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

  • The hidden costs and benefits of things we take for granted

    Raj Patel has an interesting list of “things that aren’t as cheap as you think,” with an always-welcome reminder that many industries and social practices have costs that don’t appear in the sticker price. These “externalities” are offloaded to the public; they represent, in effect, enormous subsidies. Free marketeers hate market-distorting subsidies, right? For the […]

    David Roberts Climate & Energy

  • A response to teabaggers

    This morning, my piece on the Audi “green police” ad made its way onto the Drudge Report. Grist got crushed with traffic, and as always when my work drifts into the rightosphere, I got some choice emails. Most emailers objected to my use of the terms “teabag” and “teabaggers.” Appaaarently, there’s some sort of deviant […]

    David Roberts Politics

  • Four stories that should have changed the media narrative … but didn’t

    One of the most frustrating things about covering national energy politics is that conventional wisdom in D.C. never seems to change. The incestuous circle of journalists, pundits, lobbyists, and lawmakers known as The Village has its own set of narratives about climate/energy policy. Those narratives are a) completely at odds with the rest of the […]

    David Roberts Politics

  • The unheralded significance of the Audi ‘green police’ ad

    Is it me or were the Super Bowl commercials this year unusually ugly, misogynistic, and, worst of all, unfunny? Some of America’s biggest corporations seemed to be trying to play to Teabag America, and the results were as bitter as the teabaggers themselves. Amidst the dreck was a commercial from Audi featuring the “green police.” […]

    David Roberts Technology