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
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Making buildings more efficient: It helps to understand human behavior
If I told you how much energy your neighbors use on average, and whether you fell above or below that average, would that induce you to save more energy? What if, depending on whether you came in above or below average, you got an emoticon on your energy bill? Say, a smiley face if you […]
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On ‘climategate’
Jeff Masters gets at something in his great piece on the “climategate” e-maelstrom that most press coverage leaves out: this isn’t our first time around the track. The Manufactured Doubt industry has been around for decades, working to thwart regulatory constraints on large corporations that make dangerous products. Not only are all the same techniques […]
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What to make of the new climate poll
There’s a new Washington Post-ABC News poll out on climate change; Juliet Eilperin’s got a good piece up about it (despite the terrible headline, for which she is not responsible). Having watched this story bounce around today, I’m frustrated yet again by how these polls are discussed. Here’s how I would write the lede to […]
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Making buildings more efficient: rationalizing retrofit markets
As I said in my last post, taking energy efficiency in buildings seriously means expanding our policy horizons beyond the blunt tool of raising energy prices. We have to think in creative ways about how to remove market and behavioral failures that inhibit cost-effective responses to today’s energy prices. How can we make efficiency markets […]
