Latest Articles
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Now That’s Density
British government plans new eco-towns, flood-plain development The British government announced plans this week to build 2 million new homes by 2016, including five carbon-neutral “eco-towns” of at least 5,000 homes each. Each green town will have public transportation to existing cities, favor green space and walkability, include 30 to 50 percent affordable housing, and […]
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Philpott on the ground in corn country
In my very first article for Grist a year and a half ago, I declared with confidence that “If you’re going to talk about poverty, food, and the environment in the United States, you might as well start in the Corn Belt.” Trouble is, I had never actually been in corn country, at least not […]
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Court upholds ban on kangaroo-hide sneaks
A California Supreme Court decision Monday upheld a 36-year-old ban on the import and sale of products made from various wildlife species — specifically soccer, rugby, and baseball shoes made by defendant Adidas. The decision was hailed by animal rights groups for setting a precedent allowing states to protect species that the federal government no […]
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Or orange. Or yellow. Or blue
I usually don’t pay much attention to ads, but I happened to notice this banner advertising the new Dell Inspiron laptops that come in eight different colors. It’s interesting that the marketing execs would think to use the concept in a national ad campaign — that "green" is so part of the collective consciousness and […]
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Who are the people in your neighborhood, and what have they got to lend?
I don’t actually have a question to respond to this week, so … pretend like somebody asked something. Remember back when people actually used to stop by their neighbor’s house and ask for a cup of sugar? OK, neither do I. Actually, the other day my boyfriend’s neighbor came over and asked to borrow some […]
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Will you take it?
So, Reuters took a look at the EPA’s economic analysis of the Lieberman-McCain Climate Stewardship Act (so I didn’t have to!). In case your memory is hazy, the CSA is a cap-and-trade bill that would cut emissions 65% by 2050. Here’s the nut: The EPA found that the Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act of 2007 […]
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Making electricity visible helps reduce consumption
Here's what might be an ingenious idea, as reported by Wired:
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New investigative report
Don’t miss Jason Leopold’s crack investigative reporting on Truthout today: This story is based on a two-month investigation into Cheney’s energy task force; how the vice president pressured cabinet officials to conceal clear-cut evidence of market manipulation during California’s energy crisis, and how that subsequently led Cheney to exert executive privilege when lawmakers called on […]
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Dumb arguments rear their heads yet again
A reader pointed me to a letter in the South China Morning Post, "Cold water on the warming debate" (subs. req'd). The writer, a senior research fellow of the HK Institute of Economics and Business, rehashes a number of mistaken arguments I hear all too often:
Many people fail to knit together these two strands - climate change and the exhaustion of fossil fuels. If they did, they would see that the energy crisis, which is predicted as a result of the exhaustion of fossil fuel reserves, contains the seeds of the resolution of the global warming crisis. As fossil fuels become scarcer, their price is sure to rise. We see this already. Under market forces, this will accelerate substitution, largely towards nuclear energy. This will, in turn, redress the climatic concerns.
No. Conventional oil may be peaking, but the world has plenty of affordable coal, far more than is needed to destroy the climate (which is Hansen's point). The climate problem is not self-resolving. Indeed, peak oil may drive us to liquid coal, a climate disaster. The article continues:
