2014

Who Is Your Love Teacher?

by Jeff McMahonOnce upon a time my love teacher and I traveled to Mexico to spend some days living in a thatched hut, swimming in the sea, and soaking up some sun. We lived in a community of yogis who dressed mainly in loose shawls, which they…

U.S. Should Save Nuclear Industry From Fracking Peril: IEA

The United States needs to develop clear policies to support its ailing nuclear industry—which is prone to seeing old reactors close rather than new reactors open largely because of the impact on energy prices of cheap natural gas from fracking, the…

Another Giant Declares Nuclear Dead In Fracking America

No utility executive could propose a nuclear reactor "in good conscience" in the U.S. today, the director emeritus of Argonne National Laboratory said in Chicago Monday.
Alan Schriesheim became the first industry executive to lead a national…

I’m Going To Stop Popping The Question

by Jeff McMahonI’m going to stop asking the question most often asked of yogis after an asana class: “How was class?” I’ve asked this question hundreds of times to hundreds of yogis, because it seems harmless enough a question to ask. We might even…

The main threat from uranium hexafluoride, the gas that leaked at a Honeywell plant in Metropolis IL on Sunday night, does not derive from its radioactivity, but from its chemical toxicity, according to studies of people who have been exposed…

Like the United States, South Korea has a growing, burdensome stockpile of spent nuclear fuel. But Korea plans to do something about it, using technology that has been gathering dust in the U.S. to build a reactor that will recycle spent fuel to…

How To Eat For The Climate

Consumers have unrealized power to steer the close marriage between agriculture and the climate toward healthier outcomes, according to food-policy activists at the Green Festival in Chicago Saturday.
Agriculture is particularly vulnerable to climate…

The Financial Case For Divesting From Fossil Fuels?

There's a financial case for divesting from funds with holdings in the fossil fuel industry, according to an advisor and author on socially responsible investing, but most activists don't make the financial case.
"They're making a moral case, they're…

Leading economists at the "Mecca" of free-market economics, the University of Chicago, evoked their most prominent predecessor, Milton Friedman, last week in advocating a price on carbon to address climate change.
At a forum called "What Would Milton…

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy Defends Natural Gas

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy defended today the Administration's reliance on natural gas to meet its greenhouse-gas reduction goals.
EPA's draft Clean Power Plan, also known as "111D," gives states flexibility to…