Articles by Christopher Mims
Christopher Mims's dystopian non-fiction is sought after by an ever-growing roster of publications.
All Articles
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For the first time ever, renters can get solar incentives, too
There's a reason California is the largest solar market in the country -- I mean, aside from its abundance of sun. Namely, its regulators keep coming up with new ways to allow people to DIY-up their own distributed energy systems. Their latest brainstorm is a measure that allows renters to take advantage of the same solar incentives as people who own their own homes.
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Panasonic capitalizes on earthquake by replacing factories with ‘smart towns’
Panasonic, the largest appliance maker in Japan, has announced plans to shutter 20 percent of its 230 factories in order to cut costs. But rather than lose that land, the company is capitalizing on Japan’s post-earthquake need for housing. It’s replacing the factories with “smart towns,” featuring "solar panels, energy-efficient refrigerators and rechargeable batteries," the company tells Bloomberg.
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There are now more green jobs than brown ones, and they pay better
Green technology and clean power are now employing more people than the fossil fuels industries, says the Brookings Institution. A separate analysis of the same data indicates that the cleantech sector of those green jobs offer median wages that are 20 percent better than regular jobs. And the rate of job creation in this sector was twice that of the regular economy from 2003-2010. All this despite the notoriously inconsistent support for green jobs in the U.S.!
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Passive house mini-boom in NYC heralds furnace-free future
New York City and the rest of the tri-state area are getting their first wave of "passive houses," a type of construction in which a building is so well-insulated that it doesn't require heating in the winter.
