Latest Articles

UN reports are hott!

A while back, the UN put together a group of 18 distinguished scientists from 11 countries and gave it the characteristically catchy name "Scientific Expert Group on Climate Change and Sustainable Development." SEGCCSD, in the house! The panel was asked to come up with innovative ways to mitigate and/or adapt to climate change. The panel […]

Group Hug

Leading tech competitors bury the hatchet to improve energy efficiency Hold onto your geek hat: 11 leading tech companies have partnered to reduce the energy used by servers and data centers. The Green Grid — made up of foes including Intel, IBM, Microsoft, AMD, Sun Microsystems, and Hewlett-Packard — thinks data-center efficiency “is the most […]

You Can Poach an Egg, But You Shouldn’t Poach an Elephant

Elephants massacred as ivory trade picks up As many as 23,000 elephants may have been killed in just one year, as an international effort to stem the ivory trade has fallen to the wayside, particularly in Africa. Increased demand for white tuskiness in Japan and China, combined with declining funding for anti-poaching programs, has overwhelmed […]

Nisshin Accomplished

Burned out of business, Japan calls a halt to its annual whale hunt Japan’s whaling fleet, unable to recover from a mid-February fire that killed a crew member and disabled its main ship, has called off its controversial annual hunt a month early. While protesters expressed sympathy for the human loss, they also did a […]

Yes We Ken

London mayor unveils comprehensive climate-change plan London Mayor Ken Livingstone unveiled a Climate Change Action Plan yesterday in hopes of making the English capital the greenest city in the world. Under the scheme, London will switch 25 percent of its power supply to local generation, and businesses that invest in green technology will earn merit […]

And because it’s free

Oscar winner An Inconvenient Truth now available online, in its entirety.

‘Cause what else can we feed our cattle?

According to a recent story in the Corn and Soybean Digest, a group of 30 state and national agribusiness groups are asking the USDA to let farmers plant corn on land currently set aside for conservation through the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP).

And how progressives help

The right-wing smear on Al Gore is proceeding along a predictable path, spreading around with the help of a compliant media and lefties too naive to know how the game is played. The conservative movement loves to build its leaders up; progressives love to tear their leaders down. Here’s Olberman, gamely trying to look past […]

Global warming sneaks into the funnies

Recently I got suckered into a 12-week trial of my daily paper. I wasn’t sure I could maintain the pace — and honestly, since my job requires me to be online all day, I wasn’t sure I was really missing that much news. But I’m doing my best to keep up with the onslaught of […]

There’s a coalition waiting

Not trying to play into stereotype, but my guess is that most people on Grist aren't regular readers of National Review. I am. And the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Cato Unbound, Reason, and many other right-leaning publications. I often disagree with what they say, but as I tell my students, understanding those you disagree with is more important than understanding those whose opinions you share.

Also, every so often you come across an article like this, and you realize that sound environmental policy shouldn't be a left-right issue. The things most damaging to the environment are actually anti-market distortions such as subsidies and the incorrect pricing of polluting activities.

If environmentalists can develop a strong grasp of these fundamental economic principles they will realize that there is a huge potential bipartisan coalition just waiting to be formed that will make huge strides and can accomplish most of their goals.