Latest Articles

Congress is the problem

Felix Salmon blogs at Reuters about the seeming exhaustion of Obama’s political capital — on both climate change and financial regulations, he just can’t seem to get what he wants out of Congress. I think Matt Yglesias and Ryan Avent both have the appropriate response: the problem here is not Obama, but Congress. Indeed, the […]

The faint silver lining of the Waxman-Markey clean-energy-mandates cloud

The Waxman-Markey bill would require that 20% of the nation’s power supply come from clean energy (15%) and efficiency (5%) by 2020. But wouldn’t the U.S. have reached those mild targets without any government intervention, through natural market growth? Would the bill’s mandates have any effect at all? A spate of recent analyses have argued […]

Gaia proponent Lovelock says it’s time to adapt to inevitable global heating

James Lovelock speaking at the World Nuclear Association Symposium in 2007Courtesy Jon and Lu via FlickrWhat is it with Preeminent Thinkers and intensely bleak public lectures? Two weeks ago Earth Institute economist Jeffrey Sachs, in an address at the Asia Society in New York, argued that climate change cannot be averted without massive use of […]

Pacific Northwest says goodbye to salmon, skiing; hello to heat waves

The new U.S. climate change impacts report — on which we’ve been reporting all day — includes some hard-hitting regional data. For example, did you know that annual average temperatures in the Northwest rose about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit over the last century — with some areas seeing increases up to 4 degrees? And the rising […]

Lots of great green stuff in the latest issue of The Atlantic

I haven’t read The Atlantic much lately, but I picked up the latest issue at the airport and it is superb. Three pieces are worth particular note. First, Joshua Green has a piece on “The Coming Green Economy” that is as good as anything I’ve ever read in popular media about the contours of the […]

Do as Heartland says, not as it does

If you’re a green blogger who wants to cover a Heartland Institute event, you better pony up hundreds of dollars in entrance fees or you’re not allowed inside. But if you’re a Congressman holding a hearing on global warming and you don’t invite a spokesman from the Heartland Institute to testify, you’re a fascist who […]

UPDATED: A roundup of news coverage on the climate change impacts report

We’ll be reporting all day on the U.S. climate change impacts report released by the White House and a team of 13 federal agencies today. We’re also tracking good coverage of the report elsewhere—check back for updates, post your own in the comments below, or post them to Twitter with @grist in the text. UPDATE: […]

Fiber Arctic show ties crafty art to climate change

“Ice Cold” by Kris GarlandPhoto: Sarah van SchagenGlobal warming got you in stitches? Trying to understand all the tightly knit issues by looking for common threads? Weave your way down to Schmancy (part of the “trilogy of awesome“) in Seattle, Wash., for an artsy display of embroidery, quilting, felting, and otherwise fiber-fab interpretations of the […]

Quiz: Should I see the critically acclaimed documentary ‘Food, Inc.’?

A quiz, dear Grist reader, to determine if you should see the new documentary ‘Food, Inc.‘ (You start with 0 points. Total your points as you answer the questions.): Farmer Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm in Virginia.Photo: Food, Inc. Do you eat food? Yes, three-square meals a day. Add 1 million points. No, I’m not […]

This Father’s Day, don’t be green — be good

Aim high.With Father’s Day looming, it’s my duty to come up with related content on Grist, and I’ve been giving a lot of thought to how we should best mark the occasion. A list of eco-friendly gift ideas? Nah, we did that last year — plus with all the other lists of eco-friendly Father’s Day […]