Latest Articles

Ad of the day

Click image for more info:

Sam Brownback drops out of presidential race

Republican Sen. Sam Brownback dropped out of the presidential race today, having failed to gain many fans or much moola — or develop much of an environmental platform. If you want to ponder what might have been, check out the eco-focused interview Grist conducted with Brownback this fall and the fact sheet we compiled on […]

Bush threatens to veto Democratic energy bill

According to this article in Roll Call (sub. rqd.), on Monday President Bush sent Congressional Democrats a letter with a list of demands regarding what must be or not be in the energy bill in order to avoid his veto. Among the demands: no increase in taxes (i.e., no repealing tax giveaways to oil companies) […]

Grist maximum leader Chip Giller lights up the pages of Time

Laugh, or the planet gets it. Photo: John Clark, TIME. The cover story in TIME magazine’s international edition this week is "Heroes of the Environment." Lots of good stuff to browse through, but around here we’re particularly fond of #28: Environmentalists are the people you want to avoid at a party. Trust me — I’m […]

Bikeways pay for themselves

A decade ago, we wrote that the bicycle is one of the world's seven everyday wonders because it's so simple, effective, affordable, and pollution-free. To that list, we might have added "enriching."

Bicycling for transportation pumps money into local economies. Bikes are wheels of fortune. (Thanks to Flickr photographer hanbyholems for the picture to the right.) If your community spends money building bikeways, you and your neighbors will cycle more. Your cycling will put extra money in the local economy. (I'll explain how in a moment.) The extra money will make the community rich enough to pay for more bikeways. More bikeways will induce more cycling, and the virtuous circle will continue.

Let's break the process into steps.

Building bikeways costs money.

Bikeways are cheap, especially compared to roads and trains, but they're not free. In the Puget Sound area, construction can easily cost more than $1 million per mile for a new trail or lane -- not counting land. Seattle's 10-year Bicycle Master Plan sketches a citywide network of cycling routes estimated to cost about $240 million. Retrofitting all of Cascadia's communities for Bicycle Respect -- integrated systems of separate, signaled bikeways as found in parts of northern Europe -- would cost billions of dollars. (Sort of like RTID/ST and Pacific Gateway.)

Sandalow explains the ins and outs of oil dependency

For years, I have been looking for a good, readable book on the oil problem and its solution -- just as I'd been looking for a good book on clean technology. Well, I found the Clean Tech book in August, and now I've found the oil book.

It is Freedom from Oil, by Brookings scholar and White House veteran David Sandalow. It is an unqualified success -- cleverly told as a series of policy memos from the cabinet of a near-future President, who begins the book by telling his staff:

I plan to deliver an address from the Oval Office one month from today. The topic will be oil dependence.

In the breathless narrative that follows, you learn the stripped-down facts about oil dependency, plus the growing strategic and environmental danger posed by oil dependency -- and key solutions like plug-in hybrids and revised CAFE standards (as well as stories of fascinating figures in the oil game). You get a "unique window into the White House at work" from a former assistant secretary of state and senior director on the National Security Council staff.

Sandalow's President ultimately offers an aggressive plan to free the country from oil dependence, which includes:

Good farm policies support good farm practices

Interest in the Farm Bill is usually confined to policy wonks and agribusiness lobbyists, but this year it has generated more buzz than a cowpie in a June paddock.

Despite the stir, most of the public attention has been narrowly focused on only one aspect of the $280 billion policy package: the farm payments paid to corn, soybean, wheat, rice, and cotton producers. Though concerns over the current commodity programs are well-founded, their emphasis has given a negative cast to the Farm Bill debate: we should be against farm subsidies.

But there are also things worth fighting for in the Farm Bill -- conservation programs that promote environmental enhancement, sustain family farms, and support rural communities are some of them.

Cape Wind project denied transmission-line permit, developer to appeal

The Cape Wind project was dealt another setback this week when a local commission denied a permit for the transmission lines that would carry electricity to the grid from the 130 offshore wind turbines that Cape Wind Associates proposed in 2001. In a 12-0 vote, the commission’s decision to withhold the permit was based on […]

Justice requires fair burden-sharing

((equity_include)) This is a guest essay by Tom Athanasiou. Athanasiou is a long-time left green, a former software engineer, a technology critic, and, most recently, a climate justice activist. He is the author of Divided Planet, co-author of Dead Heat, and the director of EcoEquity.This essay is part of a series on climate equity. —– […]

Delayers are replacing deniers

There's been some hand wringing about the fact that science does not have the traction it should in the political debate over climate change.

This is the genesis of the framing argument, most recently pushed by Chris Mooney and Matt Nisbet. Basically, this thesis says that scientists need to put their scientific results into a "frame" that allows the general public to better understand how to interpret their results.

I've never particularly liked "framing," and here's one reason: I think that the scientific community has been extremely effective at getting the word out about climate change.

Look at this article: