Articles by David Roberts
David Roberts was a staff writer for Grist. You can follow him on Twitter, if you're into that sort of thing.
All Articles
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Two great tastes that taste great together!
If y'all want to do something nice for Grist without, you know, spending any money, you could bookmark GoodSearch as your main search site (or install the toolbar widget on your browser). Tell it to remember Grist as your charity of choice. Each time you search, half the resulting ad-sale revenue goes to us. Easy breezy and oh so sweet!
Of course, we are in the midst of a fundraiser, so you could spend some old-fashioned cash too. The phrase has become hackneyed from overuse, but it is nonetheless true: we depend on your generosity to keep going. Despite the bling-bling you see on the site every day, we are in fact a perpetually broke non-profit. Our wee staff runs like a crack-smoking gerbil on its media wheel 10 hours a day. Give us some nice gerbil food, won't you?
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Barbara Boxer is sweet talking us
Man oh man, I sure do like what I'm hearing from incoming Senate EPW Committee chair Barbara Boxer.
There's this:
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A new report ranks offset providers, all bogus-like
A new report (PDF) purporting to rank carbon offset providers has just been released. It was commissioned by Cool Air-Cool Planet and put together by Trexler Climate + Energy Services, a consulting firm run by Mark Trexler. Trexler rated 30 carbon offset providers with seven criteria, each on a 1-10 scale.
This stuff is super-wonky, so let me skip to my conclusion: The report is good reading, with some interesting discussion of various issues facing the carbon offset industry, but as a guide for average consumers looking to purchase offsets, it's not particularly useful.
The report's larger goal of encouraging transparency and quality is certainly laudable. But a simple ranking of industry players at this point probably confuses more than it elucidates. Many questions need to be worked out, and independent standards need to be established, before such a ranking can serve as a meaningful guide to action.
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Watch out, EPA dudes!
Kevin Drum flags this little bit from the latest Evans-Novak Political Report:
