Latest Articles

Is birth control in our water destroying the environment?

Blaming birth control for estrogen in water is a distraction from the egregious use of synthetic estrogens by chemical companies and factory farms.

Attention, cap-and-trade fans: the carbon-tax people are not going away

This past weekend, about 500 people gathered at Wesleyan College in Middletown, Conn., for the Pricing Carbon Conference.

Climate science rapid response team debunks Bjorn Lomborg

In an op-ed in Washington Post, Bjorn Lomborg argued that efforts to reduce global warming pollution can wait, because "coping with climate change is something we know how to do." To bolster that claim, Lomborg claimed global sea levels are not likely to rise more than about 20 inches by 2100. Because the Post did not bother to fact-check Lomborg's column, the Wonk Room and a group of top climate scientists took on the task.

How to turn NIMBYs into YIMBYs

When it comes to development projects in their communities, people want honesty, transparency, and facts.

Confessions of a recovering engineer

Taking highway standards and applying them to urban and suburban streets costs us thousands of lives every year.

Ask Umbra's Book Club: What do you want to ask Jonathan Franzen?

Grist will be interviewing author Jonathan Franzen about environmental themes in his novel "Freedom" this week. What should we ask him? Tell us!

Find out where your city is most walkable with Walk Score's new heat maps

Walk Score rolled out new heat maps for the 2,500 largest American cities, providing a quick way to get a sense of where cities are most walkable.

The messy side of energy efficiency: finance

If we want to make a dent in household energy efficiency, we will need to move large amounts of private capital.

Defining success for climate negotiations in Cancun

The key challenge of the Cancun climate talks is to continue the process of constructing a sound foundation for meaningful, long-term global action.

R20 – A Carbon Rebel Alliance

A long, long time ago…in a galaxy far, far away…a group of states and provinces banded together in frustration that their national governments were held hostage by Big Oil & Coal and had been unable to break free to harness the economic development opportunities presented by renewable energy, alternative fuels, energy efficiency, and carbon markets. […]