Skip to content
Grist home
Grist home
Grist home

Climate Climate & Energy

All Stories

  • Economists weigh in on the need for stimulus spending

    The New York Times has a heartening story saying that the need for stimulus spending is widely accepted: But the extra spending, a sore point in normal times, has been widely accepted on both sides of the political aisle as necessary to salvage the banking system and avert another Great Depression. “Right now would not […]

  • Solar industry aims for grid parity in eight years

    Solar companies are getting some swagger: “We designed the eight-year tax credit extension very purposely,” said Rhone Resch, president of Solar Energy Industries Association. “We believe that at the end of that time, solar will have achieved grid parity, which means simply that we will be the lowest-cost source of retail electricity in almost all […]

  • Van Jones talks to Grist about his NYT bestseller on the green-collar economy

    By now, Van Jones is a familiar face on Grist (heck, he’s even got his own tag). David noted previously that Jones has a new book, The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems, and Jones wrote about the book here earlier this month. This week, Jones’ new book made […]

  • Report says energy efficiency significantly boosted California’s economy

    California’s energy-efficiency measures have created some 1.5 million jobs and saved residents about $56 billion in energy costs since 1972, according to a new study from the University of California at Berkeley. Overall, the study found that the state’s efficiency measures freed up billions of dollars that consumers would otherwise have spent on electricity bills […]

  • Castens on TV

    The Chicago NBC affiliate recently interviewed Tom Casten about waste heat recovery.  Granted, they chose the second-most attractive member of the Casten family for the eye-candy … but other than that, I think it’s a decent video.

  • NOAA’s arctic report card shows stronger effects of warming in Greenland and permafrost

    The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has released its annual Arctic report card with grim findings: Temperature increases, a near-record loss of summer sea ice, and a melting of surface ice in Greenland are among some of the evidence of continued warming in the Arctic, according to an annual review of conditions in the Arctic […]

  • Cloud Cult story the Weather Channel doesn’t want to share

    ForecastEarth, the eco-focused show on the Weather Channel, did a great piece on the band Cloud Cult last week. (Follow Grist’s Cloud Cult obsession here.) However, they have chosen not to make the video embeddable on other sites, despite using a service that offers that option. That drives me nuts. So in a useless and […]

  • Squabbling threatens E.U.’s climate goals

    The European Union’s climate goals emerged intact but shaky from a squabble-y summit held this week. The bloc is still aiming for a December deadline to finalize a specific action plan to reduce emissions 20 percent from 1990 levels by 2020. But under pressure from seven Eastern European nations and Italy, which fear the cost […]

  • Arctic region sees record-high autumn air temps, other changes

    Autumn air temperatures in the Arctic have hit record levels — some 9 degrees Fahrenheit above normal — according to a new assessment by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Researchers took a close look at the Arctic’s atmosphere, biology, land, ocean, and sea ice and concluded that “There continues to be widespread and, in […]

  • Take a fun quiz on energy

    Friends at West Virginia University have just compiled a 20 question energy quiz that provides some rather interesting “a ha” moments. (There is no coherence to the abbreviated list of questions below other than the fact that I find the answers interesting and/or counterintuitive.) See how you do: If all of the CO2 produced in […]