Articles by Grist staff

Eban Goodstein invites you to join in the largest climate teach-in ever

"If there's no action before 2012, that's too late. What we will do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment."
-- Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

If these words don't get you off your butt, you better check and make sure you have a pulse. Yet what can we (everyday Americans, readers of Grist) do now, today, that will be strong enough to change the course of our future? Strong enough to overcome the powerlessness and denial gripping our country?

It is clear that we are standing at a critical moment in human history. Unless we begin to cut global-warming pollution within a few short years, a window for our children and the creatures of this earth will close. Forever.

Instead of stabilizing at 3 to 4 degrees F more warming, the best our kids will be looking at will be more than 5 degrees F. And every 10th of a degree matters, because it raises the possibility that we might trigger some catastrophic outcome -- massive sea-level rise, loss of forests globally driven by intensified fire, or large-scale methane releases from the tundra, pushing temperatures even higher.

Today, cutting emissions on the scale required in the United States seems barely possible. Our nation is, truly, paralyzed. Yet this is a peculiarly American kind of paralysis, one we all understand from high school civics. Our system of government, with its checks and balances, was designed for gridlock, allowing an organized minority to block movement toward change. And yet we all also learned how we overcome this gridlock. When our government fails, Americans set aside their everyday business and drive the country in a new direction. From abolition to women's suffrage, labor rights to civil rights to anti-war causes, again and again, social movements reclaim the moral vision at the heart of America and set a new course for the country.

Over the next year, a powerful, nonpartisan movement demanding global-warming solutions will sweep across this country and change the future, change our future.

Or it won't.

Each of us now has to decide: Will I be a leader in that movement? The science is clear. Our future will be determined, literally, by the readers of this post, who have heard the truth and have said yes -- or will say yes -- to this challenge. And unlike our forbearers, we are not threatened by dogs, fire hoses, blacklisting, firing, beating, torture, imprisonment, or lynchings. We are free (if we choose) to create the future.

Here is how today, this week, you can lead:

Britain will push ahead with nuclear power

As expected, Britain has announced that it will push forward with a new generation of nuclear-power plants, to supplement other low-emission energy sources as a means of fighting climate change. Nuclear operators say they can get stations running by 2017. Britain gets about 18 percent of its electricity from nuclear power; radioactive waste is currently […]

Tata Motors unveils world’s cheapest car in India

Photo: TaTa Motors The world’s cheapest car was unveiled in India today by Tata Motors, which hopes that its new $2,500 subcompact will help make car ownership a reality for tens of millions of people. The Tata Nano gets respectable gas mileage, up to 58.8 miles per gallon, and meets India’s emissions standards, but its […]

Use of “smart grid” technology could save U.S. $120 billion, study says

A yearlong study by the Department of Energy has concluded that when consumers are given the means to closely track and adjust their energy usage, power use declines by an average of 10 percent. In addition, the study found that households’ electricity usage during peak times fell by up to 15 percent. The study estimated […]