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.
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Michael Klare makes the case.
Michael T. Klare has another great piece up on Tom Dispatch, this one about the logic of global energy, which is pushing pretty inexorably toward conflict.
With prices rising all over the world and serious shortages in the offing, every major consuming nation is coming under increasing pressure to maximize its relative share of the available energy supply. Inevitably, these pressures will pit one state against another in the competitive pursuit of oil and natural gas.
Read the whole piece for the gory details....
Indeed, once a problem like energy security has been tagged as a matter of national security, it passes from the realm of economics and statecraft into that of military policy. Then, the generals and strategists get into the act and begin their ceaseless planning for endless "contingencies" and "emergencies." In such an environment, small incidents evolve into crises, and crises into wars. Expect a hot couple of decades ahead.
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GE commits itself to clean energy tech.
Tomorrow, GE chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt will announce that his company -- the fifth largest in the U.S. -- is devoting itself to what it calls "ecomagination": the growth of clean energy, clean water, and related technologies.
This is a very big deal, about which Grist will have more to say. For now, go read Joel Makower, who -- as with most big moves in the sustainable business sphere -- has been working on this behind the scenes.
Ecomagination, says Immelt, aims to "focus our unique energy, technology, manufacturing, and infrastructure capabilities to develop tomorrow's solutions such as solar energy, hybrid locomotives, fuel cells, lower-emission aircraft engines, lighter and stronger materials, efficient lighting, and water purification technology."
By almost any measure, it's a bold move. For GE, the fifth-largest U.S. company, it represents a strategic shift that could catalyze competition among some of the world's largest companies to accelerate the emerging clean-tech economy.
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Wouldn’t it suck if the earth was, like, blown up?
I saw The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy yesterday. I can't say it has an overt environmental theme, but certain parts do inspire a certain nostalgia for the earth. The whole earth, I mean.
You see, at the very beginning of the flick, earth gets destroyed to make way for an intergalactic bypass. Later on, however, our hero runs into one of the guys who helped build it (turns out the entire planet was a supercomputer designed to ... oh, nevermind). And the guy has a back-up copy. Yes, of the whole earth.
Anyhoo, this leads to one of the movie's few real moments of sentiment, as a montage shows trees and fields, crashing waves, blooming flowers, windswept mountains, and damn if it doesn't make you think, "hey, earth is pretty cool!" That might not seem like much, but for a dedicated urbanite like myself, living in a digital world where images of nature are cheap from overuse, it's something.
(As for the overall movie ... eh. It has a certain charm, but mainly it's just a busy, frenzied flurry, attempting to squeeze in as much from the books as possible. I've read the books probably 10 times each, and I still couldn't quite tell you what the movie's plot was, or why it ended when it did. Worth a matinee, I suppose.)
