Articles by Sarah Laskow

Critical List: Romney’s down with coal; Iran starts up a nuclear plant

Mitt Romney, in a desperate attempt to fit in, says he wants to burn more coal.

Iran's making nuclear power. There’s no way that could go wrong!

But worldwide, renewables are beating out nuclear in terms of installed capacity.

Do climate shifts spark wars?

A study published a little while back in Nature found an association between shifts in climate (in this case, shifts associated with El Niño) and international conflict. The researchers' hypothesis was that El Niño was messing with people's psyches and also creating economic shocks by tweaking food prices, dredging up storms, and fostering disease. These effects tend to make people a little testy and, boom!, conflict. 

But, as Sarah Zielinski writes at Smithsonian, it's too simple to say that climate change will cause war:

Critical List: Rick Perry loves nuclear waste; oil spills in Alabama

Rick Perry wanted to expand a nuclear waste site, owned by one of his donors, but a state commissioner objected. Guess what happened to the state commissioner. No, he wasn’t killed, Jesus! But Perry did offer him another job, in order to bribe him away from the waste commission so he could be replaced.

Beijing's going to put congestion fees in place, a policy that New York City has failed to get past suburban commuters. Ah, democracy.

Will you be living under high water stress?

Some businesses, like the insurance industry, believe in climate change. But that doesn't mean they're prepared for it.

Why the hell does Michele Bachmann want to drill for oil in the Everglades?

Michele Bachman wants to drill for oil "whether that is in the Everglades or whether that is in the Eastern Gulf region or whether that is in North Dakota." Even Republicans think this is kind of nuts, because even Republicans are willing to agree that the Everglades has some nice stuff that it'd be darn shame to ruin forever. But for Bachmann, it's a "wonderful treasure trove of energy that God has given us in this country."

If you're thinking, oil in the Gulf … ok; oil in North Dakota … sure, I read that New Yorker article; but … is there even oil the Everglades?? … well, we're with you. A federally employed geologist told a local Florida TV station that "there is no known evidence that there is a significant hydrocarbon deposit beneath the Everglades." 

But the Associated Press reports that there is one tract of privately owned land where oil was found in 1943.