In 2005, the U.S. Department of Energy published a report entitled Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, & Risk Management. Called “The Hirsch Report” after its lead author, Robert Hirsch, its purpose was to lay out a governmental strategy for softening the effects of peak oil and its aftermath: that is, the chaos and [...]

Multi-national food chains are cropping up in poor countries, but no one is buying.
It sounds like a good idea in theory. Poor people require cheap food, and giant food chains can provide them. So why aren’t the poor lined up outside the doors to buy the goods?
In developed countries, consumers flock to these chains to [...]

A Brief History of (Fake) Time
The original idea of daylight saving time (DST) is often credited to—or blamed upon, depending on one’s perspective—Benjamin Franklin. While it’s true the creator of Poor Richard’s Almanack did write a satirical essay on how much candle wax Parisians could save by rising and retiring with the sun, his impish [...]

For as long as humans have roamed the earth, they have tried to change it, squeeze something from it or manage it. In the last 50 years or so, the introduction of certain animals, insects or plants into new habitats has been seen as a way to either make money or prevent losing money. In [...]

After this term’s recent Supreme Court case ruling slashing the punitive damages award that Exxon had been penalized in the disastrous Valdez spill, tort and maritime lawmakers, corporate lawyers, and CEO’s around the world are paying attention. What started as a $500 billion award in punitive damages (compared to $287 million in compensatory damages) was [...]

If you’ve opened a newspaper or turned on a television in the last year, you know that the housing market is in serious trouble. A week ago, it was announced that home prices had fallen by 15.3%, year-over-year. This marked the first time in history that all 20 metropolitan markets measured by the government posted [...]