Articles by Sarah Laskow

Swedish mining company could move an entire town to get at valuable iron ore

The town of Kiruna, Sweden, is very cold, very close to that awesome ice hotel, and very much on top of a valuable lode of iron ore. The Swedish state-owned mining company, LKAB, wants to get at the ore by fracturing that portion of the ground, which wouldn't be so great for the people who live on it. Solution: Make the people live somewhere else. A large portion of the city is being entirely relocated so that mining companies can get in underneath.

Born after 1976? You've never experienced normal global temperatures

If you're under 35 and you think you've lived through a cold year, you're wrong. Think Progress notes that the last year mean global temperatures were below normal was 1976.

That means more than a quarter of the population (and statistically more people reading this, since it’s on the internet) really has no idea what the global climate would feel like if humanity hadn't been messing with it for more than a century.

Critical List: Wind power can be dangerous; the U.S. gets average marks on clean energy

Wind power's not entirely safe: A watchdog group warns that "one of these days, a turbine's going to fall on someone.”

The U.S. gets a C for renewable energy development from an alternative energy analyst.

Colorado's going to require fracking companies to disclose what's in their fracking fluid.

The natural gas boom is also creating demand for silica sand.

LEDs can double as data transmitters, save even more energy

Here is one more totally awesome reason that we should be switching out incandescents for LED lightbulbs: a new technology means a single LED can transmit more data than a cellular tower. Prof. Harald Haas demonstrates in this TEDGlobal talk:

The lightbulb is flickering on and off too fast for the human eye to detect.