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

  • Henry Waxman’s decade-long fight to improve the Clean Air Act

    Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) is the chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee and coauthor of the ACES bill passed by the House in June. Naturally, political observers are curious about his thoughts on the fight to pass climate/energy legislation this year, but in media interviews he tends to be careful, measured, and fairly abstract. […]

    David Roberts Politics

  • Blackout: Heinberg on dwindling coal reserves and the siren song of “clean coal”

    Blackout: Coal, Climate and the Last Energy Crisis, Richard HeinbergThere isn’t nearly as much coal left as most people think. “Clean coal” will run down limited reserves even faster. If humanity doesn’t begin massive, sustained investment in renewable power sources immediately, civilization could be at risk before the end of the century. And that’s without […]

    David Roberts Climate & Energy

  • Friday music blogging: Wussy (again)

    Wussy grew out of the remains of the Ass Ponys. (Lemme just pause a moment to savor writing that sentence …) The Ass Ponys labored at the fringes of indie stardom for years in the early oughts. After they flamed out, singer/guitarist Chuck Cleaver pulled together a new band called Wussy in 2005. Turns out […]

    David Roberts Uncategorized

  • Sarah Palin, George Will, and Potemkin debates

    While I was away on vacation (it was wonderful, thanks for asking), the Washington Post editorial page featured opinion pieces from Sarah Palin and George Will, two of conservatism’s leading, um, thinkers, revealing a great deal about the WaPo editorial page and the quality of conservative thinking. Rebuttal has been ably carried out by many […]

    David Roberts Politics