Latest Articles

The new American can’t-do spirit

Can we change our ways? Ditch the cars and move towards a greener approach to transportation.Photo courtesy of leelefever via flickr Cross-posted from New Deal 2.0. Americans have always been known to have a “can-do” spirit. During the 1930s, the Roosevelt administration tried out many different programs to confront the Great Depression and to spread […]

DC’s Common Good City Farm: ‘Museum farm’ or real deal?

Neighbors used to avoid this area in the LeDroit Park neighborhood of Washington, DC, the site of an abandoned school, before Common Good City Farm grew there.(Photos ©Michael Hanson) “You got any more arugula?” A middle-aged man has just walked up to the street side of the chain-link fence. He peers through the gaps in […]

Is drunk biking better than drunk driving?

Courtesy blurofinsanity.comEric DePlace at the Northwest policy shop Sightline responds to my question about why we mandate parking at bars if driving in general and drunk driving in particular both harm the public good: One thing that does work as an alternative to drinking and driving — and I can vouch for this — is […]

G20 makes itsy-bitsy progress on fossil-fuel subsidies

The G20 summit wrapped up in Toronto on Sunday without much action on one of its most sensible targets: phasing out wasteful fossil-fuel subsidies. Those subsidies amount to a crazy $550 billion a year worldwide, and the G20 agreed to look at how to rid the world of them last fall in Pittsburgh. Whispers before […]

What have environmentalists been most wrong about?

Photo: limonada via FlickrFirst things first: Don’t ask me how I went from being an editor of Grist to an expert in wrongness.  It’s a long story.  Suffice it to say that in 2006, I left Grist (with much regret) in order to write a book about being wrong.  (That’s the eponymous Being Wrong: Adventures […]

What Robert Byrd’s death means for the climate bill

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), who died early this morning at the age of 92, fought for most of his legendary career to keep coal mining at the center of West Virginia’s economy. But in the last few months of his life, he hinted at a remarkable change of heart, speaking out on the damage coal […]

Bigger ‘Dead Zone’ projected for Gulf, even without oil’s effects

A satellite view of past Dead Zone in the Gulf: The red areas show how a vast, nitrogen-fed algae bloom has risen, blotting out most sea life underneath.(NASA)The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration just released a report that contains even more bad news for the Gulf of Mexico. This year’s Gulf Dead Zone will be […]

Expert measures human cost of Gulf oil leak

Dr. J. Steven Picou is Professor of Sociology at the University of South Alabama. He is currently working on human response to the BP oil spill.Photo courtesy of stevenpicou.com Steven Picou doesn’t have the happiest of jobs. He specializes in the human toll of disasters. As a sociology professor at the University of South Alabama […]

Republicans oppose Democratic climate plan in favor of alternatives that would cost more and do less

When it comes to climate and energy, most political attention has focused on Democrats, which makes perfect sense — they’re in the majority and they’re the ones putting together a bill. How do you stop an elephant … and its bad ideas?Photo: Jared Rodriguez/truthout.org via FlickrBut it is worth pausing periodically to contemplate the utter […]

What would happen if we admitted to the high risk of deepwater drilling?

Was the Obama administration “arbitrary and capricious” in imposing a six-month moratorium on deepwater oil drilling? U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman thought so. His June 22 order reversed the moratorium, citing the “immeasurable harm” to “the local economy, the Gulf region, and the critical present-day aspect of the availability of domestic energy in this country.” […]