Articles by Sarah Laskow
Sarah Laskow is a reporter based in New York City who covers environment, energy, and sustainability issues, among other things.
All Articles
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Critical List: Ghost octopi in the Antarctic; without ethanol subsidies, gas prices rise
The creatures discovered living in thermal vents near Antarctica -- ghost octopi, limpets, yeti crabs -- are le awesome.
Two major solar industry groups are merging in order to focus on state-level policies.
With ethanol subsidies gone, gas will cost more. -
Organic food is not always sustainable food
Good food, as we've come to know it in that last few years, has a few characteristics: It's local. It's grown using responsible, land-loving techniques, like crop rotations and polycultures. And it's organic, raised without chemical fertilizers and poison pesticides. At one point, “organic” was shorthand for all of that, because the same people who cared enough to grow their vegetables with manure cared about environmental sustainability and tended to be local.
But now “organic” can be shorthand only for adherence to a certain set of rules that outlaw certain concentrations of certain types of fertilizers and pesticides, and as the New York Times points out, it sometimes doesn't mean much else. -
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Your car commute helps cause tornadoes
Just like humans, East Coast tornadoes work extra hours during the week and take it easier on the weekends. According to a new study, tornadoes and hailstorms are less likely to occur on a Saturday or Sunday. That’s because hail and tornadoes thrive on pollution, which is higher towards the middle of the week.
The study looked at summertime storm activity and found above-average rates of storms mid-week and below-average rates on weekends. It turns out that this is because moisture likes pollutants. -
Critical List: Fracking ‘almost certainly’ caused earthquakes; wolves save trees
The disposal of fracking wastewater "almost certainly" was the cause of all those earthquakes near Youngstown, Ohio.
Oil is washing up on the shores of Nigeria; Shell denies it's from the massive oil spill that occurred last month.
BP wants Halliburton to cover the $20 billion it paid to clean up and otherwise deal with the Deepwater Horizon spill.
Wolves save trees. (Related: Deer are sort of like giant squirrels.)
