Latest Articles

House of Representatives’ food service goes sustainable

Cafeterias in the House of Representatives are getting a makeover today: out with the high-fructose corn syrup, in with the free-roaming hens. (Well, there won’t actually be hens roaming in the cafeterias — you get what we mean.) Under Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s ambitious Greening the Capitol initiative, the privately owned House food service — which […]

Assessing my predictions from last year

At the end of last year, I made 20 predictions for 2007. As a pundit in good standing I am, of course, unaccountable for my predictions. (How do you think we all stay employed?) Nonetheless, it’s worth looking back and seeing how the predictions panned out, drawing sweeping conclusions from the things I got right […]

A response to Jim Manzi

I want to thank Jim Manzi for taking the time to respond to my criticisms of his recent writing on warming policies here at Gristmill. Though I disagree with much of what he says, his thoughtful work on the subject has improved the debate. I want to use one more post here to rebut a […]

Retailers beef up the packaging

For Christmas last year, I received an iPod Nano (through which I now get my weekly fix of podcasts from NPR Environment, PRI Living on Earth, and of course, Grist). That the Nano weighs a mere 1.74 oz. and is so slim it easily gets lost in an overstuffed pocket is pretty impressive. Nearly as impressive, however, is that I walked out of the store toting this pygmie player inside an slick, white, matte, double-ply plastic behemoth of a bag, with sturdy woven cords that cinched the neck; it could have easily fit 100 Nanos with room several real apples to spare. I've been using it as a gym bag ever since.

Apparently, that's exactly what Apple had in mind:

California looks for yet more clean energy

The following essay is by Earl Killian, guest blogger at Climate Progress.

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The California Energy Commission (CEC) has released its biennial integrated energy policy report (PDF). The 301-page report looks at various issues confronting California and makes recommendations on how to address them. The issues include:

• Rising population leading to greater demand for energy (natural gas, petroleum, and electric power).
• Rising natural gas demand while production remains flat, leading to a tight market and higher prices.
• Increasing population away from the coast, increasing peak electric demand from air conditioning.
• Increasing vehicle travel from population and sprawl.
• Expected petroleum supply constraints (e.g. port facilities for increase imports) making it difficult to fuel future vehicle travel conventionally.
• California's AB32 cap on greenhouse-gas emissions, requiring 1990 levels by 2020 (despite the population increase -- a 30 percent decrease in absolute emissions).

Even though California is already one of the most efficient users of energy, the CEC is looking for further efficiency improvements, and although a 2006 legislative act mandates 20 percent renewable electricity by 2010, the report looks to 33 percent by 2020 to support California's population growth. A few of the numerous specific recommendations from the report include:

Synthetic DNA could soon yield entirely new life forms

For opponents of genetically modified crops, the possibility that scientists could soon create entirely new life forms out of synthetic DNA may provoke similar worries and safety concerns. Recent improvements in technology have made the lab creation of complex DNA strands possible, and some researchers intend to use them to manufacture new life forms — […]

The Sustainable Ag Coalition delivers its assessment

Ferd Hoefner of the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition has been involved in farm bills since the mid-1970s, working behind the scenes to try to snatch farm legislation from the paws of agribusiness. So when he delivers his assessment on how things went, he does so from the perspective of long memory. His insights are particularly important […]

Combating global warring by addressing global warming

A long-established statewide peace organization in Oregon has initiated a new project called "The 5% Solution" as a way to give people a SMART (specific, measurable, appropriate, realistic, and timed) goal for climate action. It asks people to pledge to reduce their own carbon footprint 5 percent a year, each year, and to spread that commitment through their communities, and then states, and then country.

As the material here notes, if the developed world stops increasing emissions and makes 5 percent cuts per year from 2008 to 2050, its emissions will go down about 88 percent and the developing world will have some flexibility to increase emissions for a few more years before joining the rich countries on the glide path to an overall drop of about 80 percent.

Scientist claims that climate models are too conservative in predicting ice loss

Maybe I'm not alarmist after all. Maybe this future is nearer than everyone thinks:

I was called "over-alarmist" by one of the people who took my bet that the Arctic would be ice-free by 2020. But one of the country's top ice experts, non-alarmist Professor Wieslaw Maslowski of the Naval Postgraduate School, told an American Geophysical Union audience this week:

Seeking out ‘the new nature writing’

This weekend is looking to be a great one for reading, at least here in the northeastern U.S. where we're expecting lots (more) snow. I'm in the midst of David Gessner's new book, Soaring with Fidel, and it's excellent so far. The author physically follows his favorite bird, the osprey, during its annual migration from the North Atlantic to Cuba and beyond.

It's more than a book about a bird and its range, though. It's mostly about the osprey's human geography: the people Gessner meets along the way who love this particular creature and have fought to steward its recovery from the brink. Humorous and very human storytelling makes it a page-turner, and it's a fine example of what the editors of Orion magazine, with whom I work, call "the new nature writing."

So what's on your reading list these days, gentle Gristmill reader?