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The planet strikes back: Why we underestimate the Earth and overestimate ourselves
The Earth may look glum, but it’s not to be messed with.Photo: John LeGearThis essay was originally published on TomDispatch and is republished here with Tom’s kind permission. In his 2010 book Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet, environmental scholar and activist Bill McKibben writes of a planet so devastated by global […]
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How to explain climate change to Joe Sixpack
(click to embiggen) Look, not everyone's motivated by the threat of extreme weather events, rising sea levels, and threatened habitats. But nobody likes warm beer. Use this chart to put climate change in perspective for the beer guzzler in your life. (Note: Will not work in Britain.)
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Mitch Daniels has quacky climate views a la Michael Crichton
Mitch Daniels takes on the “climate change theocracy”Photo: Indiana Public MediaIndiana Gov. Mitch Daniels says he’ll decide by April 29 whether to run for the Republican presidential nomination. While he’s pondering his prospects, let us ponder his views on climate change. Turns out they’re a lot weirder than you thought. It’s well-known that Daniels has […]
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Even Osama bin Laden thinks we need to do something about climate change
You’d think people who are willing to blow themselves up any day now wouldn’t worry too hard about the future of the planet. But as it turns out, it really isn’t possible to get MORE cynical about the future than a congressional Republican — even if you’re an Islamic militant. Last October, Hezbollah guerilla chief […]
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Climate change kills our buzz, and vice versa
Grist’s offices are in Seattle, so we take this one really seriously: Climate change is threatening Costa Rica’s coffee crops. Coffee’s a fussy little plant, and it can’t handle extreme temperatures, so yields are going way down as temperature inches up. And if you think that’s a buzzkill, try this: An independent study by a […]
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Natural gas from fracking is worse for climate than coal, says new study
Photo: Erland HowdenNatural gas obtained through "fracking" — the increasingly common process of splitting open underground deposits with high pressure chemicals — now has an even bigger strike against it than its potential to contaminate regional water supplies. Fracking, it turns out, yields more global warming per unit of energy than coal — at least […]
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Nothing will change until greens mount some primary challenges
Don’t f*ck with us.So, 350.org and 1Sky are uniting. Interesting news! I was particularly struck by this bit from Bill McKibben and Betsy Taylor’s post: We have learned over time that you can’t win simply by explaining the crisis to political leaders; they may intellectually understand that they’re facing the end of the world, but […]
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Republican overreach may save EPA
[UPDATE: All four amendments to block EPA went down to defeat in the Senate today. McConnell’s, the one that would block EPA permanently, got only 50 votes — not as many Dem crossovers as expected. This isn’t the end, of course; it was just stage-setting. The big bid is to attach an amendment to a […]
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Watch a baby eagle hatch on live streaming video
[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.1011836&w=425&h=350&fv=] A fish hatchery in Decorah, Iowa is streaming a live feed of its bald eagle eggs. The first two hatched over the weekend, but number 3 is likely to go at any minute now (over the next couple of days, anyway). Keep an eye on the webcam for a rare chance to see […]
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World Bank to the poor: ‘Coal’s good enough for you!’
The World Bank — famous for funding gobsmackingly huge, planet-killing coal-fired power plants — is changing its tune, sort of. Under a new set of proposed rules, the Bank would only be allowed to fund gobsmackingly huge, planet-killing coal-fired power plants in the world's poorest countries. Progress! Okay, that sounds dastardly, but it’s a little […]
