Eric Wolff

HOUSING: State may require 'net zero' energy homes by 2020

utsandiego.com — By 2020, California regulators want builders to make new houses so energy-efficient that on balance, they consume no energy at all, state officials said. Technically speaking, these houses will consume energy at certain times ---- solar-equipped houses need grid power at night, for example ---- but at other times they would pump an equivalent amount of power back into the electricity grid.

Allan Savory’s TED talk is wrong, and the benefits of holistic grazing have been debunked.

slate.com — When Allan Savory finished his TED talk early last month, foodies worldwide collectively salivated. In roughly 22 minutes, Savory, a biologist and former member of the Rhodesian Parliament, challenged the conventional wisdom blaming livestock for the degradation of global grasslands into hardpan deserts. It has long been a basic tenet...

10 Most Expensive Places to Live in the U.S.

finance.yahoo.com — Which U.S. cities have the highest costs of living? The Council for Community and Economic Research recently measured the prices of common purchases in 307 urban areas to find the cost of the professional standard of living in each location. The index, its fifth edition, crunched more than 50,000 prices -- everything from grocery items to transportation to housing.

There Is No War on Cars

washingtoncitypaper.com — If the District of Columbia is in the midst of a war on cars, then last month was its Gettysburg. Each bit of news about the city's streets was met with a verbal assault, as predictably as a red light follows a yellow. The 1.8 million parking tickets issued last year?