Articles by Christopher Mims

EcoCar winner produces totally normal car that gets 81 MPG

Because Americans are big babies who would rather strangle their economy with energy shortages than drive a car that is even vaguely weird, the Department of Energy's EcoCar challenge asked a bunch of universities to build the most energy efficient car possible using a stock General Motors body and a bunch of fairly typical parts.

Supreme Court says Clean Air Act preempts state climate nuisance suits

The Supreme Court just ruled that regulating greenhouse gases is the Feds' job, as spelled out in the Clean Air Act. Good thing the Federal government is all over that one. (Sarcasm!)

1 million Bangladeshis use solar as sole source of electricity

It's the fastest expansion of solar power ever, says the government of Bangladesh: From 7,000 households in 2002 to 1 million in 2011. Ninety million of Bangladesh's 150 million people have no access to electricity at all, so access to small-scale solar is transformative for this population.

How oil and gas companies that deny climate change are adapting to it anyway

Next to agriculture, the industry most vulnerable to climate change is, arguably, the extraction of the very fossil fuels that are causing it, says Michael Cote at GOOD. And while this industry is spending millions to deny that climate change even exists and to block efforts to deal with it, it's also going to need to spend billions to cope with its effects.

Sure, climate change sucks harder than a collapsed star, but at least it's leading to ironies so vast that only particles of sputtering dumbfoundedness can escape.