Climate Climate & Energy

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  • Report finds massive hidden energy costs, mostly from coal

    A new report from the National Research Council on the “hidden costs of energy” is, frankly, stunning.  In a sane world, it would be headline news. Producing and using energy imposes all sorts of costs on public health, crop yields, ecosystems, recreation, educational performance … the list goes on. Many of these costs don’t end […]

    David Roberts Climate & Energy

  • Day of Climate Action shows power of web organizing. Join us!

    Bill McKibben and Chip Giller want you to get pumped up for the International Day of Climate Action.   When Grist was launched 10 years ago, a key idea behind it was that the web could be used to spread the news about what’s really happening across the planet. Turned out to be true. Now […]

    Chip Giller & Bill McKibben Climate & Energy

  • Will EPA veto or regulate the plunder of Appalachia?

    Big News: In a historic move, Lisa Jackson’s EPA threw down the gauntlet on mountaintop removal mining last Friday — after they had just compromised on another massively destructive mountaintop removal operation. Is this the beginning of the end of the plunder of Appalachia — or is the EPA moving sideways to regulate what its […]

    Jeff Biggers Climate & Energy

  • Coalfield uprising leads to arrests at W.Va. gov’s office

    Lorelei Scarbro speaking with Gov. Joe ManchinPhoto: Chris EichlerAs a supportive crowd sang, “This land is your land, this land is my land,” seven peaceful sit-in activists were arrested in Governor Joe Manchin’s office at the West Virginia state capitol at 5 p.m. this afternoon, as part of the growing national coalfield uprising to stop […]

    Jeff Biggers Climate & Energy

  • A little heresy on transmission

    The last thing renewable energy needs right now are new transmission lines. This statement is heresy in the green community, but there’s a danger that the increasing focus of green energy advocates on a new nationwide transmission superhighway may undermine the pursuit of near-term renewable energy goals. People are excited by renewable energy.  It’s clean.  […]

    John Farrell Climate & Energy

  • So what if global warming is a hoax?

    Maybe they’re right. Maybe the rightwing crazies have a point. Maybe global warming has all been part of vast leftwing conspiracy to stop us from funding terrorist states to the tune of $1 trillion a year through our oil imports; maybe the real agenda of the socialists is to reduce our use of coal, since […]

    Jason D Scorse Climate & Energy

  • Where the Sahara meets the Atlantic

    Rising sea levels are threatening the island homes of Mauritania’s Imraguen fishermen. Above, child plays alongside flooded landscape on Nair Island.Tim Bromfield / Atlantic Rising The Banc d’Arguin, where the Sahara meets the Atlantic in Mauritania, is a staging post for over two million exhausted migratory birds from Europe and Siberia. Terns dive for fish, […]

    Tim Bromfield Climate & Energy

  • Why Branson and SuperFreakonomics are wrong, in pictures

    This week, as reported by Andy Revkin, entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson said something heroically, world-historically stupid: “If we could come up with a geoengineering answer to this problem, then Copenhagen wouldn’t be necessary. We could carry on flying our planes and driving our cars.” Sir Richard was talking about removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. […]

    David Roberts Climate & Energy

  • ‘SuperFreakonomics’ will misinform readers on climate science

    Cross-posted from The Huffington Post. The forthcoming SuperFreakonomics, written by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, plays fast and loose with the scientific consensus on climate change. The book’s fifth chapter, “Global Cooling,” revisits a number of discredited arguments that misinform readers about the danger unchecked global warming poses to the United States and […]

    Melanie Fitzpatrick Climate & Energy

  • What will you do for International Day of Climate Action on Oct. 24?

    Get involved in the fight against climate change. Got plans for Saturday, Oct. 24?  Join up with climate-concerned citizens around the globe for the first-ever International Day of Climate Action, to demand that world leaders get moving in the fight against climate change.  More than 3,000 events in 170 countries are in the works, many […]

    Grist staff Climate & Energy