Skip to content
Grist home
Grist home
  • Michele Bachmann wants to kick the planet in the nuts, and she’s running for president

    Michele Bachmann, the lunatic Minnesota representative who's come out against everything from minimum wage to evolution, is apparently planning to throw her hat in the ring for 2012. OMG OMG OMG I can't wait! You thought Sarah Palin was a goldmine for snark enthusiasts? Palin is downright complex by comparison. This will be like shooting […]

  • Plug-in Prius not worth it, economically

    Bengt Halvorson of Green Car Reports did the math on whether or not it’s worth it to buy the forthcoming plug-in version of the Toyota Prius, and the math is ugly: The Prius has a small battery that holds only enough charge to take the vehicle 14 miles, but that battery charges relatively quickly — […]

  • How much should Japan worry about nuclear food?

    Japan has discovered potentially harmful levels of radiation in Tokyo tap water, and contamination levels in some foodstuffs have been high enough for the U.S. to halt imports.  Even if you live in Japan, you're unlikely to encounter these potentially dangerous eats — contaminated food is being kept out of grocery stores. But just in […]

  • Germany continues breaking clean energy records

    A German wind farm.Photo: Dirk Ingo FrankeAs the nuclear reactor accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant continues to dominate the world’s attention, Germany has quietly broken more renewable energy records. The conservative government of Chancellor Angela Merkel, struggling to stay ahead of public attitudes toward nuclear power in the run-up to regional elections, issued its […]

  • RIO+20: Toward a new green economy — or a green-washed old economy?

      I’ve got good news and bad news about the future of the planet. Good news first. Next year, a honking big global Earth Summit is coming our way — one with a proud heritage. Formally titled the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development, the meeting is known as RIO+20 because it will come 20 years […]

  • More Fukushima workers hospitalized — what’s next?

    Two more Fukushima workers were hospitalized today after being exposed to radioactive material — it seeped into their boots while they were working. Thirty-two are already in the hospital. And with 300 workers still at the site, there's potential for a lot more injuries. What's the worst-case scenario? Well, the situation at Fukushima is not […]

  • California going to sh*t — for green electricity

    This is an opportunity we want to go down the drain.Recession-wracked California is truly going down the toilet. For green energy, that is. In a gift to headline writers everywhere, the California Energy Commission on Wednesday handed out nearly $1 million to fund an experimental project to convert what it politely refers to as “biosolids” […]

  • Fearless Leader Has Idea

    Dear Grist Nation, Perhaps you saw our saucy little preview of the refurbished Grist.org last week. If not, surprise! Do you now find us hotter and more irresistible than ever before? We hope so. Our new homepage makes it easier to get your eyeballs on our juicy journalism, astute advice, newsy nuggets, and hot-off-the-press posts […]

  • The Climate Post: Trace radiation isn’t the only global fallout from Fukushima

    As Japan’s nuclear disaster stretched into its second week, traces of radiation from the stricken power plants showed up in several U.S. states, and as far away as Iceland. With the reactors and uranium fuel rods still proving difficult to bring under control, the disaster could be the “death knell” for nuclear power, some analysts said. Countries around the […]

  • Arctic sea ice extent “tied for the lowest in the satellite record”

    On March 7, 2011, Arctic sea ice likely reached its maximum extent for the year, at 14.64 million square kilometers (5.65 million square miles). The maximum extent was 1.2 million square kilometers (463,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average of 15.86 million square kilometers (6.12 million square miles), and equal (within 0.1%) to […]