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Latest Articles

  • Unused mobile power adapters still use energy

    As part of an announcement by Nokia regarding new green initiatives and features for future phones, the company revealed a little-known fact about mobile phone adapters:

    Jerome Woody Culture

  • What if city hall had to disclose its assumptions like Wall Street does?

    For those unaware, Michigan has been hard hit by the increasingly insistent intrusion of an unpleasant reality (that the era of cheap energy is over). Detroit and Wayne County are especially hard hit, as the economic malady destroying the auto industry hit a city already weakened to the point of collapse by stark racial segregation and disinvestment.

    What Michigan likes to do is imagine that "big projects" will save it, so it tends to build enormous temples to optimism, much in the same way the pharaohs built the pyramids as monuments to themselves: "I may pass on, but my mighty empire will last forever," the pyramids say.

    Well, in this country, not so much. Instead, you just get big tombs and sad little stabs at pouring big rivers of public money down leaky drains, hoping that somehow it will stick around long enough to fertilize some growth in the ruined soil.

    The latest fantasy in Southeast Michigan is "Aerotropolis," a gigantic industrial park centered on, you guessed it, the airport, because we all know that every day, in every way, flying's getting better and better.

    Sterling writer and columnist Jack Lessenberry wrote an article about the scheme here, which caused me to realize that one of the biggest reasons we have a hard time finding the capital needed to build a sustainable infrastructure in this country is that we squander it all on the kinds of investments that are:

    • killing us, and
    • clearly stupid at the time, no hindsight needed.

    Hmmm, I thought -- when Wall Street wants to issue a new stock, they have to put out a prospectus that warns the rubes about the key assumptions made and the vulnerabilities of the company being touted. Like when they want to sell stock in a company whose profits all depend on cheap energy, they have to include some warnings about that dependence in the prospectus.

    JMG Technology

  • The Amish dig it

    The Amish affinity for solar says something essential about the difference between fossil and renewable fuels. Not quite sure I know how to put it into words, though.

    David Roberts Climate & Energy

  • More climate-change initiatives from the original web geeks

    A few weeks ago I noted that Yahoo! has pledged to go carbon neutral in 2007. Today the company is making some more splashy green announcements. Company co-founder David Filo, along with Global Green and Matt Dillon (?!), will be taking to Times Square later today to announce a series of initiatives around climate change. […]

    David Roberts Technology

  • Some guy on CNBC

    There’s plenty of oil. We’re swimming in it! What I don’t get is, why does he think production-capacity limitations and geological limitations are mutually exclusive? (via Hugg)

    David Roberts Climate & Energy

  • Not exactly

    Wondering what to make of this? President Bush responded to a Supreme Court environmental ruling by settling on regulatory changes that don’t need congressional approval, the White House said Monday. Bush is announcing the steps he is directing his administration to take in a Rose Garden appearance later Monday. Read on down a little bit: […]

    David Roberts Climate & Energy

  • Consumers Say They’ll Stick With Coke

    Organic milk to flood U.S. market, Stonyfield yogurt hits Europe Batten down the hatches: organic milk is about to flood the U.S. A combination of consumer demand and changing practices — a ruling last year required organic dairy farmers to switch to feeding moo-cows 100 percent organic grain instead of 80 percent organic grain — […]

    Grist staff Food

  • Reclaimed Brown Fields

    Leading British candidate announces plan to create eco-towns Gordon Brown, the man widely expected to take Tony Blair’s place as prime minister of Britain this summer, has made headlines with a splashy green announcement. Brown, currently the U.K. finance minister, said he intends to create five eco-towns that would meet a demand for affordable housing. […]

    Grist staff Cities

  • Let’s Give ‘Em Something to Not Talk About

    U.S. negotiators edit climate out of G8 climate draft Here’s a comforting thought for a Monday: your future is being played like a poker hand. Next month, the leaders of the G8 nations will meet in Germany along with the heads of China, India, South Africa, Mexico, and Brazil. With hopes of agreeing on climate-change […]

    Grist staff Climate & Energy

  • PBS interviews them some Grist

    Here’s Grist Supreme Leader Chip Giller on PBS’ Now:

    David Roberts Culture