Hey, remember Tim Pawlenty? I think he's running for state auditor or something. Pawlenty used to think climate change was a major priority, back when he was governor of Minnesota and supported cap-and-trade. But then Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman showed underbelly by admitting that they believe in science -- a striking liability in this race -- and Pawlenty took that opportunity to swoop in and firmly establish himself as the most anti-climate-science candidate besides Bachmann and Perry and all the other ones! Go get 'em, T-Paw. Here's Pawlenty's attempt at ginning up some Bachmann-style crazy: "So there is climate …

Germany, Korea, China, and now India are all venues for U.S. carmaking giant General Motors’ new all-electric hotness, the Chevrolet Beat. The Beat sounds like exactly the thing to revive the flagging fortunes of G.M., bringing it into a 20th century in which soaring gas prices and ever-cheaper battery technology push consumers into the arms of the Nissan Leaf and the forthcoming Ford electric vehicles. Except G.M. has no plans to release the Beat in the U.S., much less its electrified version. Maybe once your CEO has gone on record saying that global warming is a crock of sh*t, you …

In the patriarchy (that's Women's Studies for "dicktopia") we live in, there is pretty much no worse fate than wussification. So in a way, we're glad to hear that Bisphenol A, an organic compound found in a lot of plastics, makes male mice act less masculine. Maybe this will induce Girl Panic in some of the straight dudes who run things, and we can finally get the stuff taken out of our baby bottles, plastic packaging, and cans.  According to an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, deer mice exposed to BPA in utero (the …

In case you hadn’t heard … the world is warming up. Exxon just can't quit climate deniers. The Supreme Court thinks that the EPA must regulate carbon under the Clean Air Act; now it will decide if it can regulate wetlands on private property under the Clean Water Act. Gas stations can now sell a 15 percent ethanol blend. If you drive an old clunker, stay away from the E15 -- it'll screw your engine up. The Sierra Club has to sit back and let the U.S. government take BP to court for the Macondo spill. The Railroad Park in …

Did you get a flat, forget your snacks, or break a light while tooling down the Greenway in bike-friendly Minneapolis? No worries -- just stop by the Bike Fixtation, a one-stop bike-shopping outpost. You can buy a patch kit or some trail mix from the vending machine, pump up your tires with the air pump, and do minor repairs on the work stand.  Right now Bike Fixtation is a real small operation -- under "About Us" on the website, it says the "owned and operated by Brad and Alex." There are only two locations, one open and one forthcoming, both in …

Bill McKibben has it in for Canada. In a new article in The New Republic, he calls it "one of the earth's most irresponsible nations," admonishes liberals that they need to find a new country to dream of emigrating to, and stops just short of calling Canadians (and Americans, but what else is new) giant hypocrites. What's pissing McKibben off? Tar sands, of course. Canada is pushing to become an "energy superpower," in the words of one government official, by mining its tar sands for oil. And, as Grist readers know, oil extracted from Canadian tar sands would dump a …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0UkH81NMTo YES. YES IT WILL.

U.S. politicians aren't just denying that climate change is happening, they're actively using their position and power to try to intimidate climate scientists into keeping silent on the subject, says Raymond S. Bradley, director of the Climate System Research Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In his new book, Global Warming and Political Intimidation: How Politicians Cracked Down on Scientists as the Earth Heated Up, Bradley recounts a tale that should be familiar to those have followed, for example, the travails of Michael E. Mann, a climatologist at Penn State who has been on the receiving end of a …

A 250 mile long coal seam discovered deep in the interior desert of Australia's Northern Territory appears to be the most gigantic coal deposit on planet Earth, and Central Petroleum Limited wants to burn it all. They project it will take them at least a century to go through the entire reserve, or right about until they’ve turned Australia’s notoriously harsh desert into an incomprehensibly lifeless hellscape populated by miners in climate controlled space-suits. Their approach is somewhat unconventional: Central Petroleum wants to liquefy the coal underground, turn it into a gas, and then transform that gas back into a …

Bougie concerns about comfort and convenience are sort of the bane of the environmental movement ... and the social justice movement ... and the general not-being-an-annoying-brat movement. But hey, we all have days when we know people are starving in Africa but also WHY IS THE INTERNET SO SLOW I AM TRYING TO UPDATE MY NETFLIX QUEUE. So here is a kid who sounds like MC Paul Barman borrowing a concept from MC Frontalot (i.e., the nerdiest of nerdcores), giving sarcastic voice to all your White Whines.