Latest Articles

Institutions, motivations, and assumptions in economic analysis

A belated Merry Christmas, everyone! Yes, it’s possible that most of Grist’s readers are not Christian (I’m not, for one). But December 25 is the day celebrated as Christmas by much of the world; it’s a declared holiday in many countries and cultures, whether or not we buy into its religious significance. It is, therefore, […]

Will carbon cap-and-trade be the next Ponzi scheme?

Even as the tsunami of Bernard Madoff’s busted Ponzi scheme was submerging hapless rentiers around the world, another esoteric financial enterprise quietly took a step forward this week. At a couple of hundred million bucks, this new venture is just spare change alongside Bernie’s 50 billion. But in time it could grow to rival Madoff’s […]

The insurance industry is making strides on climate, but has further to go

After another year full of unpleasant surprises, you’d think the insurance sector would be ratcheting up its response to big risks like climate change. The U.K. industry has about $15 trillion of assets under management, so the potential to play a significant role in getting others to factor in climate change looks substantial. A new […]

Sleep tight everyone!

What a comforting thought: The safety of Russia’s nuclear industry is being undermined by the country’s economic crisis and the situation is expected to to worsen in 2009, according to a newly released annual report by the Russian nuclear regulatory body. Ongoing job cuts at nuclear facilities include the personnel directly responsible for safety control, […]

For those resolving to eat better and more locally in 2009

Ten Thousand Villages, the wonderful chain of Mennonite-rooted fair trade stores, offers two cookbooks perfect for people wanting to eat better, healthier, more sustainable food — much lower on the food web, with little or no meat, in season — while saving money. The first is the More-with-Less Cookbook by Doris Janzen Longacre, a nice, […]

Memo to the president-elect about NASA

Memo To: PEBO From: Andrew Dessler Re: What to do about NASA on your first day in office Two things: Fire Michael Griffin, NASA’s current administrator. He says stupid things about climate change and is going to be an impediment to the change that NASA needs. Put the Earth back in NASA’s mandate. In 2006, […]

Thinking big on climate offers better ratio of risk to reward than timidity

The cost of keeping climate-chaos temperature rise under two degrees centigrade may be only 2 percent of world GDP, according to a new study by leading international scientists released in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences into preprint on Dec. 22, 2008. But they say that spending much less than this will be […]

Biochar: magic bullet?

“If biochar could be massively applied around the globe, we could end the emissions problem in one to two years.” — soil scientist and Cornell professor Johannes Lehmann

How the U.S. and China can help, not harm, each other

So this is how it worked: Instead of greening our manufacturing base, amping up our recycling system, and competing on the basis of better production technology, we shipped our production to China, which is busy polluting itself and spewing carbon dioxide. In return, the Chinese took the hundreds of billions from sales to the U.S. […]

Old Man Winter declares war on renewable energy

Guess what. The sun doesn’t shine as much in winter, so your home solar system won’t generate much power in the cold months. Oh, and it might SNOW on your solar panels, so you’re gonna have to get out there and sweep them off. But relax solar fans. You’ve got it better than those wind […]