Crosscut articles of the past 10 days with the most clicks.
Crosscut articles of the past 10 days with the most reader comments.
Posted Thu, Dec 4, 6 a.m.
With Obama's new New Deal gaining momentum, let's remain skeptical of big projects that are touted as economic saviors. States like ours may be desperate, but a boondoggle is still a boondoggle.
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Posted Wed, Nov 26, 6 a.m.
When world prices for metals and paper were riding high, Seattle had a little gold mine shipping out its recyclables. Then the prices sank by as much as 75 percent. Gold mine became a black hole.
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Posted Mon, Nov 24, 11 a.m.
A coalition of environmental groups just won a court decision, blocking Shell from drilling exploration wells in the Beaufort Sea. The ruling bears on the impacts of noise on bowhead whales.
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Posted Thu, Nov 6, 9:11 a.m.
The Jefferson County Public Utility District appears to be the only winner among three populist campaigns to take over now-private electric services.
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Posted Thu, Oct 30, 7:35 p.m.
In light of PSE's acquisition by an overseas holding company, residents of Skagit and Jefferson counties and Whidbey Island will decide next week whether to form their own public utility districts.
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Posted Mon, Oct 20, 7:46 p.m.
At $109,000, it's not for everyone. But it's cutting the edge, it's fast, and you can get a sales-tax exemption if you buy a Tesla Roadster.
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Posted Wed, Oct 8, 2 a.m.
A Seattle-area developer and local governments have teamed up to build townhouses that, in theory, will give back more energy than they use. Will that work? It will depend in part on who lives in them.
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Posted Mon, Aug 18, 5 a.m.
It seems like every month, a new trend or concept emerges in Seattle's green scene. But what does Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design have to do with the building boom in Seattle, and how does it work? Consider this the everyman's guide to the LEED process.
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Posted Mon, Aug 18, 5 a.m.
Urban planners love to hate the suburbs, but what's going to become of them? Will Bellevue eventually become a post-carbon ghost town or a new urban hybrid? Some reflections on the urban/suburban debate.
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Posted Mon, Aug 4, midnight
With Washington's biggest utility about to be bought by foreigners, public power advocates in four counties are hoping to switch their portions of the grid to local control. Voters will decide in November.
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Posted Sun, Jul 13, 8 p.m.
Some would have you believe that making fuels from crops and other biomatter is responsible for food shortages. Probably not, but there are legitimate questions about the net gain — is there one? — of producing and using biofuel versus conventional petroleum.
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Posted Fri, May 30, midnight
It was, the Brookings Institution admitted, a flawed study. But it's the best data we have on the impact of urban areas on climate. This business of quantifying carbon emissions is as complicated as technological urban life itself.
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Posted Tue, May 27, 5 a.m.
Motorboats, dogs, people — they're all in it up in Whatcom County. Now the state of Washington is cracking down.
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Posted Fri, May 23, 4 p.m.
Also: Whom to blame for gas prices, kudos for the schools supe, Sound Transit's latest audit, and polygamy's free pass.
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Posted Sun, May 18, 8 p.m.
Red balloons and hot dogs help in a University of Washington grad student's fight to save the Nuclear Reactor Building. Plus: Honors for the state's historic preservationists.
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Posted Thu, May 15, 5 a.m.
Seattle's tap water is the "gold standard," says Greg Nickels. Really? No, not really. It could be a lot better.
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Posted Sat, May 10, midnight
The golden age of dam building has long since passed, capped by the tragic failure in 1976 of the last big dam, an earthen structure on the Teton River of Idaho. Few new dam projects are being proposed these days, and many dams are being purposefully breached. But that hasn't stopped some from resurrecting the possibility of a new Teton Dam.
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Posted Wed, May 7, 5 a.m.
Would municipal broadband service for all residents be better and cheaper than what the free market is providing now? Seattle City Hall wants to find out.
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Posted Thu, Apr 17, midnight
When it comes to pissing off rural America, I think I'm one up on Barack Obama.
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Posted Thu, Apr 3, 5 a.m.
While global warming is producing an Arctic land rush, climate change could also result in the far north becoming humanity's ark.
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Posted Sat, Dec 27, 5 p.m. 2008
The clean coal debate just got a new twist, after a dam holding an ashy sludge breaks in Appalachia.
MOREPosted Tue, Nov 18, 10:53 p.m. 2008
There's progress to report on efforts to save two Seattle landmarks.
MOREPosted Sat, Nov 15, 3:18 p.m. 2008
Don't bail the automakers out, and don't bankrupt them. Use the government's purchasing power to transform them to the green economy.
MOREPosted Thu, Nov 6, 12:36 p.m. 2008
Scientists take a pulse before Elwha dam removal.
MOREPosted Thu, Sep 11, 5 p.m. 2008
You may have read in late August that Hanford's B reactor was granted National landmark status by the U.S government. The B reactor was the world's first full-scale nuclear reactor and it helped drive the famed Manhattan Project. It produced the plutonium used for the first atomic test blast and for the bomb the U.S. dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. The deserved designation offers a hook to check on what's going on with the University of Washington's own historic Nuclear Reactor Building (More Hall Annex) in Seattle. It was slated for demolition this summer while it was also up for national register consideration. So, what happened?
MOREPosted Fri, Aug 29, 10 a.m. 2008
Everyone's trying to figure out whether or not Gov. Sarah Palin, Sen. John McCain's pick for vice presidential running mate, has experience. As far as election strategy goes, it doesn't matter that Palin has little experience. Sen. John Kerry had far more experience and was several times smarter than President Bush, but in the 2004 debates, Bush behaved like an idiot child kicking sand, Kerry responded with intelligent remarks, and the voters picked Bush anyway. With Palin, McCain is going after two things simultaneously: 1) the feminist-minded voters still pissed that Obama beat Clinton and 2) the independents who don't see themselves in either party.
MOREPosted Fri, Aug 8, 12:15 p.m. 2008
Was the latest Elway poll a little off? Released Monday, Aug. 4, the poll showed Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire leading Republican challenger Dino Rossi by a whopping 16 points. Today, Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Joel Connelly says Elway "may be wrong." Meanwhile, both candidates are still sparring over Gregoire's recent accusations of racism in a Republican attack ad. Rossi, however, has responded by saying: How could the ads be racist? I'm part Native American myself. ...
MOREPosted Thu, Aug 7, 5:21 a.m. 2008
The search for the Northwest Passage spurred the European exploration of the Pacific Northwest. With global warming, Arctic land claims are heating up as the U.S., Canada, Denmark, Russia, Iceland and Norway vie for sea lanes, the seabed and once ice-bound islands. Finally, there's a great visual to sort out these competing claims.
MOREPosted Fri, Jul 25, noon 2008
Gov. Chris Gregoire spent yesterday on Puget Sound, touting her environmental record while bashing her Republican opponent, Dino Rossi. Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Joel Connelly rode along (you can even see him to the left of Gregoire in the Everett Herald's photo of the boat tour), but remained unconvinced of her ability to connect with voters. Here's Sound Politics' take on the story. ...
MOREPosted Tue, Jul 22, 2:07 p.m. 2008
Remember when everyone thought Democratic congressional candidate Darcy Burner wasn't going to get extra money from the party to beat U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Auburn? Well, think again. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has "reserved $949,000 of air time to boost Burner's campaign." Here's the reaction from the right-wingers at Sound Politics. ...
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