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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Newt Gingrich is an idiot
This short video should utterly discredit Newt Gingrich:
Then again, if nothing has discredited this dimwit yet, it's hard to see what could.
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Obama's pick to head regulatory oversight agency draws criticism, sends Dave on tangent
Last week Obama announced that he'd be appointing Harvard Law professor (and prolific public intellectual) Cass Sunstein as head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.
You could be forgiven for reacting to that news with a large yawn. But it's important!
First of all, OIRA is a big deal -- the conduit through which the entire suite of federal regulations passes. It can be used, as it was under Reagan and Bush, to stifle such regulations, or -- as will hopefully be the case under Obama -- to make them smarter and more effective. Ezra Klein has a great rundown on OIRA here, explaining its history and significance.
Some progressives are worried by the appointment because Sunstein is an outspoken proponent of cost-benefit analysis (CBA), which has been the death of many a progressive reg. Over on The New Republic, NYU Law professor Michael Livermore makes the case that Sunstein is a good choice because CBA needs to be reformed rather than scrapped. (It's a case he and his colleague Richard Revesz have made on Grist more than once.)
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Do the emissions from a single Google search matter?
Apparently the question of how much greenhouse gas emissions can be traced to a single Google search is the hottest topic on the internets.
Research from U.S. physicist Alex Wissner-Gross says a single search produces 7g of CO2. Google says, nuh uh, it only produces 0.2g CO2 -- less than your personal computer generates while running it. Lots more here.
There may be some value in drawing attention to the substantial carbon footprint of the IT industry, but by the time this kind of thing gets filtered through the media it ends up yet another story about how every human action is a source of guilt and shame. Now they want us to search Google less?
In fact, the emissions of Google searches is a goofy distraction. As Joe notes, the internet has been a phenomenal driver of energy efficiency and dematerialization. Imagine how much clueless driving around has been eliminated by Google Maps!
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Thirteen years ago
"There's a strong possibility that Barack will pursue a career in politics, although it's not very clear yet."
-- Michelle Obama, in a 1996 interview with Le Monde (which also included her husband) that's just been published in English for the first time