Latest Articles

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 […]

N.Y. Times is ready for regime change at the EPA

The Gray Lady’s editorial board offered up a big lump of coal to President Bush’s EPA chief in a Christmas Day editorial. The NYT notes that even former GOP-appointed EPA leaders are frustrated with Stephen Johnson’s tenure at the nation’s top environmental enforcer. Money quote: “It was Mr. Johnson who refused to grant California a […]

Vote for the worst piece of writing on climate change

Every year the Poor Man Institute gives out awards for a range of wanktastic behavior from the lunatic right. Highlights include the Chickenhawk of the Year award (for rhetorical courage), the Fluffy award (for egregious ass-kissing), and the Purple Teardrop With Clutched Pearl Cluster award (for melodramatic offense-taking). Of particular interest to Gristians, however, is […]

Tennessee ash spill more than three times larger than originally thought

NYT: “Coal Ash Spill Is Much Larger Than Initially Estimated“ Initially authorities said there were 2.6 million cubic yards of ash in the pond, and 1.7 million spilled. Now they’re saying 5.4 million cubic yards have spilled — more than double the original estimate of the total in the pond. Fills you with trust in […]

American taxpayers help pay for coal sent to China

Lee Buchsbaum writes that U.S. coal producers increasingly find it more profitable to export their product: With the falling dollar, selling to Asia, Europe or South America is giving coal producers a higher return than selling into the United States. "If I were running a coal company and I looked at what’s happening on Capitol […]

Making Bulgaria look good

James Howard Kunstler, oft derided as seeking to return America to a pre-industrial state, actually wants to return the country to the glory years of the industrial era, when the major components of our industrial infrastructure were in place and flourishing while Progressive Era reforms were making cities more habitable and humane. This allowed us […]

Brookings and RMI bring energy stakeholders together to forge areas of agreement

A fleet of oil industry reps, enviros, venture capitalists, national-security hawks, and think-tankers walk into a room. After a day and a half of debate, can they walk out with at least three oil-related policy recommendations for the next president? That was the challenge presented by the Rocky Mountain Institute and the Brookings Institution, which […]

Deep Christmas thought

Watching my kids’ absolute, uncontainable delight as they play with cheesy, old, used Star Wars toys that my wife and I Santa got off eBay, a thought occurred to me. I’ve argued before that “materialism” isn’t really the right word for what plagues affluent developed countries. We don’t seem to care about material — that […]

Merry Christmas!

A very merry Christmas to all you Gristians — if you celebrate it anyway. Hell, even if you don’t. Nothing wrong with being merry, right? In honor of the occasion, I give you the single greatest Christmas song ever recorded: “Merry Christmas from the Family,” by Robert Earl Keen.

Chrissie Hynde breaks up the concrete

Break Up the Concrete is a new record by Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders; Rolling Stone and numerous other reviewers have called it her best in years. Hynde has been singing about environmental themes for decades (remember My City Was Gone?) But the title song off the new album, which sounds to me like a […]