by Christopher Mims. What happens if and when current subsidies for solar panels are phased out? Doesn't matter — the cost of solar photovoltaics continues to fall even as the cost of grid electricity continues to rise, which means eventually the two trends will meet and it will make more... 

by Sarah Laskow. McDonald's, Taco Bell, and Burger King just stopped using a product popularly known as ” pink slime ” in their burger meat. The “slime” comes from the tiny bits of beef in leftover fatty trimming. Those bits are doused with ammonia in order to kill E. coli... 

by Sarah Laskow. The Asian tiger prawn, a gigantic shrimp that can grow to more than a foot long, is invading the Gulf of Mexico . This year the species was found for the first time in Texas waters. This giganto breed of crustacean threatens the survival of crabs, oysters, and regular old normal-sized... 

by Sarah Laskow. The death toll for flooding in the Philippines is over 2,500. For the first time in six decades, harbor porpoises are hanging out in the San Francisco Bay. First Solar, a company that makes thin-film solar panels, has spent $2.2 million on D.C. lobbying in the past four years. That’s... 

The holiday season is the shopping season. It is also the catalog season, with tens of millions of glossy catalogs sent out to encourage people to shop. Although there’s nothing new about it, this year we can finally say there is a light at the end of the catalog tunnel. I’m talking about... 

Tokyo Electric Power Co asked a government-backed bailout body on Tuesday for an additional 690 billion yen ($8.8 billion) to help compensate victims of the nuclear crisis at its Fukushima Daiichi power plant. To help Japan’s biggest utility, known as Tepco, meet costs running into trillions of... 

Climate changes do affect how animals adapt and change. A new novel statistical study by Brown University shows that climate changes profoundly influenced the rise and fall of six distinct and successive waves of mammal species in North America over the last 65 million years. Warming and cooling periods,... 

by Christopher Mims. Ironically-named food hero Marion Nestle just calculated that PepsiCo, which pumps enough high fructose corn syrup into the American public to turn out one Ghostbusters-size Stay Puft marshmallow man every 18 hours (I made that up; you get the idea), spends $3 million a year lobbying... 

by Christopher Mims. Banning cars from Mexico City's Centro Historico and replacing streets with pedestrian pathways has increased nighttime foot traffic and decreased crime, say local business owners . Before the street got pedestrianized, neighborhood business owners used to strike “unspoken”... 

by Christopher Mims. Why journey all over the planet visiting natural wonders that are sure to disappear by the time your grandchildren are old enough to curse your profligate ways, when you can journey into the past, which has already happened so you at least you can't screw it up? That's the... 

by Sarah Laskow. Smart cities all around the world are getting rid of highways, and in Madrid, not only has the city built a tunnel to drive a urban-fabric-ripping highway underground, it has turned the reclaimed land into a park . In the New York Times , critic Michael Kimmelman tours the park and... 

A Tacoma-Pierce County WA Task Force just sent its recommendations to the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency about how to reduce soot in the air to meet EPA standards. The soot is created partly by diesel vehicles and industry, but the most (53%) is from wood burning stoves and fireplaces. I remember from... 

Conservationists and wildlife officials in the Malaysian state of Sabah airlifted a young female Sumatran Rhinoceros — one of the world’s most endangered animals — to an area of forest where she would encounter a potential partner, reports the Sabah Wildlife Department and Borneo Rhino Alliance.... 

Have a Green Christmas Look for reuse and recycling opportunities as you replace appliances, electronics and computers. Discarded cell phones may be donated for Domestic Violence Programs though your cell services provider. Discarded electronics (computers, copiers, fax machines, printers, monitors)... 

by Sarah Laskow. Tiny spiders are tiny, but relative to their body size it turns out their brains are ginormous . In some cases, 80 percent of a spider's body cavity contains central nervous tissues. Other spiders store parts of their brains in their legs. In other words, step on a tiny spider,... 

by Sarah Laskow. Shell managed to contain the large oil spill in the Atlantic Ocean before it reached the Nigerian coast. In America, thousands of times each year, sewer systems overflow and contaminate the country's waterways. But nope, fixing up aging infrastructure during an economic downturn... 

by Christopher Mims. A typical year in the U.S. includes three to four extreme weather events that do more than $1 billion in damage, but 2011 featured 12 of them. Add in the slightly-less-expensive extreme weather we experienced, and the total price tag is north of $50 billion. Scientists say they... 

by Christopher Mims. This year broke all previous records for amount spent by the average American household on gasoline — us car-having suckers spent $4,155! As Jonathan Fahey pointed out in the Associated Press , in an unusually informative and clear-eyed look at the pedestrian impact of the... 

by Christopher Mims. The Vernagtferner glacier in the portion of the Alps falling within the borders of Austria is said to be cursed. In ancient legend, it buried the cities Onan  Read More →

by Sarah Laskow. Within a few months, it will be possible to step out onto a New York City street corner and hail a Nissan Leaf . The city's starting a pilot program to see how the cars fare as taxis, and exploring the possibility of an all-electric fleet. But EV enthusiasts shouldn't get too...