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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U.S. government paying industry to pollute
Chris Hayes has a blockbuster scoop up on The Nation: “Pulp Nonfiction,” about how the U.S. government will pay the paper industry up to $8 billion this year to emit more carbon dioxide. Yeah, you read that right. The horror begins, as it so often does, with well-meaning efforts by Congress to encourage biofuels. The […]
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Myth: Democrats support good climate policy and Republicans oppose it
Energy and climate scramble the usual left-right political divisions. Many of the big fights are not among parties but among regions and levels of government. In the U.S. Congress, to be sure, the Republicans=obstructionists formula holds with virtually no exceptions save a tiny handful of remaining Senate “moderates.” Republican obstructionists are joined in the House […]
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Myth: Unlike cap-and-trade, a carbon tax is simple, immune to manipulation, & politically palatable
A strange-bedfellows political coalition, everyone from the CEO of Exxon to climate scientist James Hansen, supports a carbon tax as an alternative to cap-and-trade. Tax proponents allege that cap-and-trade is too complicated; too friendly to financial industry tricks and manipulations; too open to loopholes, cheating, and special pleading; too weak to work. This is all […]
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Myth: Consensus on policy is possible even among those who disagree about climate change
John McCain popularized this notion during his ill-fated presidential campaign, assuring skeptical conservative audiences that whether or not they believed in climate change, they should support clean energy policy. The appeal is clear enough: climate change is politically divisive. It’s “environmental” (ew!). It’s associated with Dirty F***ing Hippies (double ew!). If everyone can agree on […]
