Articles by Emily Gertz

Federal energy bill moves to final round: House v. Senate showdown

The Senate passed its $16 billion version of the federal energy bill yesterday with an 85-12 vote.  Included: tax breaks and incentives for domestic oil and gas production; billions for clean energy, nuke power, and conservation; and, the "sense of the Senate" demanding that "the United States should demonstrate international leadership and responsibility regarding reducing the health, environmental, and economic risks posed by climate change."

(Search on 'S. J. RES. 5' for the 109th Congress at senate.gov to read the whole thing.)

Not included, as compared to the House version: Even more incentives for dirty energy production; immunity from defective-product lawsuits for manufacturers of MTBE, a gasoline additive that has fouled drinking water in hundreds of communities nationwide; drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. And the House certainly didn't include no namby-pamby non-binding resolution on reducing global warming.

So stay tuned for the next round, as the House and Senate duke it out in conference to reconcile their two versions of the bill.

Read more in today's The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times.

What a difference an ice sheet makes

Or, three. Not to mention a picture of what Britain will look like in 200 years if climate change melts the globe's three largest ice sheets. According to today's Scotsman, a new study suggests sea levels would rise some 275 feet. The U.K. mainland would turn into a North Sea Polynesia, with coastal towns and many cities disappearing completely. The center of London would be underwater. Hm -- those zombies in 28 Days Later are starting to look like a more manageable end-of-the-world scenario by the minute.

Of course, the big queston here is: how likely is this? And that's where respectable scientists disagree.

Emily Gertz

Greetings, Gristmill fans. I've been invited to guestblog here for the next couple weeks, while Grist's intrepid staff take their much-deserved publishing break.

I'm a freelance writer -- maybe you caught the dispatch I filed for Grist last month from the "Institutional Investor Summit on Climate Change" in NYC (good times, folks, good times!) -- and a contributor to the blog Worldchanging. Which I hope you are reading right after you read Gristmill every day. Or before. Or maybe you just have them side-by-side on your screen and somehow take them both in at once.

Speaking of vacations, you got yours planned yet?