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The long and wind-powered road

The Danes have an enduring relationship with wind. This is symbolized by the big, honking wind turbine that looms like a bird of prey over the parking lot outside the Bella Center, the venue for the U.N. Climate Change Conference Denmark is hosting in December. It was a Dane, physicist H.C. Oersted, who discovered electrical […]

2009 polar melt season: The stats are in

The 2009 ice melt season has just been completed at the northern polar cap, and observations confirm that the decay of the arctic ocean ice cover is continuing a steady decline.

Grass people invade Congress as Senate hearings wrap up

The third and final day of the hearings on the Kerry-Boxer climate bill wrapped up in the Senate Environment and Public Works committee today. We’ve been collecting the best reactions an d analysis on our aggregation page. Here’s a quick rundown of where things stand. The wrap: Really, not much exciting news came out of […]

Energy Trust and the Big Hope

If you’re like me, and spend a lot of the day drinking coffee and getting increasingly paranoid with the creeping suspicion that solving climate may not be possible, it’s good when you find glimmers of hope in the wreckage. One of those glimmers (actually more like a tractor beam) is called Energy Trust, an organization […]

Disappearing beaches in Gambia

Hotel managers in Gambia say without the beach the tourists will not come. But the beach in front of the country’s two landmark hotels is disappearing pretty fast. It is a very serious state of affairs for a country that derives a major percentage of its income from tourism. Beach erosion is clearly visible at […]

University of Kentucky dorm renamed Wildcat Coal Lodge despite student protests

In a throwback to 19th century backroom deal making, University of Kentucky President Lee T. Todd Jr. and several members of the UKY Board of Trustees refused to consider any formal student statements this week during their meeting to barter away the name of a Wildcat basketball dorm for Big Coal donations, and then fled […]

This Halloween, have your pumpkin–and eat it, too

Try April’s White Bean and Pumpkin Chili recipe (below).Photo: April McGreger Halloween has pagan roots in the Celtic Samhain, a festival of the harvest and the dead.  The Celts saw the end of October as the “end of lightness” or the end of summer, and the “beginning of darkness,” or the long, cruel winter ahead. […]

Children and riot police face off in Canadian “Moms” video

The Canadian campaign Moms Against Climate Change just released a provocative video (below) that makes a boldly emotional appeal for action on global warming. Set in an unnamed city, the 86-second video “Demonstration” features a protest march comprised entirely of children. Riot police block the street, tap their shields and clubs ominously, and hold back […]

By the numbers — data highlights on poverty and population

In Chapter 7 of the recently released Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Lester Brown lays out the Plan B goals for eradicating poverty and stabilizing population. Behind the scenes are a number of datasets and graphs that delve deeper into the trends discussed in the chapter. Here are some highlights from the Chapter […]

Michael Bennet (D-Colo.)

Michael BennetSen. Michael Bennet sent this letter to Grist reader Matthew Ott in October, responding to questions about the senator’s stance on climate legislation. Bennet calls the House climate bill, which passed in June, “a significant step in the right direction,” and he sounds generally positive about the Kerry-Boxer climate bill that’s now being considered […]