Latest Articles

Gourmet’s conscience, Gopnik on cookbooks, and other tasty morsels

When my info-larder gets too packed, it’s time to serve up some choice nuggets from around the Web. —————- Get ’em while they’re hot.  • For years, Barry Estabrook reported on food politics for Gourmet Magazine and its Web site. In a sense, he played the role of the conscience of the foodie set–at the […]

Copenhagen is not Kyoto

On the eve of the 1998 United Nations climate change conference in Buenos Aires, U.S. Senator Robert Byrd sent a letter to President Clinton urging him not to sign the Kyoto Protocol. Doing so, he said, would not “do more than plug the holes in one end of a leaky boat, while leaving the biggest […]

Make the kids pay: The economic effects of climate change on future generations

If someone offered you $100 today or an inflation-adjusted $100 in 10 years, it’s unlikely you’d choose the latter. But if taking the money now cost your child’s generation billions of dollars, that option would seem pretty miserly. The debate over the economics of climate change boils down to that very calculation: how much are […]

Obama takes on the anti-scientific delayers

What is the best way to talk about those who are devoting their efforts to spread disinformation on climate science and/or climate legislation?  Recent speeches by President Obama and Australian Prime Minister Rudd, who represent the two biggest industrialized countries that have so far refused to take action, offer some suggestions. Certainly, if you want […]

The U.S. Chamber needs to get its story straight

The U.S. Chamber seems to be going to great lengths these days persuade Congress that it really wants to help pass climate legislation. But a very different message is coming through its blogs, tweets, and unscripted comments. We think everyone should know what else the U.S. Chamber is saying, so we have updated our “WhoDoestheUSChamberRepresent.org” […]

Oil: enough energy to melt glaciers!

Editor’s note: It seems that Al Gore reads Grist. And, um, doesn’t credit it. We’re just saying. From a sharp-eyed reader comes this ad for Humble Oil (which later merged with Standard to become, yes, Exxon). It may win the All Time Millenial Award for Maximal Irony. It’s from a 1962 edition of Life Magazine, […]

Copenhagen: Getting past the urgency trap

Copenhagen’s still three weeks away, but climate activists are already voicing their enormous disappointment about everything that’s not going to get done there. The heat is rising, and we’re all feeling the overwhelming urgency to get a strong global agreement that will get the laggards off their butts and launch the structural reformations most of […]

Hot planet to Obama: What’s your Plan B?

“Never again.” Those ought to be the words coming from the White House right now on global warming. Never again can we tolerate a year like 2009, where attempts to cap carbon pollution experience such profound stagnation. Already this month President Obama has confirmed two painful truths. First: Congress will not complete work on a […]

Copenhagen panic is premature

As resurrections go, it was a speedy one. On Monday, much of the world’s media declared that the chances of a worthwhile deal being reached at next month’s international climate talks were as dead as the proverbial dodo. By Tuesday, however, the conjectured corpse was clearly still alive, if not exactly kicking. President Barack Obama […]

Contest: Respond to this uber-lame NY Times op-ed

I could easily spend all my time just responding to every single piece of silliness that appears in the mainstream media on global warming.  But not only would that be unproductive and unhelpful for my readers (i.e. you), but heck I have great readers capable of doing such responses themselves. The NY Times has just […]