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Turning Over a New Leif
With a new, government-approved plan to become the world’s first hydrogen-based society, Iceland is emerging as the protagonist of the clean energy revolution. The nation plans to end its dependence on fossil fuels (and hence on foreign energy sources) through the use of fuel cells, which combine hydrogen and oxygen to produce energy, yielding water […]
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Oh, Baby
Pregnant women exposed to high levels of ozone and carbon monoxide are more likely to give birth to children with heart defects, according to a study published yesterday in the American Journal of Epidemiology. The study, which was conducted by the University of California at Los Angeles, looked at birth defect cases in Los Angeles, […]
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I Got Yer Holiday Cheer Right Here, Buddy
Species going extinct. Warming temperatures. Environmental skeptics on the rise. An all-oil team in the White House. Yep, we at Grist sure do have fun writing about the despoiling of Mama Earth. But even Grist staffers need to take time out once in a while. We’ll be on vacation for the last two weeks of […]
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I Got Yer Holiday Cheer Right Here, Buddy
Species going extinct. Warming temperatures. Environmental skeptics on the rise. An all-oil team in the White House. Yep, we at Grist sure do have fun writing about the despoiling of Mama Earth. But even Grist staffers need to take time out once in a while. We’ll be on vacation for the last two weeks of […]
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Hummer Bummer
Oy vey. From the department of mad consumerism, reckless fuel consumption, and paramilitary chic comes this latest gem: the Hummer H2, the latest sports utility monstrosity from General Motors. Built to resemble the Humvees rumbling through Kabul, the Hummer H2 gets about 13 miles per gallon and, at 8,600 pounds, weighs just enough to evade […]
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Sound Effects
The Pacific Northwest’s Puget Sound is not a great place to be a marine animal, according to a report released this week by the group People for Puget Sound. The report assessed dozens of scientific studies on toxic chemicals in the sound and concluded that although the water is considerably cleaner than it was a […]
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Paine on the Ass
If you read yesterday’s special issue of Grist Magazine on Bjorn Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist, you know that the experts largely disagree with Lomborg’s thesis that environmental problems are just hyperbolic hooey. So why does the mainstream media love him? Writing for TomPaine.com, Colin Woodard casts a critical eye at the glowing reviews in the […]
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Water, at Your Surface
A water shortage in Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, has grown so severe that authorities have called in the army to distribute drinking water to the city’s residents. The shortage is fueled by 6 percent annual population growth, mushrooming housing complexes, and severe pollution of the nearby Buriganga River. Riverside industries dump hundreds of […]
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On Bjorn Lomborg and environmental hazards to human health
You know what they say about people who become statisticians? They lacked the personality to become accountants.
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On Bjorn Lomborg and deforestation
In The Skeptical Environmentalist, Bjorn Lomborg writes that "basically, the world's forests are not under threat." A charitable reader could attribute this flawed conclusion to errors of omission and ignorance; perhaps the author simply doesn't know the sources well enough to interpret them properly. Less charitably, one might reasonably conclude that Lomborg intentionally selects his data and citations to distort or even reverse the truth. His interpretations of data on global forest cover and Indonesian forest fires aptly illustrate both failings.
