Latest Articles

Blair gets thumb in eye

I forgot to mention this last week, but the Blair government’s decision that Nukes Rule has been dealt a grievous blow by the UK courts: A judge ruled Thursday that the government’s consultation process before making the decision was "seriously flawed" as well as "procedurally unfair", and granted Greenpeace an order quashing the decision because […]

The debate that has all the kids talking!

There’s been quite a bit of back and forth here recently about the merits of carbon offsets. Those interested in the subject should check out this new piece in the New York Times. It does an effective job of laying out the major criticisms, specifically around the lack of reliable monitoring and the dubious benefits […]

Goes Web 2.0

Big Picture TV, whose tagline is "talking heads, talking sense," has relaunched its website with a significantly improved design and a nicely implemented tag system (coming soon to a Grist page near you!).

They've migrated to Flash-based videos that can be browsed by category, tag or both, as well as speaker. And as I originally wrote, their speaker list is quite impressive.

I'm still not a fan of the talking head video approach (I need more visual stimuli), but their new site is clean and well organized. Check it out.

It’s new

The Wall Street Journal has just started a blog devoted to energy news, which unlike the rest of its content appears to be free. FYI.

How do you likey?

As many of you probably noticed over the last few years, the search function on Gristmill suuuuuu[time-lapse photography of sun rising and setting]uuuuucked. The blog is based on Scoop, and the search was just Scoop’s out-of-the-box search, which, I say again, sucked. Happily, our geek squad has done something about it. Gristmill search has now […]

What do you think?

The other day I mentioned Energy [R]evolution, a new report/initiative from Greenpeace around renewable energy and emission reductions. I highly recommend it. I’m afraid I can’t muster similar enthusiasm for this video they made to go along with it, though: [vodpod id=Video.14405&w=425&h=350&fv=] Perhaps it’s because I’m a parent now, but my impulse watching this, despite […]

Only it’s Abu Dhabi

Except it's Abu Dhabi investing $350 million in a 500 MW solar plant. My colleague JP Ross just traveled there and met with those guys -- they are serious as a heart attack about building large-scale, central-station solar power.

When even these guys get it ...

In unrelated news, I once heard a story about a company that was entirely dependent for their raw materials on a single supplier. This company heard that their supplier was investing in other products, but thought nothing of it. Soon, the supplier announced they were out of the raw material, and the company went bankrupt. Sad story, huh?

No, you watch it

Michael Crichton appeared on Charlie Rose last night, for an hour of conversation in defense of his global warming skepticism. I have not seen it, and don’t think I’d be physically capable of sitting through the whole thing anyway. Michael Crowley found Crichton’s strained innocence about his political advocacy rather much to take. Over on […]

Smackdown!

File this under "A sign of things to come." A coworker here at Orion magazine buys corn to feed his daughter's sheep, and he reports that his supplier is in a quandary about how to afford the stuff himself these days. Everyone and his brother sees the demand for corn to make ethanol coming, sending corn futures through the roof and driving up prices today.

The Way to a Manchester’s Stomach

New study says some organic food no better for the environment In case you weren’t confused enough about your grocery shopping, a government-sponsored study in the U.K. has added a possible twist. It suggests that some organic foods may not be better for the environment than their conventional counterparts. While the 200-page study by the […]