Latest Articles

No ‘renewable’ nukes and coal for Indiana

Indiana renewable package: No can do.Photo: JayskIndiana lawmakers finished their legislative session Wednesday without passing a renewable electricity standard, which might be just as well. This was the plan that would have defined “renewable” so as to include “clean coal” and nuclear energy (as reported earlier on Grist). The plan would have required utilities in […]

CDC: swine flu strain has genetic roots in U.S.A.

(Another hat tip to the increasingly essential Tom Laskawy.) In an interview with Science Magazine,  CDC chief virologist Ruben Donis essentially confirmed the reading of the current swine flu strain made by New Scientist: that it evolved from a strain that cropped up in U.S. hog farms in 1998. Both New Scientist and Donis emphasize […]

Massive economic and policy reform: Easier than you think

It seems to me that we suffer from a failure of imagination. We dream of a low-carbon world, but can’t quite fathom how to get around the massive lobbying clout (and inertia) of the coal lobby. We dream of a world with no more utility obstacles to energy efficiency, but can’t imagine how to undo […]

From Sadist to Satire

Photo: Elisabeth Buecher Guilt dripThese sadistic Puff & Flock (!) shower curtains slowly inflate with every water-wasting moment you spend bathing — because the suffocating guilt you feel just isn’t enough.   (Click below to see the next item in this week’s Grist List — or view them all on a single page.)     […]

Smithfield is listening!

What’s that you say? Smithfield claims that they are awaiting the results of “additional” tests on the pigs at their Veracruz, Mexico, CAFO — the facility at the heart of speculation here on Grist and elsewhere as the source of the current swine flu outbreak — to determine if any pigs are infected. And just […]

Insight in sight

I took this picture with my cell phone. It was in the parking lot of a private school. This is really good news. For years, kids were being dropped off here in $65,000 Toyota LandCruisers and every other kind of expensive car you can think of. Nowadays the relatively inexpensive Prius is the most common […]

CDC chief confirms U.S. origin of flu strain

H/t to Fair Food Fight for this one. In a Q&A with ScienceInsider, the CDC’s chief virologist Ruben Donis confirms what Columbia researchers declared: the current H1N1 swine flu virus is “all swine” in origin, the human and avian components present in the current virus date to the 1998 swine flu outbreak, and that this […]

Clean energy messaging 101: ‘Green’ jobs are out, ‘clean energy’ jobs are in

As readers know, I try to stay up-to-date on messaging, which is why I have a whole category devoted to rhetoric. I have now sat through a couple of extended presentations about clean energy and climate messaging from people who definitely know how to do this sort of thing.  I will present some of the […]

‘New Scientist’: Swine flu stems from virus that evolved in U.S.

In a pair of articles in New Scientist, Debora MacKenzie links the swine flu virus now spreading across the globe to large-scale pork-raising operations in the United States. In the first article, titled “Swine flu: the predictable pandemic?,” MacKenzie writes that the “virus has been a serious pandemic threat for years, New Scientist can reveal […]

Changing the climate with China’s military

When I heard President Obama call for more regular dialogue between the Chinese and American militaries, my first thought was, “Why not the environment?” Perhaps it is not a front-burner issue for both institutions — but that is exactly the point. If dialogue is to improve understanding, build ties, and lower the prospects for confrontation, […]