Alissa Walker

Do Not Use Amazon Prime to Ship Bottled Water to Flint

Michael Moore says don’t send bottled water to Flint. The group that pushed to have Flint’s water tested in the first place says don’t send bottled water to Flint. But still, people are using their Amazon Prime accounts to send pallets of bottled water to Flint. Don’t do this. In addition to corporations trucking their…

Michael Moore: Don’t Send Bottled Water to Flint

The lead contamination crisis in Flint has resulted in a tidal wave of bottled water being shipped to the state to provide emergency drinking water for residents. Flint’s most famous resident, Michael Moore, recently pleaded with the world: Please, do not send any more bottled water. After a town hall with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, the…

San Francisco Is Pretty Pissed About the Super Bowl Coming to Town

And here we thought taking down the transit wires would be the worst of it. San Francisco is under siege from the NFL and the people who live there don’t like this one bit. Behold the devastation that Super Bowl 50 hath wrought upon a little city named Frisco. https://gizmodo.com/super-bowl-to-san-francisco-can-you-like-take-down-1742257104 Statues placed all over the…

Flint May Be Ordered By a Federal Court to Replace Its Lead Pipes 

The water contamination scandal in Flint has led to plenty of legal action, but new lawsuit filed today finally has some teeth. A coalition of advocacy groups allege that by switching drinking water sources, Flint officials violated the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, meaning a federal court could order Flint to replace its lead-pipe infrastructure…

This 1926 Poster Predicts London’s Transportation Future

An exhibition that opens this week at London’s Building Centre focuses on the future of London’s roads. But perhaps the most compelling image from the show was actually created in 1926, imagining London’s skies crowded with planes, helicopters, and dirigibles. The poster was commissioned by Transport for London and painted by the artist Montague Birrell…

Until the US Fixes its Backwards Transportation Spending It Should Stop Building New Roads

Hey, remember back when the US allocated $305 billion for roads we almost certainly don’t need? It’s no secret that the US needs a total overhaul of its transportation finance system, and a new movement wants a moratorium on all road-building projects until we get it under control. #NoNewRoads is a campaign by Strong Towns,…

Why Apple Doesn’t Need to Sell iPhones Anymore

Apple reported record-breaking quarterly earnings today, but—for the first time ever—the company also projected a decline in iPhone sales. Not that any of that really matters. The future of Apple is secure, thanks to a little help from a higher power. Pope Francis talks with Apple CEO Tim Cook, during a private audience at the…

It’s Surprisingly Easy to Turn Off Niagara Falls

New York State Parks is holding a hearing this week about what might seem like a controversial topic: Whether or not to turn off Niagara Falls. This is a process called dewatering, and yes, it’s happened before. The falls—at least part of them—would need to be dewatered to allow for the reconstruction of several historic…

Madrid Bans Cars, Plans Plants

Cities have been kicking out cars to curb pollution and boost the well-being of their residents. But Madrid has proposed something even smarter. It’s not only banning cars from its downtown, it’s adding more green space. This is an important part of the equation that many cities don’t get right. In 2014, Madrid announced a…

How Snowstorms Reveal the Wasted Space on Our Roads

During any of the several recent catastrophic blizzards that have draped the country with snow, you might have seen people tagging their photos #sneckdown. No, it’s not a protective garment you wear to keep your neck snow-free (although that could also come in handy!). It’s a word coined by transportation geeks. “Neckdown” is a somewhat…

RIP Sarah the Cheetah, the Fastest Land Animal on Earth

When you think “fastest land animal,” what do you think of? American Pharaoh? Usain Bolt? Nope, until today that title belonged to Sarah, a cheetah who lived at the Cincinnati Zoo. Sarah died today at age 15. NPR reported on Sarah’s missile-like sprint, including breaking her own record as the fastest mammal on the planet.…

Google (aka Alphabet) Is About to Surpass Apple as the Most Valuable Company In the Galaxy

Google had a big 2015: It changed its logo, divvied up its business into startups like Sidewalk, Calico, X, Fiber, and consolidated all those companies into one brand named Alphabet. Now Alphabet is very, very close to being named the world’s most valuable company—yes, more valuable than Apple. The suite of companies that now form…

Report: ‘Every Major US City East of the Mississippi’ Is Underreporting Heavy Metals In Its Water

Just when the news about lead poisoning the drinking water of Flint, Michigan, couldn’t get any worse. A report from The Guardian says many US cities are systemically and purposely downplaying the amounts of lead and copper in municipal water systems. A scientist who was part of an Environmental Protection Agency taskforce disclosed documents to…

A US federal court ruled today that it will not allow a movement by 27 states to block Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which will wean the country off coal-fired plants. Good news for Obama. And Earth. [Reuters]

Can California Drought-Proof Itself With This Pair of Giant Gravity-Powered Water Tunnels?

As part of his State of the State address today, California Governor Jerry Brown released a new video to explain his plan for protecting California’s water supply. According to Brown, it’ll not only drought-proof the state’s water, but also make it earthquake-proof, terrorism-proof, and climate change-proof. Ambitious. The massive infrastructure project, called the California Water…

7 Great Ways to Spend Obama’s Autonomous Car Cash

Last week, President Obama announced plans to earmark a whopping $4 billion for autonomous vehicle research. These funds will be dispersed to pilot programs all over the country during the next decade—but where and how the money is spent will determine just how big a step forward Obama’s plan really is. Autonomous cars have driven…

A California Reservoir Infamously Depleted By Drought Rises 20 Feet in 10 Days

A series of big storms sending much-needed rain and snow to Northern California has dramatically replenished a drought-stricken reservoir that was on the brink of disaster. Thanks, El Niño! Like Folsom Lake, which I profiled in depth (um, shallowness) last summer, Lake Oroville is one of those reservoirs you probably know quite well from photos.…

LA’s Water District Forced to Name Those Who Received Turf-Removal Incentives

One of the biggest battles of the drought in the Western US has been over the flow of data—namely, who is using (and wasting) the region’s scarcest resource. Now a victory on the water data front has been claimed with Los Angeles’s water district ordered to hand over the names and addresses of homeowners who…

The Weird Way That Standing (Not Walking) on Escalators Helps Move People More Quickly

It’s the golden rule of crowded escalators: Stand on one side, walk on the other. But passengers taking the escalator in one of London’s busiest tube stations were recently confronted with a weird rule: Everyone must stand. Officials claim it will make stations run more efficiently. But how? The head-smacking logic was explained in detail…

It’s Not Just Millennials: Fewer Americans of All Ages Are Getting Their Drivers’ Licenses

And here we thought only the young folks were passing on their chance to operate a motor vehicle. Turns out that getting your drivers’ license has been steadily falling out of favor for all Americans since the 1980s. Using data from the Federal Highway Administration, a team from the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute…