the geology of the earth's mantle-the 1,800-mile-thick layer beneath the crust-was ...
Tags:
Other
Oman
CO2
The Buried Treasure in My Backyard
"Dear Landowner" the letter began. "As you may be aware, it is not necessary to have a large amount of acreage to profit from a gas unit...." Oh no, I thought. The Barnett Shale has finally tracked me down. Eight years ago my ...
Tags:
Environment
Clean Calgary Association
Methane Gas
NRDC in the News: Spring 2009
"Advocates for mass-transit and passenger-rail service scored two victories...adding $3 billion in mass-transit spending and beating back a proposal to cut Amtrak funding. 'This will go a long way to improve our rail systems and maintain the ...
Tags:
Environment
Energy Efficiency
Amtrak
New York
National Resources Defense Council
This Is How We Will Live in 2029
With this issue, OnEarth is launching an occasional series that will examine what our world will look like in, say, the year 2029. And we begin with our cover story, "Selling the Sun," by Michael Behar . The topic of solar energy may ...
Tags:
Other
George Will
Debunking the Myth of Clean Coal
After three decades of fighting polluters, I thought I had witnessed every shameless tactic in the public relations playbook. But in December, the coal industry surprised even me when it launched a Web-based campaign called the Clean Coal Carolers. ...
Tags:
Energy/Transportation
Coal Mining
Clean Calgary Association
He's All a-Twitter
Late in the summer of 2007, after just a few months on the job, NRDC's first-ever Netroots campaign manager, Apollo Gonzales, posted a comment on an online message board where a few thousand Toyota Prius owners known as Hypermilers obsess about their ...
Tags:
Environment
Toyota
Spring 2009: Transportation, Solar Power, Smart Living
Transportation The advent of high-speed rail in the United States could help us get around faster while emitting less CO2, reports Craig Canine ("On the Fast Track," page 38). Until then, NRDC encourages businesses to offer their ...
Tags:
Environment
National Resources Defense Council
Wind Power
Alternative Transportation
California
Green Grid
Switchboard: Online News Analysis
Before leaving office, former president George W. Bush designated three marine monuments - essentially, wilderness parks of the sea - in the Pacific Ocean, protecting them from oil exploration and commercial fishing. The monuments are located around ...
Tags:
Environment
Barack Obama
Bird Alert
In the vast boreal forests of Alberta, Canada, as many as 166 million birds - including the Canada warbler (Wilsonian canadensis), pictured above - could die within the next 50 years, predicts a December 2008 NRDC report. The cause: the extraction ...
Tags:
Environment
Canada
National Resources Defense Council
United States
Farewell to the Big Man
When it comes to Al Meyerhoff, there is one thing everyone agrees on: he filled up a room. Big hair, big frame, and, most important, big ideas. Albert Henry Meyerhoff Jr., a leading NRDC public health lawyer for 17 years, died on Sunday, December 21, ...
Tags:
Environment
National Resources Defense Council
Al Gore
California
The Investor's Guide to Clean Energy
In a Thursday morning last September, a group of environmental experts and government officials came together at the New York Mercantile Exchange in downtown Manhattan to witness a groundbreaking event. When the opening bell rang, carbon dioxide went ...
Tags:
Environment
Clean Calgary Association
National Resources Defense Council
Green to the Core
Holidays. They're stressful, expensive, often wasteful. But they don't have to be. Here are some seasonal gift ideas that will help the planet and won't wreck your post-bailout budget. Your favorite gardener may not know that in 50 years a single ...
Tags:
Other
Fields of Dreams
From the air they look like gigantic slices of citrus, waiting to be dropped into a cool glass of sangria. In fact they're a section of the Garden of Sensors, created by French "agriculture artist" Jean Paul Ganem near Montreal's Dorval ...
Tags:
Other
Raising Your Grades
Ivy is not the only thing that makes a college green. Released in September, the 2009 College Sustainability Report Card evaluates the 300 institutions with the largest endowments in North America, rating them for their success at "meeting the ...
Tags:
Other
The Buzz About a "B"
Driving his Prius through the rolling hills of eastern Pennsylvania, with his dashboard flashing details of his current energy use, Jay Coen Gilbert is wondering how we can find an antidote to greenwashing. "It's tough to put your values into ...
Tags:
Other
Offshore Current
America's computer servers burn through as much energy as the state of Mississippi. For stressed power grids and cost-conscious tech companies, that's a big problem. Google has now filed a patent for a floating, wave-powered data center, anchored ...
Tags:
Green Living
Buried Treasure
Japan could soon join the list of the world's top mineral producers. All it needs to do is recover the gold, silver, and platinum tossed into its landfills. The source of this bounty? The 600,000 tons of electronic appliances thrown away each year. ...
Tags:
Other
Cut the Road Rage
Why not put your video game addiction to good use? At ecodrivingusa.com , you can take the wheel of a virtual car and test whether your personal driving habits are earth-friendly. EcoDriving USA is an educational campaign launched in August 2008 ...
Tags:
Other
Collision Course
So this eco-activist guy who goes by the name of No Impact Man is pedaling along Broadway when this big black Mercedes veers into his path, and the driver yells two expletives that cannot be printed in this family magazine. Yadda yadda, you say, ...
Tags:
Energy/Transportation
Mercedes
A Blazing Success
Big oil and gas, global warming, setting fires in the wilderness: it sounds like a combustible mix, but in this case it's good news. To open a liquefied natural gas plant in Australia, ConocoPhillips had to agree to an innovative carbon-offset deal ...
Tags:
Energy/Transportation
ConocoPhillips
Q & A: E.T., Phone Home
Will things be different under the next administration? Will the United States at last become a world leader on climate policy, instead of being an also-ran? Huge questions like these are Tom Friedman's bread and butter. Friedman has reported for the ...
Tags:
Green Living
Bear Versus Beetle
On a clear day this past spring, Jesse Logan strapped on his backcountry skis and pushed into the whitebark pine forest that surrounds Montana's Emigrant Peak, a dramatic 10,900-foot mountain that rises from the idyllic Paradise Valley north of ...
Tags:
Environment
American Buffalo
A decade ago, while he was hunting in Montana's Madison Mountains, Steven Rinella's brother kicked at an old piece of bone in the dirt, and Rinella stopped to unearth what turned out to be a buffalo skull. Brooding over its age and meaning, he ...
Tags:
Environment
Army Green
In December 2007, Congress approved an energy bill with a provision that prohibits federal agencies - the largest single buyer of fuel in the nation - from signing contracts to buy carbon-belching dirty fuels, such as those derived from tar sands. ...
Tags:
Environment
National Resources Defense Council
Swim Safe
Recent research has shown that ocean and Great Lakes beaches tainted with sewage or animal waste harbor bacteria and other pathogens that can lead to respiratory infections, earaches, and even meningitis. The EPA continues to monitor the safety of ...
Tags:
