Latest Articles

Our other addiction: the tricky geopolitics of nitrogen fertilizer

Your food doesn’t come from here, but it starts here: an ammonia factory. We burn through more of it per capita than any other country; and our appetite for it can only be sated with massive imports. No, not oil — I’m talking about nitrogen fertilizer. With only 5 percent of the world population, the […]

Conservatives say stupid things about snow; media dutifully reports that they say them

As anyone with a Twitter account is sick of hearing by now, Washington, D.C., is being battered by a “snowpocalypse.” Conservatives are using the occasion to mock Al Gore because, you see, snow disproves climate change. This is obviously something that only extremely ill-informed (or stupid) people would say. No matter what you think about […]

It’s time for a solar revolution

This country spends, in a typical year, $350 billion importing oil from Saudi Arabia and other foreign countries. While this is no doubt good news for the Saudi royal family, one of the richest in the world, it is bad news for the average American. The vast majority of the American people understand that now […]

Coal Miners Join Historic Rallies to End Mountaintop Removal Today

When oh when will it be over? When will I lay these burdens down? — Dwight Yoakam, Miner’s Prayer As we huddle in our homes on this wintry day, appreciating the warmth generated by coal-fired electricity, we need to listen to Kentucky coal miners Carl Shoupe, Elmer Lloyd and Stanley Sturgill on the true cost […]

Policy fixes to unleash clean energy, part 3

In Part 1, I outlined the five questions that we ought to answer before we can have any informed debate on energy policy reform. In Part 2, I provided my answer to the first of those questions: namely, what are the key existing regulatory barriers to clean energy deployment (Answer: utility regulation, environmental regulation and […]

Good climate policy is responsible fiscal policy

Here’s a fact you won’t hear much about in Politico or the Washington Post: good climate policy is responsible fiscal policy. Earlier this month, Susan Kraemer turned up what should have been a bigger story: while the comprehensive climate/energy bill introduced by Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) last year would reduce the […]

An omnivorous chef ponders test-tube meat

Future rancher of America? Well, ick. That was my first reaction, anyway, to news that the search to produce animal-less sources for meat are moving, if not right along, at least in the direction of progress. The story I read is actually an editorial in Capital Press, an agricultural newspaper published for farmers in the […]

What do public support for clean energy and global temperatures have in common?

A: They both keep going up despite the anti-science, pro-polluter echo chamber. Joseph Romm recently noted the Earth is stuck in a “Groundhog Decade … where it’s always the hottest decade on record.” Temperature data from NOAA demonstrates that the ’00’s were warmer than the ’90’s, which were warmer than the ’80’s, and so on. […]

I paid $50 for this book and all I got was this lousy feeling of hope and goodwill

I received a free review copy of The Power of Half, but it ended up costing me $50. Fifty bucks that won’t go toward a much-needed (fine, much-wanted) pedicure, about a dozen cinnamon lattes, a month of cable or my cell phone, or a couple of weeks worth of bus fare for my ride to […]

CBS Evening News report on antibiotics in livestock, part 2

Catch the preview and part 1. In “Chewing the Scenery,” we round up interesting food-related video from around the Web. —————- And now for the big finale. CBS News’ Katie Couric concludes her look at the use of antibiotics in livestock with an examination of the “Danish experiment” — with which Grist readers are no […]