Latest Articles

Ask Umbra’s pearls of wisdom on driving

Dearest readers, Photo: GmanViz via FlickrIn light of the recent oil spill flooding not only the Gulf but also all of our minds here at Grist HQ, I think it’s an apt time to reflect on the larger issue, which is decreasing our dependence on oil. Now obviously one way to do that on an […]

Passive-aggressive cakes spill onto Gulf coast

skooksie via Flickr Creative Commons Some crude feelings about BP’s half-baked efforts are starting to wash up in the cake window of New Orleans grocery store Breaux Mart, likely to be followed by a boom in sales. I wonder how much oil this recipe calls for? via Cake Wrecks —————————————————————————————————————————————————– Like what you see? Sign […]

The Climate Post: Defining moment still seeks definition

First things first: Sens. John Kerry and Joe Lieberman last week unveiled their draft energy and climate legislation, called the American Power Act, in a Senate committee room overstuffed with lobbyists, policy wonks, journalists, and other observers. The bill’s authors must steer it through the “usual” complexity intrinsic to the climate debates, and now too […]

BP cover-up begins to unravel

UPDATE: BP finally admits its 5,000 barrels per day estimate lowballs the spill. If BP America’s president can’t say for sure the BP oil spill isn’t gushing 70,000 barrels per day, how can we trust BP’s official estimate that it’s actually spilling 5,000 barrels per day? After testifying before the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee […]

Why the American Power Act is not a corporate give-away

In his insightful post, Rob Stavins makes two key points regarding the allocation of emission allowances under climate legislation like that introduced last week by Sens. Kerry and Lieberman. First, Stavins addresses head-on the concerns that some progressives have toward the allocation provisions in the bill, asking, “Is the Kerry-Lieberman allowance allocation a corporate give-away?” […]

Top U.S. scientists to Congress: No more ‘business as usual’ on climate change

A group of the country’s top scientists say that the Earth definitely is getting hotter, that human activity is driving it, and that, unless dramatic measures are taken, the planet’s water supply, sea levels, coral reefs, etc. will be changed forever. So what else is new?   Well, actually, this time the National Academy of […]

BP disaster investigation must be free, clear, and complete

President Obama is likely to sign an executive order sometime during the next several days that would create an independent commission to investigate the causes behind the tragic BP oil disaster. A thorough independent investigation is essential to understand what caused the explosion that cost 11 workers their lives, and what led to the failure […]

‘Too big to fail’ isn’t working out in the energy world either

There’s an interesting debate going on right now over whether to raise the liability cap on oil companies drilling offshore, and if so by how much. Just last week, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) blocked an attempt to raise it from $75 million to $10 billion. Yesterday, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) blocked another attempt. (In related […]

Battle of the carbon titans

As summer approaches, so do the action-fantasy movies. Last week, the venue was not the local cineplex, but another location noted for outlandish egos, special effects, and scripts that require substantial amounts of imagination to fill in the gaps — Washington D.C. Two titans of the wars to tackle climate change and modernize the nation’s […]

Reclaiming the streets

Cars promise mobility, and in a largely rural setting they provide it. But in an urbanizing world, where more than half of us live in cities, there is an inherent conflict between the automobile and the city. After a point, as their numbers multiply, automobiles provide not mobility but immobility, as well as increased air […]