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Journalist interrogates head economist of International Energy Agency

Joe mentioned this the other day, but I want add my voice to the chorus. George Monbiot is in the midst of a kick-ass interview series. This week he met with Fatih Birol, chief economist for the International Energy Agency. The IEA’s new report is substantially more pessimistic about future energy supply than its previous […]

One thousand new species discovered this decade

Watch the slide show to answer the riddle. Check out the dragon centipede and night stalker while you’re at it. No mention of the who-knows-how-many species that have gone extinct in same decade — species that will never be discovered.

Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack chosen as Obama’s agriculture secretary

President-elect Barack Obama will nominate former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack (D) to be secretary of agriculture, Democratic sources say. Vilsack has been a big booster of ethanol, including corn-derived ethanol. “I think corn was a great way to start the conversation on renewable fuel,” he said in an interview with Grist last year. “But we […]

Create a ‘Why I heart Grist’ video for Project for Awesome

Do you love Grist? How about making videos? And it’s probably safe to assume you’re OK with awesome-ness, right? Yeah? Well, you’re in luck. Here’s your chance to tell the world why you think Grist is so “intelligent,” “relevant,” and “downright funny” (as it’s been said before). In partnership with YouTube, Hank and John Green […]

NSIDC: Arctic melt passes the point of no return

The U.K.’s Independent reports on a study to be presented Tuesday to the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco by top cryosphere scientists: Scientists have found the first unequivocal evidence that the Arctic region is warming at a faster rate than the rest of the world at least a decade before […]

Normally staid IEA says oil will peak in 2020

Fatih Birol, chief economist to the International Energy Agency, told the U.K.’s Guardian this week: “In terms of non-Opec [countries outside the big oil producers’ cartel],” he replied, “we are expecting that in three, four years’ time the production of conventional oil will come to a plateau, and start to decline. In terms of the […]

Mainstream mags are getting over green

Pop quiz: Mainstream magazines are ditching the whole “green issue” thing in 2009 because: green is soooo 2006, 2007, and 2008 eh, those issues never sold that well they’re incorporating green into stories on a regular basis, so who needs a special issue in these tough economic times, the sweater-belt budget has shriveled up all […]

They all crush ‘clean coal’: Stanford study, part 1

When we last met Stanford professor Mark Jacobson, he was explaining why you shouldn’t buy a diesel car if you care about global warming. His new myth-busting study finds the following “Total CO2-eq of Electricity Sources”: (CSP is concentrated solar power, but I prefer solar baseload to that ambiguous acronym. CCS is carbon capture and […]

No. 1: ‘It’s not guaranteed we have a solution for coal’

Obama formally named Steven Chu his nominee for energy secretary at a press conference Monday afternoon. Here are the top five reasons he is one of the best cabinet picks in recent memory: 5. His “views on climate change would be among the most forceful ever held by a cabinet member.” He said last year, […]

Oliphant and Washington Post ignorantly smear GM and plug-in hybrids

I think this is worthy of an email campaign — this time to the Post (see below). There’s nothing wrong with mocking GM. It is a target-rich environment that has gone the extra mile and painted a bunch of bull’s-eyes on itself. To fire at GM and hit yourself instead thus requires a special kind […]