Latest Articles

Sears Tower to become giant solar farm

The Sears Tower, lately unceremoniously renamed the Willis tower, is about to pioneer a kind of crazy-innovative window, one that produces power without obstructing the view or letting in appreciably less sunlight. It's way too complicated to explain in mere words, so hopefully this image will help. If it doesn't, feel free to be a […]

Fishermen find creative ways to get paid more to catch fewer fish

Fishing is ripe for innovation. New catch limits are critical for sustainability — without them, fish stocks would collapse, and then nobody has a job, plus a protein source vital for the planet's expanding population is wiped out. But they force fishermen to catch fewer fish, which means less money. A string of new programs […]

Germany’s solar panels produce more power than Japan’s entire Fukushima complex

Germany is the world leader in installed solar photovoltaic panels — and they also just shut down seven of their oldest nuclear reactors. Coincidence? Maaaaybe… Anyway, it's worth noting that just today, total power output of Germany's installed solar PV panels hit 12.1 GW — greater than the total power output (10 GW) of Japan's […]

On world water day, kids try to figure out how to prevent the deaths of 100,000 of their peers

Almost half of Pakistanis drink unsafe water. It's World Water Day 2011, and this year's theme is "Water for cities: responding to the urban water challenge." In Pakistan, unsafe drinking water kills 100,000 children per year — equivalent to a third of the children born in Canada every year. So it's either cute or tragically […]

U.S. vehicles’ fuel economy to suck pretty much forever

This projection, based on fuel efficiency standards that are currently on the books, shows that — absent radical legislative action, or everyone in the U.S. suddenly coming over all French — American cars' fuel economy is primed to suck out loud for the foreseeable future. Anyone complaining about overly stringent regulations can therefore bite it […]

Five reasons every wonk in DC is humping the leg of natural gas right about now

The Times wants you to know that our energy crisis is over, because there’s at least one abundant fossil fuel still standing between civilization and the abyss of energy poverty. In a piece remarkable for its complete failure to mention the option of renewables, a bunch of old-economy energy analysts describe a 21st century that […]

New York deputy mayor: Bike lanes pretty cool, probably not terrorism

The New York magazine article we wrote about yesterday — the one about how New Yorkers are getting all het up about bike lanes and how they are akin to 9/11 — has prompted a response from the NYC mayor’s office, penned by deputy mayor Howard Wolfson. Apparently Wolfson is pro-terrorism, because he seems to […]

Destroying world’s largest spam network saves energy, decreases access to dick pills

Easily Add 13 Terawatts to the Longevity of Your Energy Supply! Prolong Your Planet’s Pleasure! Get The Long Lasting Energy She Craves, Cheap! Power One Million Homes Harder, Longer, and Faster! Wait, don’t hit delete, this is good news. Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit (nerdiest Law and Order spinoff EVER) has brought down the world’s largest […]

Google Maps tells you where to shove it, where “it” is the plug of your electric car

Looking for a place to plug in your electric car? Now you can find it the same way you find everything else: Google Maps. The Goog has reached out its electronic tentacles and absorbed the Department of Energy's master list of U.S. electric vehicle charging stations (there are over 600, at least one for every […]

Live chat with New York Times food columnist and cookbook author Mark Bittman

New York Times food-politics columnist and cookbook author Mark Bittman dropped by for a live chat on March 22. The chat was hosted by Grist’s own Tom Philpott, who says he’s been cooking under Bittman’s wing since the early 1990s when Bittman wrote for Cook’s Illustrated magazine. Check out a transcript of the chat: Tom […]