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

  • Robert F. Kennedy Jr. takes on mountaintop-mining magnate Don Blankenship

    On Thursday the University of Charleston in West Virginia hosted a debate between Don Blankenship, CEO of mountaintop-removal mining firm Massey Energy Co., and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., environmental lawyer and founder of the Waterkeeper Alliance. I kept up a running play-by-play that can be accessed by scrolling back through my Twitter feed, but I […]

    David Roberts Technology

  • Murkowski’s floor speech on EPA regulations was full of deceptions

    This morning Lisa Murkowski took to the floor of Congress to introduce her joint resolution of disapproval, which would overturn the U.S. EPA’s endangerment finding deeming greenhouse gas emissions a threat to public health. It was one of the most spectacular displays of mendacity and misdirection I’ve ever seen from a U.S. senator, and that’s […]

    David Roberts Politics

  • Hanging EPA regulations around Democrats’ necks

    It has been taken for granted on the left that if Congress doesn’t pass clean energy legislation, the EPA will step in to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The threat of that eventuality was supposed to bring intransigent industries and legislators to the table. Only it hasn’t really worked as intended — […]

    David Roberts Politics

  • Stephen Colbert on mountaintop-removal mining [VIDEO]

    A couple weeks back, I covered a new paper in Science that constitutes the most comprehensive survey yet of existing scientific data on mountaintop removal mining. The conclusions were so stark and, frankly, horrifying that the scientists involved went the unusual extra step of calling for an immediate moratorium on the practice. Trust Stephen Colbert […]

    David Roberts Politics