Latest Articles

A new sustainable development report from an international panel — only sexy and exciting!

The InterAcademy Council, a group representing 150 scientific academies around the world, has just issued a new report: "Lighting the Way: Toward a Sustainable Energy Future." I know what you’re thinking: hot damn, a long-ass new PDF! The report, commissioned by the governments of Brazil and China, "lays out the science, technology and policy roadmap […]

HSA waives environmental and social laws to keep the Mexicans out

Attentive readers of Grist’s news feed will know that yesterday Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff waived a few laws in order to get going on the 700-mile border fence between the U.S. and Mexico. A judge ruled a few weeks ago that Chertoff was steamrolling the environmental review process and should halt construction immediately, but […]

Soup bleg

So, it happens that a number of Gristies are having soup-based lunches today. Me, I’m having chili. Which prompted a comment from a colleague: “Well, that’s a kind of soup, right?” Me: “Or is it a kind of stew?” Other colleague: “Or is stew a kind of soup?” So, a few seconds googling some intense […]

New report makes suggestions for sustainable energy future

Coal is the enemy of the human race, but don’t take our word for it: 15 national science academies pooh-pooh the evil black rock in their new report “Lighting the Way: Toward a Sustainable Energy Future.” The report also rah-rahs solar and wind power and energy efficiency, and is warily supportive of nuclear energy and […]

Chuck Norris fact

Chuck Norris does not endorse a presidential candidate. He refrains from killing one. More Chuck Norris facts.

Home lead-testing kits unreliable, says study

If you rushed out to buy a home lead-testing kit when all of Junior’s toys were recalled, hope you saved the receipt: a new study says that over-the-counter kits, usually used to test paint, aren’t reliable for playthings. The Consumer Product Safety Commission put 104 kits to the test and found that 56 failed to […]

Don’t believe the power company hype about coal’s low price

This just in from Restructuring Today ($ub req'd): Sunflower Electric, of the recent Kansas decision not to allow an electric permit because of CO2 concerns, has argued that the decision was a bad idea because it will drive up power prices. But their math is wrong.

Here's a partial excerpt from the RT story:

A decision by the Kansas Department of Health & Environment to deny a coal power plant permit would mean higher power bills for some. That's "an absolute certainty," Sunflower Electric Power told us Friday.

How much higher? At today's prices the firm could pay 1.5¢ for coal versus 8¢ for natural gas.

Uh, no. But this is a mistake that is aggressively and frequently made by our electricity generators.

California wildfires continue to rage

In case you haven’t heard, there are some crazy fires going down in southern California. At the time of this posting, some 400,000 acres have burned, igniting more than 1,500 structures, including some 1,000 homes. An estimated 700,000 people have been evacuated; two have died. The White House has declared a state of emergency, and […]

James Lovelock’s terror masks the same old industrial-era thinking

In the new issue of Rolling Stone, Jeff Goodell has a profile of James Lovelock, father of the Gaia Hypothesis and foremost representative of the OMFG we’re all totally f*cked!!1! school of green thinking: In Lovelock’s view, the scale of the catastrophe that awaits us will soon become obvious. By 2020, droughts and other extreme […]

Envisioning possible green futures helps create a greener future

Peter Madden, chief executive of Forum for the Future, writes a monthly column for Gristmill on sustainability in the U.K. and Europe.

There has been much discussion lately of the need to turn the green agenda from a negative to a positive one. I think that an important part of this is developing some more positive visions of what living in a sustainable future might be like. My organization, Forum for the Future, has set itself this task. Partly because we think the green movement needs more credible and aspirational stories of the future if we are to take people with us. And partly because we become the future that we imagine -- it is to an extent a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So, we are trying to take different parts of the future and imagine what they might look like. We now have a series of projects looking at different aspects of future living.

Our recent report, "Low Carbon Living 2022," asks how might our lives be better if we get the response to climate change right. A low-carbon Britain doesn't have to mean cutbacks and sacrifice. Low Carbon Living 2022 looks forward 15 years and shows ways in which a low-carbon future could deliver: stronger communities, a cleaner local environment, more money, better transport, a healthier lifestyle, and a thriving economy.