Articles by David Roberts

Fun

Arnold Creek Productions has a whole series of short films -- mainly clips of smart people talking -- about sustainability and related matters. Lots of good stuff.

For instance, you can watch Michael Shellenberger & Ted Nordhaus say reasonably valid things in a tone of insufferable smugness.

Or, if you're less cranky, you can watch pastor Jim Wallis talk about why global warming is a religious issue.

A note to Arnold Creek (and this goes to all the folks out there making online videos): Quicktime won't work on some browsers, and works poorly in others. Same for Real and Windows Media. Start using Flash, like YouTube. And make it easy to embed your videos on other web pages. There's no excuse not to any more.

Unsolicited tech advice: part of the Gristmill value add.

Travis Bradford thinks so

This afternoon I talked with a guy named Travis Bradford, who has a new book out called Solar Revolution (you can read sample chapters here). In it, he makes a rather bold and startling claim. To paraphrase:

In coming decades, solar energy is going to become the dominant energy source on the global market. This is true irrespective of possible increases in the price of fossil fuels; irrespective of possible global warming regulations; irrespective of government subsidies; irrespective of possible future technological advances. Even given conservative assumptions about all those factors, the tectonic forces at work in the global energy situation make solar's dominance inevitable.

Bradford is not some hippie dreamer. He comes from the world of corporate finance, investment funds, and other such things I don't understand. (He now runs the non-profit Prometheus Institute for Sustainable Development.) He doesn't make predictions idly.

Anyway, the Q&A will be up on the site in a week or two. This is just the kind of person I love to meet -- young, knowledgeable, forward-thinking, and in the thick of things rather than shouting from the sidelines. I may try to absorb him into the Grist Borg.

Weigh in on the question

Wiscidea raises an interesting question: Could GM be used to reduce the need for fertilizers and pesticides and boost the organic-food market? Would the sustainable-food movement accept genetically modified organic food?

Put aside for a moment the execrable global corporate-welfare copyright clusterfuck that is the current GMO industry.

Imagine instead collaborative, transparent open-source biotechnology, fueled by volunteers or money from progressive foundations, wealthy donors, and NGOs. Unlikely? Yes. But imagine.

Would environmentalists accept it, or is there something intrinsic to genetic manipulation that greens are supposed to object to?

What do y'all think?

Doesn’t exist.

It is practically a cliche among mainstream financial journalists that slowing (or zero) population growth is a threat to a country's economic health. Economist Dean Baker -- whose site is must-reading -- debunks the notion.

In other news, I'm going to be out all day, painting my new house while the kids are in daycare. See you tomorrow.