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Articles by Jonathan Hiskes

Jonathan Hiskes is a writer in Seattle and a former Grist staff reporter. Find him at jonathanhiskes.com and on Twitter.

All Articles

  • Making sense of Wal-Mart’s big green announcement

    Wal-Mart made big news today with a major commitment to trim its greenhouse-gas emissions. Here’s the context: Over the past five years the retail giant has taken big, splashy steps to save energy, reduce waste, and sell cleaner products, like compact-fluorescent light bulbs. It’s given less focus to the impact of the factories that churn […]

    Jonathan Hiskes Technology

  • Talking Vancouver and successful urbanism on the radio

    Photo courtesy BinoCanada via FlickrThere’s only so much to say about the Olympics and climate change. If you’re going to have the games, you’re going to have a lot of air-travel emissions (which account for more than half the climate impact of the Vancouver games). The city of Vancouver, on the other hand, presents a […]

    Jonathan Hiskes Cities

  • Obama’s ‘director of game changers’ talks energy breakthroughs

    Arun Majumdar, director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, spoke at the University of Washington last Friday on the need to fund ambitious energy research.Grist photo/Jonathan Hiskes When the Soviet Sputnik beat American satellites into space in 1957, the U.S. tried to reclaim its technological edge by creating the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which […]

    Jonathan Hiskes Politics

  • Halliburton secret spurs investigation into gas-drilling practices

    Louis Meeks’ well water contains methane gas, hydrocarbons, lead and copper, according to the EPA’s test results. When he drilled a new water well, it also showed contaminants. The drilling company Encana is supplying Meeks with drinking water.Abrahm Lustgarten / ProPublicaThere’s a scandal brewing about hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a revolutionary process for extracting natural […]

    Jonathan Hiskes Politics