Articles by Christopher Mims

Wall Street and ethanol cause starvation, say scientists

Today's supervillains are soooo boring. If only they'd wear tights and touch entrapped damsels’ hair in a way that made us uncomfortable, we'd be up for patriotically pistol-whipping them, Captain America style. Instead we find out that Wall Street and ethanol -- a diffuse network of trading computers and a colorless inebriant, respectively -- are the reason billions are going hungry in the developing world. How are we supposed to launch a hideously expensive vendetta-war against that?

Greens join Occupy Wall Street, protest against everything being super screwed up

In all of the navel-gazing that climate activists conduct in order to figure out why the world is on the highway to carbon hell, one thing that's easy to forget is what we're up against: Gigantic, tremendously wealthy entrenched interests whose only goal is to maintain the status quo right up until the Once-ler burns the last of our fossil fuels. In other words, corporations.

Corporations fund the climate denial machine, lobby for subsidies to keep themselves viable long after the social and environmental costs of their ways have become egregious, and at the slightest provocation, sic their anointed party on any alternative energy that should threaten their unsustainable model.

That's why it should be no surprise that a movement aimed, at least vaguely, at reducing the power of corporations should be appealing to anyone who cares about the future of life on earth.

Detroit everyman uses DIY moxie to turn his town into a solar mecca

Dave Strenski, resident of Detroit exurb Ypsilanti, got it into his head that he would help the local food co-op reduce its bills by installing solar panels on its roof. And he didn't let his complete lack of experience with solar stand in the way. At this point, he's not only put solar on the […]

Plane flies 200 miles in two hours on just electricity

Pipistrel-USA's Taurus G4 won the NASA's CAFE Green Flight Challenge (top prize $1.35 million!) by flying 200 miles in under two hours, using an amount of electricity equivalent to less than two gallons of gas. Google sponsored the competition, which is supposed to stimulate the “electric plane industry.” Who even knew there was an electric […]