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Symptom: High utility bills; Diagnosis: Full energy efficiency workup

Photo illustration by Tom Twigg / Grist The red Honda Fit from a local car-sharing service pulls into the driveway of a suburban San Francisco Bay-area home, and two clean-cut young guys in khaki jump out and start unloading a Ghostbusters array of gadgets — something resembling a giant black megaphone, a glowing tube attached […]

White House and enviros amp up efforts to pass climate bill in House

The House is gearing up to vote on the American Clean Energy and Security Act as soon as next week, and both the White House and environmental groups are planning a full-court press to get it passed. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), coauthor of the bill, has said he is “very close” to making a final deal […]

Ohio officials tout plans for new nuclear power plant

Ohio media sources are reporting that Piketon, a small town 60-miles south of Columbus, could be in line to get a new nuclear power plant. Gov. Ted Strickland (D), Sen. George Voinovich (R), Rep. Jean Schmidt (R) and officials from Duke Energy and French nuclear company Areva were in Piketon Thursday to announce plans for […]

Beer Soap turns lager into lather, and more

BudwasherNext time you bathe, boys, lager up with a bar of Beer Soap, guaranteed to do a better job of attracting the ladies than, uh, just the beer alone.   (Click below to see the next item in this week’s Grist List—or view them all on a single page.)             […]

Negotiations are all well and good, but where’s the bling bling?

With less than six months to go before Copenhagen, the global climate negotiations are at a pivotal moment. After a two-week negotiating session in Bonn, the negotiations are turning the corner. Or are they? For the first time, negotiators in Bonn debated the draft text of a global deal – a mixed bag of good, […]

The Climate Post: Gimme your wallet–or else the forest here gets it

The Obama administration this week released a 196-page plain-language report that describes predicted future impacts of climate change on the U.S. The report comes during a week of inconclusive negotiation among key House lawmakers on climate legislation, and as the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee passes what could be the third energy bill in […]

House GOP circulating anti–climate bill document created by coal lobby

[See updates below.] It’s no secret that the fossil-fuel industry produces many of the talking points Republicans use to scare voters about energy legislation. Usually, though, dirty energy execs don’t literally sign on as authors. House Republicans are circulating a PowerPoint document that purports to show the regional breakdown of costs for energy consumers under […]

Coal ash sites kept secret, while industry works to prevent regulations

This week’s blog post is co-written by Mary Anne Hitt, deputy director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign. If you lived near a dump site where the hazardous waste was so toxic it could increase your cancer risk to as high as a staggering 1 in 50, wouldn’t you want to know about it? […]

I find my thrill in blueberry preserves–and so can you

As we approach the summer solstice, long, hot days spur a growth frenzy in the garden. That explosion of fertility produces the excesses that I live for. I love being swamped by 100 pounds of the fragile soft fruits of summer. It is a race against time. I must work quickly in order to get […]

In which I go toe to toe with H. Clinton’s science czar over GMOs

Seed blinded me with science. The questions were shamelessly loaded: Why do many environmentalists trust science when it comes to climate change but not when it comes to genetic engineering? Is the fear really about the technology itself or is it a mistrust of big agribusiness? When do you plan to stop beating your wife, […]