Latest Articles
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Is environmentalism still dead?
Sign of the times?Photo: Benny LinThis is part one of a two-part series, cross-posted from New Deal 2.0. You can read part two here. In 2004, Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger wrote an essay titled “The Death of Environmentalism” that shook the environmental community — although probably not quite enough. Nordhaus and Shellenberger (N and […]
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I’m a rural resident. Where’s my subsidy check?
The view from Washington, D.C., of the rural Midwest: quaint scenery on the way to the West Coast. Photo: Scorpions and CentaursI’ve spent the majority of my life living in cities, albeit mostly small ones in Wisconsin that New Yorkers might not call metropolitan. Before I moved to Lyons, Neb., I lived in Washington, D.C. […]
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As we head toward 7 billion, what does a typical person look like?
Here’s the latest video from National Geographic‘s year-long series on population (set to music that’s got me feeling all jittery and peppy): The gist: The most typical person on the planet is a 28-year-old Han Chinese man; there are more than 9 million such chaps living right now. Here’s what he looks like: Also as […]
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It’s the ‘burbs, stupid: on the Ezra Klein/Tom Vilsack dustup
Carried away: Ezra Klein and Tom Vilsack ride an imaginary “raft of subsidies.” This week, an interesting — and, I think, bizarre — argument broke out between Washington Post political blogger Ezra Klein and USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack. The topic was whether rural residents deserve what Klein called a “raft of subsidies,” when in fact, […]
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Good news: New EPA boiler regs include output-based standards
Finally the day you’ve all been waiting for has arrived: EPA has released its new boiler emissions rules for hazardous pollutants! (The cool kids call it “the boiler MACT.”) Most review and discussion of these rules so far has been silent on the most significant aspect: they introduce output-based emissions standards. As Grist readers know, […]
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Oil-fattened Congress well on way to preventing EPA from regulating greenhouse gases
Congress is now moving to make it illegal for the government to regulate greenhouse gases, under any circumstances. Apparently killing off possibly the last chance the U.S. had to act on climate change in time to avoid its worst impacts wasn’t enough to sate their appetite for destruction? On Friday, the House Committee on Energy […]
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Opposing bike lanes is bad politics and bad policy, says Rep. Earl Blumenauer
Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.)Photo: Thomas Le NgoGiven the inflamed debate that’s going on in New York right now over bike lanes in general and one bike lane in particular — on Brooklyn’s Prospect Park West — I wanted to get some perspective from the eminently reasonable Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.). Founder and cochair of the […]
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Guess what else the GOP wants to cut? Tsunami monitoring!
Whatever, my kid can do that.Image: Pacific Tsunami Warning CenterIf we had any evidence that Republican House members were capable of feeling shame, we’d expect them to be so red right now. Mother Jones reports that one of the items on the GOP’s budgetary chopping block is … tsunami monitoring. Last month, they voted to […]
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Mistakes economists make, climate/energy edition
Economist Tyler Cowen has a list of mistakes made by liberal and conservative economists. They are largely of the intellectual, “you’re doing economics wrong” sort. I’m more interested in Ezra Klein’s subsequent list of mistakes economists make in their interactions with journalists and the political class. These are the ones that really grind my gears […]
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Japan is not a nuclear conflagration right now. Would we be so lucky?
Japan has declared a state of emergency at the Fukushima nuclear reactor -- but thanks to good engineering, there's been no radiation leak and there's no risk of one. With more than 50 nuclear plants in the earthquake-vulnerable country, things would have been way worse without earthquake precautions in place. Does U.S. infrastructure have that kind of protection?
