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: Enviros want Lisa Jackson to stay; a Penn. town could ban fracking
Enviros are hoping Lisa Jackson, their one stalwart ally high up in the administration, will keep on keeping on, despite the White House's decision to undermine her work on smog regulations.
A Pennsylvania town could vote to ban natural gas drilling.
One organizer of Rio+20, a U.N. summit next year on climate issues, says the conference should split environmentalism away from climate change issues. Basically, he says, we’re at the point where it’s much more important to embrace sustainability and prepare for climate change than it is to resolve the Green vs. Brown faceoff. -
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Gaze upon the eight circles of commuting hell
Take solace, Los Angelenos, in others' pain: In the larger scheme of horrible, horrible commutes, Los Angeles barely rates as moderately painful. On IBM's Commuter Pain Index, L.A. rates a 34. New Delhi, at 72, is more than twice as torturous, and in Mexico City, which ranks the worst, the pain index hits 108.
No matter where you live, though, commuting just sucks and makes the rest of your life suck as well, Infrastructurist reports: -
![Gas sign, $5.27 regular.]()
![Gas sign, $5.27 regular.]()
The gas tax is actually super low, thanks to inflation
Eric Cantor thinks that bike sharing is siphoning off way too much of the country's gas tax revenue. And for a Republican like him, raising the tax is out of the question, never mind that, as Greater Greater Washington's Matt Johnson points out, in inflation-adjusted dollars, the gas tax has gone down by 34 percent since 1994, the last time it was raised. And, again in inflation-adjusted dollars, the gas tax was actually highest in 1960.
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Critical List: Obama called for green schools, better infrastructure; Google shares carbon footprint
In his jobs speech, President Obama called for the construction of green schools and an infrastructure bank that could help create public transportation and efficient buildings.
With an average temperature of 74.5 degrees F, this summer was the second hottest on record in the U.S. (The hottest summer was in 1936, when it was 74.6 degrees F. We're gonna beat that soon.)
Google reveals its carbon footprint, which is smaller than an oil company's and about the same as a chemical company's.
