Latest Articles

Stop worrying about it

There may be good reasons not to frame global warming as a certain, imminent catastrophe that requires immediate mobilization — what Matthew Nisbet calls the "Pandora’s Box" frame. I’ve argued myself that fear is not the green’s friend in the long term. If nothing else, that kind of framing just doesn’t seem to be working. […]

The Choice of a New Generator

Dirty diesel generators proliferate in developing countries The good news: Access to electricity is spreading to previously unserved areas, allowing residents of rural villages to grow more crops with electrically powered irrigation pumps and connect to the rest of the world through television. The bad news: The most common power source for these communities is […]

Never gets old

The Financial Times says: "Beware the dirty hippies!" Dirty hippie Jerome a Paris responds.

Barack jumps on board with coal-to-liquid

Although not getting much mainstream press between his new ethics bill and being a beach babe, Sen. Obama is co-chairing a new Senate caucus to promote coal to liquids and, one would assume, his recently reintroduced legislation, according to E&E Daily (sub. req.).

When is West Virginia's presidential primary?

More wonky interview

DR: What happened with Prop. 87 [the Calif. ballot initiative to tax oil company profits]? TT: Well, it failed. It’s amazing what $97 million of misleading advertising from oil companies will do, even against $50 million from proponents. And to be honest and fair, not all of it was misleading. Some of it was true. […]

Wherein I finally get it all out

I realize we have long since passed the point of blog parody, with the number of words written about Revkin’s article now exceeding the number of words in the article itself by many orders of magnitude. But I gots more to say — a big ol’ rant I’ve wanted to get out for a long […]

Dealing with the generation gap in the eco-workplace

As director of program development at The Environmental Careers Organization, Kevin Doyle knows a thing or two about job searching. In this recurring column for Grist, he explores the green job market and offers advice to eco-job-seekers looking to jumpstart their careers. Environmental employers are losing their ‘boomers, and some are worried sick about it. […]

Cars

Joel Makower returns from the recently wrapped-up upcoming North American International Auto Show in Detroit and asks: Where was the green? On a related note, man oh man do I want one of these Airstream thingies.

We are down the rabbit hole

Holy snot! Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens (yes, that Ted Stevens) is sponsoring a bill to increase CAFE standards — the very standards he voted to eliminate in 2002. This is Stevens we’re talking about, so an ulterior motive is a mathematical certainty. I suspect he’s making deals or at least trolling for good will to […]

I still think Lieberman’s a turd

… but I was never torn about whether to support Joe Lieberman. Here’s what he’s up to now: Lieberman was praising Bush as a “great leader” for bucking American opinion, as expressed in the 2006 election, in his determination to double down in Iraq. Lieberman then said something incredible: Even those opposed to the surge, […]