Latest Articles

When life makes you lemonade, Kate Galbraith and the NY Times give you lemons

  “Convoys of turbine parts for windmills slow traffic and attract attention in coastal towns like Searsport, Me., on their way to western Maine” – the caption from the absurd NYT piece, “Slow, Costly and Often Dangerous Road to Wind Power.” So here’s the news. We’re now the #1 producer of wind power in the […]

Turns out humans are not like slowly boiling frogs — we are like slowly boiling brainless frogs

I learned something new or, rather, old from reading Fallows’ blog. The famous metaphor* — “the fatally slow human response to climate change makes us like a slowly boiling frog” — is not quite right. As Wikipedia puts it, German physiologist Friedrich Goltz “demonstrated that frogs will indeed remain in slowly heated water, but only […]

The future of hockey sticks on an ice-free planet

A number of people asked me to reply to a blog post by Atlantic monthly columnist James Fallows in which he opines on a variety of climate-related subjects from Al Gore to the “Hockey Stick” graph. Since I have known Fallows for a long time – we share mutual interests in rhetoric and the late […]

Palin on Energy: The Bad, the Ugly, and the Response

Barbara Boxer, chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, and John Kerry, chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, write in “What Palin Got Wrong About Energy“: Whether it was the debate over the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Superfund law or any other landmark environmental law, one pattern has always been […]

“Clouds Appear to Be Big, Bad Player in Global Warming” — an amplifying feedback

The best evidence is that the climate is now being driven by amplifying feedbacks (see Study: Water-vapor feedback is “strong and positive,” so we face “warming of several degrees Celsius”), most notably: The defrosting of the permafrost The drying of the Northern peatlands (bogs, moors, and mires). The destruction of the tropical wetlands Decelerating growth […]

Will we see record low Arctic ice volume this year?

“Daily sea ice extent as of July 21. The solid blue line indicates 2009 … the purple line shows 2008; and the solid gray line indicates average extent from 1979 to 2000.” The blogosphere and scientific community are all abuzz as to whether 2009 will beat 2007 in minimum Arctic sea ice area. See, for […]

Is the proposed clean energy agency a dirty deal for taxpayers and the environment?

Will the proposed clean energy agency become a slush fund for nuclear power?U.S. lawmakers are considering legislation that would create a new independent federal agency to promote government investment in clean energy. But watchdogs are raising questions about whether the way the proposed agency is structured is unfair to taxpayers and bad for the environment. […]

Saying goodbye to a common–and toxic–antimicrobial chemical

Triclosan: a toxic chemical that shows up in the damndest placesIn Checkout Line, Lou Bendrick cooks up answers to reader questions about how to green their food choices and other diet-related quandaries. Lettuce know what food worries keep you up at night. ——————— Dear Grist,I have been getting contradictory information about triclosan. Organic Consumers Association […]

Mass. startup uses biotech smarts to take the corn out of ethanol

On Monday, the latest entrant in the biofuels sweepstakes takes the wraps off a solar-powered technology designed to transform C02 and sunlight into ethanol. “We capture the energy of the sun into a solar converter,” says Bill Sims, CEO of Cambridge, Mass.-based Joule Biotechnologies. “Inside exists a solution of brackish or gray water, nutrients and […]

Ask Umbra on low-e window films

Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, I have noticed window film applications available at local home improvement stores that claim additional insulation qualities when used, in addition to a sleek look when compared to window blinds. In comparison to the standard winter window applications you can buy to help with drafty windows, but […]