Latest Articles

A roadmap to getting 70 percent of U.S. electricity from solar by 2050

OK, having spent an absurd amount of time bashing on a crappy article that came out while I was on vacation, let me turn my attention to an extraordinarily good one (via HillHeat): "A Solar Grand Plan," by Ken Zweibel (NREL), James Mason (Solar Energy Campaign), and Vasilis Fthenakis (Brookhaven National Photovoltaic Environmental, Health and […]

Vote for Gristmill in the 8th Annual Weblog Awards

This is for all you loyal readers out there who turn to Gristmill, day in and day out, for your recommended daily intake of leafy green commentary. Actually, this is a shameless plug for anyone who kinda sorta likes and/or reads Grist/Gristmill. Give a little bloggy love in return by nominating Grist’s own blog, Gristmill, […]

EPA launches cell-phone recycling campaign

As many as 150 million cell phones are taken out of service in the U.S. each year, and some 80 percent end up in the landfill, where they leach toxins into the air and water. In an attempt to address the problem, the U.S. EPA today launched a campaign to boost cell-phone reuse and recycling. […]

Amazing Race-ers awarded vague electric vehicle

I’m always excited when eco-prizes are handed out on Those Reality TV Shows That I Totally Do Not Watch. But Sunday night on The Amazing Race, I was surprised to hear that the first-place pit-stop finishers were awarded electric vehicles, and then confused by the way the prize was never fully explained and seemed veiled […]

Are Obama and Edwards promising ponies?

Hillary Clinton is getting in lots of trouble for some recent comments, but I suspect that while her message is politically doomed, there’s some truth to it. Some background: At the debate, Clinton said that candidates shouldn’t be creating "false hopes" among the American people. After the debate, Obama commented that that was like MLK, […]

Reclusive candy billionaire opposes drilling near his Montana land

Ranchers and conservationists fighting to keep drills out of coal and gas deposits along Montana’s Tongue River are finding an ally in landowner and reclusive billionaire Forrest E. Mars Jr., former CEO of the Mars candy company. Sweet.

Does AB 32 call for maximizing emission reductions or minimizing costs?

California’s pioneering climate legislation, the Global Warming Solutions Act, or AB 32, caps the state’s emissions at 1990 levels by 2020. That’s the headline, anyway. But the bill contains other interesting statutory language. For one thing, 1990-levels-by-2020 is referred throughout the bill as a limit, not a target. The implication would seem to be that […]

Federal Trade Commission reviews environmental marketing guidelines

With consumers becoming more and more concerned about greenwashing, the Federal Trade Commission has agreed to review its voluntary environmental marketing guidelines. Today the agency is holding a public forum addressing carbon offsets and renewable energy credits, the first in a series of workshops designed to review the guidelines, which have not been updated since […]

New Hampshire prediction, guaranteed accurate to the tenth decimal

Obama by 8, McCain by 3. Clinton in second, Edwards in third. Romney in second, Huckabee in third.

German scientists develop Combined Power Plant

Via the The Sietch blog, some very, very cool stuff out of the University of Kassel in Germany — the Combined Power Plant: The secure and constant provision of power anywhere and at anytime by renewable energies is now made possible thanks to the Combined Power Plant. The Combined Power Plant links and controls 36 […]