Latest Articles

Home improvement giant invests in energy retrofit startup

Photo: aka Kath via FlickrI usually don’t write about companies’ funding announcements, unless the amount of money raised is particularly eye-popping. But when Recurve announced Wednesday that it had scored $8 million in its latest round of fund-raising, what caught my attention was who decided to invest in the San Francisco energy retrofit startup. Along […]

Fannie and Freddie attack clean-energy plan

Few new ideas brighten the faces of clean-energy advocates as much as Property Assessed Clean Energy, or PACE, the Berkeley-born financing tool that’s spreading quickly throughout the country. The three-year-old model has put rooftop solar panels, high-efficiency furnaces, and other home improvements within reach of thousands of American homeowners, and there’s hope it could reach […]

G20 leaders to meet and discuss global warming … but only a little bit

G20 leaders meet at the 2009 London summit.Photo: Downing Street via Flickr On June 26-27, leaders from the 20 largest economies will meet in Toronto, Canada, as a part of the Group of 20 summit. These countries represent 85 percent of the world’s global warming pollution and 83 percent of the world’s economic output. So […]

They shoot unicorns, don’t they?

Grist reader Scott Hess sent in this photo in response to today’s post about Big Pork threatening legal action over the marketing copy for Canned Unicorn Meat. It immediately made me think of a concept my friends at Boing Boing long ago pioneered: a “unicorn chaser” — a mind-cleansing antidote to stories of a gross, […]

Ask Umbra’s Book Club: Dive into the big blue

Greetings readers, As you all know, I am a bookworm of the highest order. In fact, I’m such a bookworm that my compost worms have their own library. I think it’s important to surround them with good literature, but they just keep eating the pages. And so must we all surround ourselves with good matter […]

Mos Def and Lenny Kravitz sing the blues for the big blue

Mos Def and Ben Jaffe wrote it. Lenny Kravitz, Trombone Shorty, Tim Robbins, and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band all joined in to make a song to help the non-profit, Gulf Aid. It’s a song dedicated to BP called “It Ain’t My Fault.” It’s a great number, but I still prefer the t-shirt I heard […]

Evidence of climate change springs ahead with blooming wildflowers

Spring certainly seems to arrive earlier these days than it used to. But is it a sure sign of global warming or just natural variability? After decades of careful research on wildflowers, University of Maryland ecologist David Inouye has some definitive — and disturbing — answers. This summer Inouye returns to the Rocky Mountain Biological […]

Are we banking too much on BP’s relief wells?

It seems so long ago that we had those brief, crazy flings with “junk shots,” “kill shots,” and “top kills.”  Those were engineers doing improv. But there was always a net: Engineers know relief wells, we’re told, and once the two wells currently being drilled are finished in August, the problem will be solved.  Now, […]

Report: Coal Industry Harms TN and WV More Than It Helps

Two reports released this week reveal that when it comes to the bottom line of state budgets, the coal industry costs Tennessee and West Virginia more than it provides. These reports are among the first to examine actual revenues and expenditures related to coal industry employment, taxes and subsidies in Tennessee and West Virginia. Downstream […]

‘Reasonably high’ chance BP files for bankruptcy

Bankruptcy expert Peter S. KaufmanPhoto: Gordian GroupThere is a reasonably high chance that BP could file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the next few years, or even months, and the result would be an “absolute horror” for the government, according to a bankruptcy expert. Peter S. Kaufman, the President of investment bank Gordian Group and […]