Articles by David Roberts

Grist cooks lunch for America’s leading food writer

Today Grist had the somewhat surreal experience of hosting Michael Pollan, the nation’s premier food writer, for lunch. And just to make it more stressful, we decided to do a potluck — each of us brought in a dish. Cooking for Pollan! Yikes! Happily, he enjoyed the food, and we had a nice conversation. We’ll […]

Lil Peppi

"What's the solution? We're the solution. So stop with the excuses and make a contribution."

Word, Lil Peppi.

International energy group criticized for congenital ignorance and pessimism about renewables

Finally, someone is calling out the International Energy Agency for its absurd negativity about renewables:

The international body that advises most major governments across the world on energy policy is obstructing a global switch to renewable power because of its ties to the oil, gas and nuclear sectors, a group of politicians and scientists claims today.

The experts, from the Energy Watch group, say the International Energy Agency (IEA) publishes misleading data on renewables, and that it has consistently underestimated the amount of electricity generated by wind power in its advice to governments. They say the IEA shows "ignorance and contempt" towards wind energy, while promoting oil, coal and nuclear as "irreplaceable" technologies. In a report to be published today, the Energy Watch experts say wind-power capacity has rocketed since the early 90s and that if current trends continue, wind and solar power-generation combined are on track to match conventional generation by 2025.

This is important -- people wield those IEA reports like they're gospel. They do immense harm to green efforts.

Here's the full report on wind power [PDF] from Energy Watch.

Ricoh puts wind-powered billboard in Times Square

Just what every clean-energy advocate has always dreamed of:

(thanks LL!)