Latest Articles

Tim Pawlenty is not interested in winning Iowa

Here’s a great way to start your campaign in Iowa: Tell them you want to phase out ethanol subsidies. Classic Tim Pawlenty! Does he even want to be president? Grist is no fan of corn ethanol, mind you — if you have a spare moment you should get Tom or Dave started, it’s super entertaining. […]

Monorails suddenly a thing again

Futuristic as they look, monorails never really got a toehold outside of airports, Disney World, and I Can Haz Cheezburger. Now elevated single-track trains might be getting a second chance to become the transportation of the future. Part of the problem with monorails is that they’re slow, and part of it is that they’re really […]

Bee season: Urban beekeeping in Hong Kong [VIDEO]

Take three minutes out of your day to watch this absolutely beautiful short video portrait of Michael Leung, a product designer and beekeeper in Hong Kong. (It’s part of a promotional campaign for Nokia called “Success Redefined,” but don’t let that put you off.) Leung is the founder of HK Honey: HK Honey is an […]

Pippa Middleton an ass … et at her ex’s geothermal energy firm

Everyone's favorite bridesmaid Pippa Middleton likes hot, wet … underground energy sources. The younger sister of the newly crowned Princess of Wales just took a job at ex-boyfriend's geothermal energy firm, which is looking to use underground stores of hot water to generate electricity. Pippa will be lobbying the British government for a licensing system […]

Critical List: 481 tornado deaths this year, Texas et al. v. EPA

The average number of tornado fatalities in the U.S. each year is 55. Already this year, 481 people have died. Fifteen states, led by Texas, are looking to overturn the EPA’s finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health. If they fail in court, they plan to stick their fingers in their ears and go “LA […]

Great places: turning from stuff to happiness

This is how happy great places can make you. This is part two in a series on “great places.” Read parts one, three, four, and five. Today, America is making a few people rich and leaving a great many others anxious, uncertain, unhealthy, or unemployed, all while doing irreversible damage to the planet. A whole […]

Climate policy for conservatives

Ideally, both sides will agree that this is a bad situation.Suppose you believe, as I do, in basic conservative principles (free enterprise and a market economy, limited government, and minimal change in established institutions that work well), but also acknowledge that anthropogenic climate change presents a sufficient danger that something needs to be done about […]

How industrial agriculture makes us vulnerable to climate change, Mississippi floods edition

An “ephemeral gulley” that carried soil and agrichemicals from an Iowa farm toward the Gulf of Mexico during a 2010 storm. Photo: Environmental Working GroupNancy Rabalais, marine scientist and executive director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, is probably our foremost authority on the vast, oxygen-depleted “dead zone” that rears up annually in the Gulf […]

Behavioral nudges on electric bills could save three coal plants worth of emissions

Smarter electric bills make smarter consumers.Over the years, I’ve written quite a bit about social psychology, behavioral research, and how they can be used to encourage energy efficiency and conservation. I’ve also written quite a bit about Opower, a company that uses behavioral insights to help utilities communicate more effectively with their customers. (See links […]

Five hot, rockin’ geothermal companies

Cross-posted from Climate Progress. Like the natural gas sector, which has experienced an incredible boom due to new drilling techniques that allow companies to cost-effectively access unconventional gas, the geothermal sector is going through a renaissance that may open up a vast new set of resources. Traditional utility-scale geothermal, often called hydrothermal, utilizes hot water […]