Latest Articles

Featured Friend: Rhey L.

Each month, we showcase one of our beloved Friends with Benefits — folks who have donated to support our work. Want to take your relationship with Grist to the next level? Just donate any amount to join the fun.  Rhey L. “Thank you Grist for making me feel smarter with every read. You guys provide honest, insightful […]

Google phases out clean energy R&D in favor of deployment

Cross-posted from Climate Progress. Buried at the bottom of an innocuous “spring cleaning” post on Google’s blog yesterday, the internet giant made a very important announcement: It will stop funding its Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal (RE<C) initiative. But that’s not the whole story. And if you believe the headlines — “Google Abandons Renewable Energy […]

Why brown spin keeps beating green spin

Spin it, baby, spin it.Photo: Sinan CeylanOne of the perennial complaints of the green community is that the Beltway — the ecosystem of politicians, staffers, lobbyists, NGOs, and media that influence federal policy in D.C. — is dominated by what I guess you’d call the brown community: fossil-fuel lobbyists, conservative think tanks, and politicians who, […]

China set to surpass U.S. in solar installation

Cross-posted from Climate Progress. With European solar markets in decline, the industry is looking for the next hot solar region. Even with political troubles in the U.S., companies still see America as a good long-term bet. (And let’s remember, Europe’s slowdown doesn’t mean the region is going to stop being a major player.) But analysts […]

Friend of a farmer: Why small-scale ag needs community

Photo courtesy of the USDA archivesTucked into the end of a recent New York Times article about young farmers were two frank paragraphs about a quiet reality many of us face: Ms. Oakley said young farmers rarely discussed that lack of community, adding that she had seen the isolation break up marriages. At their Three […]

Wheely, wheely thankful

Photo: iamosIn last Sunday’s New York Times, columnist Mark Bittman compiled a list of people and things in the food movement he’s thankful for. The bicycle movement deserves its own list. Here’s a start: 1. I’m thankful for the power of bikes to enable people-powered protest movements. Bicycles have been playing a supporting role in […]

Give Thanks for Regulations

In the Broadway hit musical, “Book of Mormon,” a woman from Uganda envisions paradise as a place where warlords are benevolent and the Red Cross hands out as much flour as you can eat. In other words, the things that inspire hope and gratitude in any part of the world are in the eye of […]

Pardoned turkeys go to Disneyland

Did you know that the turkey pardoned by the president then gets shipped off to Disneyland or Disney World to lead the Thanksgiving parade? (It seems like short notice — maybe they only pardon turkeys who can already twirl a baton.) I didn't, but that's because I haven't thought about turkey pardoning nearly as deeply […]

Don’t look now, but some turkey has antibiotic-resistant superbugs

Not to put a damper on your Thanksgiving or anything, but there are two new studies showing that drug-resistant bugs like MRSA are showing up in farmed meat, including turkey. Farm animals get fed a cocktail of antibiotics, which can create resistant strains of bacteria. It's been hard (though not impossible) to determine whether that's […]

XKCD illustrates the cost of electricity

The webcomic XKCD usually has pretty stripped-down images, and saves its complexity for the jokes. But when creator Randall Munroe gets his hands on some data, he can make an infographic you could get lost in. The above (click to embiggen) is just a tiny section of his epic chart comparing how much money gets spent […]