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

  • Does Facebook deserve the hell it’s catching from Greenpeace?

    Social networking giant Facebook has been taking heat from enviros recently for its decision to site a massive new data center in Prineville, Ore. The issue? Pacific Power, the utility that serves Prineville, gets most of its power from coal, the enemy of the human race. Greenpeace International has started a Facebook group opposing the […]

    David Roberts Technology

  • Why Bill Gates is wrong

    Bill Gates is sad that David Roberts thinks he’s wrong.Photo: redmaxwell via FlickrBill Gates, the Microsoft founder and philanthropist, made waves last week when, at the much-celebrated tech conference TED, he proclaimed that climate change is the most important problem facing the planet. Wo0t! Obviously having someone of Gates’ stature supporting the clean energy race […]

    David Roberts Politics

  • Two books that blew my mind

    I have a piece in the latest issue of the American Prospect called “This Is How You’ll Get There.” It’s a review of two books: Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), by journalist Tom Vanderbilt, and Reinventing the Automobile: Personal Urban Mobility for the 21st Century, by […]

    David Roberts Culture

  • Friday music blogging: Midlake

    With their beguiling 2006 album The Trials of Van Occupanther, Texas band Midlake were at the leading edge of a wave of beard music (Band of Horses, Fleet Foxes), but their sound was idiosyncratic, mixing Fleetwood Mac and Fairport Convention, ’70s California hippie rock and mystical ’60s English folk harmonies, in a way that sounded […]

    David Roberts Uncategorized