Articles by Sarah Laskow

Critical List: Wind turbines get bigger and better; tree-killing fungi are thriving

Wind turbines are becoming bigger, more efficient, and more powerful.

Drilling in the Arctic is not such a hot idea, as any spill will be tricky to clean up.

The Southeast is the only region in the country that hasn’t put renewable energy mandates in place.

EPA found over 20 years ago that fracking contaminates water

Fracking companies like to say that there’s never been a single case of fracking contaminating a water well. But, well, there has, and they’ve known that for over 20 years. An EPA report released in 1987 said that a tainted well in West Virginia was contaminated by fracking.

The report, which covers an 1984 incident, resurfaced this week in a New York Times article and a report from the Environmental Working Group.

The report details how fracking fluids or gels migrated from the fracking well to an active water well on a neighboring property, rendering it unusable.

Critical List: Shell can drill in the Arctic Ocean; tar sands rebranded as 'ethical oil'

Better get that Alaska cruise in now: Shell will be drilling exploratory wells in the Arctic Ocean next summer.

The U.N. says it will take $1 billion and more than 25 years to clean up all the oil Shell and other companies have spilled in the Niger Delta. (But we're sure there will be no problems whatsoever in the Arctic Ocean … )

Conservatives in Canada call tar-sand oil "ethical oil" because it comes not from evil places like Venezuela or Saudi Arabia but from Canada -- "the boy scouts of the world," says the guy who came up with "ethical oil." (Maybe he’s trying to earn his greenwashing badge?)

Western Pacific nations create the world's largest shark sanctuary

If you never quite believed your parents when they told you big, scary animals have more to fear from us than we do from them, consider this, via The New York Times' Joanna Foster: Sharks kill two or three people every year. People kill 73 million sharks in the same time period.

To protect these sharp-toothed scapegoats, Micronesian chief executives have decided to create a shark preserve of 2 million square miles in the western Pacific -- the largest shark sanctuary in the world.