Articles by David Roberts

ReadyMade: Depression posters for today

ReadyMade asked a group of graphic designers to "reimagine the populist poster art of the first Great Depression." The results are cool, and a couple of them are greenish, like this one from Nick Dewar:

Friday music blogging: Ladyhawk

I'm in a rush here -- got an actual date with my wife tonight! -- but real quick: here's a song from a Canadian indie band called Ladyhawk, who combine rootsy twang with Hüsker Dü-esque wailing. I'm in love with this song and recommend the album, Shots, highly.

(Or download the album as mp3 files.)

New study: Efficiency investment better for Virginia economy and ratepayers than coal plant

You may or may not be aware of the huge ongoing fight in Virginia over the proposed Dominion coal-fired power plant in Wise County. Suffice to say, it's huge. And ongoing.

Into the fight drops a new report by ABT Associates, an independent research firm, which finds that -- surprise surprise -- efficiency is a far smarter investment:

The report compares the economic effects of building Dominion Power's Wise County coal plant with investing in energy efficiency measures that would meet the same electricity demand. The study finds that avoiding construction of the coal plant by investing in efficiency would save the average household in Dominion's service territory between $52 and $91 per year in 2012.

The report goes on to find that efficiency investments would also add far more revenue to the state economy and create thousands more jobs.

Got that? Better for the state economy, for ratepayers, and for jobs.

Now check out the first comment under this story about the report in a Virginia newspaper:

Question of the day

Why does Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon-Mobil, want a carbon tax?

Raise your hand if your answer is: because he sincerely thinks that is a more effective way to achieve the substantial emission reductions required to forestall catastrophic climate change.