Climate Climate & Energy

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  • Cast your vote for the best climate journalism

    The climate problem is incredibly complex. Heck, it’s unfathomably complex to most folks, as it involves chemistry, computer models, economic development, and, of course, the weather. This complexity demands strong, explanatory journalism — the kind of fact gathering and storytelling that too many news organizations are ignoring in an era of declining budgets and celebrity […]

    Grist staff Climate & Energy

  • Clean energy opportunities

    Earlier this month, the Department of Energy announced $155 million worth of grants to clean energy projects -- specifically targeted to CHP, waste heat recovery, and district energy. There's an even better backstory.

    Sean Casten Climate & Energy

  • Copenhagen 101: The essentials on the climate talks

    Welcome! It’s not too late to get up to speed on the climate-change jamboree that begins Dec. 7. Here’s a short primer. What is this Copenhagen thing? It’s a gathering of negotiators from every United Nations member country who will try to come up with a plan to protect the world from catastrophic climate change. […]

    Jonathan Hiskes Climate & Energy

  • Inferno on Earth: Wildfires spreading as temperatures rise

    The following is a Plan B Update by my colleague Janet Larsen, the Director of Research for the Earth Policy Institute, about the connection between the increase of wildfires and rising temperature. Future firefighters have their work cut out for them. Perhaps nowhere does this hit home harder than in Australia, where in early 2009, […]

    Lester Brown Climate & Energy

  • Global boiling declares war on Thanksgiving

    Paul Bakus in a ruined pumpkin patch.Photo: Wonk Room Cross-posted from the Wonk Room. Our increasingly extreme climate is devastating American agriculture. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, strengthened by global warming, caused $1.6 billion in agriculture damage in Louisiana alone. Now it appears that a Thanksgiving mainstay — pumpkin pie — is next on the global […]

    Brad Johnson Climate & Energy

  • If Cousteau went to Copenhagen

    As we grapple with global warming, ocean acidification, and the possibility that life on earth really is doomed, it is with considerable chagrin that we recall how Jacques Cousteau sounded the general alarm thirty years ago. The celebrated underwater filmmaker, co-inventor of scuba diving, television star, sage of the environmental movement, and bon vivant died […]

    Brad Matsen Climate & Energy

  • API and ACCCE spend the big bucks

    Coal companies and the nation’s biggest railroad association accounted for 50 percent of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity’s (ACCCE) $47 million budget in 2008, according to ACCCE’s tax return, E&E News reported on Wednesday. Yowza! Arch Coal, Peabody, and Consol each put in $5 million; Foundation Coal put in just $3 million. Meanwhile, […]

    Peter Altman Climate & Energy

  • Make the kids pay: The economic effects of climate change on future generations

    If someone offered you $100 today or an inflation-adjusted $100 in 10 years, it’s unlikely you’d choose the latter. But if taking the money now cost your child’s generation billions of dollars, that option would seem pretty miserly. The debate over the economics of climate change boils down to that very calculation: how much are […]

    Michael A. Livermore Climate & Energy

  • Oil: enough energy to melt glaciers!

    Editor’s note: It seems that Al Gore reads Grist. And, um, doesn’t credit it. We’re just saying. From a sharp-eyed reader comes this ad for Humble Oil (which later merged with Standard to become, yes, Exxon). It may win the All Time Millenial Award for Maximal Irony. It’s from a 1962 edition of Life Magazine, […]

    David Roberts Climate & Energy

  • New York passes clean energy financing bill

    The New York State Legislature has not, of late, been able to agree on anything — the budget, same-sex marriage, and even, for awhile, which party was in the majority. But there is one thing they are unanimous about: clean energy finanancing. Last night, by a vote of 192-0, the famously combative body passed S66004-a/A […]

    Adam Browning Climate & Energy