Grist List

Embattled teen genius actually better, smarter than most people

Back in August, the Internet discovered Aidan Dwyer, a 13-year-old go-getter who worked out a way to make solar panels more efficient. Because nobody likes a 13-year-old go getter, the Internet basically told him NO YOU'RE WRONG.

Okay, so he should have measured power instead of voltage when testing his solar panel design. But it turns out Dwyer is totally getting the last laugh here, and is proving that nerdy 13-year-old go-getters actually are just better at life than most people on the Internet. Dwyer's spoken at PopTech's annual innovation conference and is scheduled to speak at the World Future Energy Summit.

Paris had the High Line before the High Line was cool

Oh, New York. You think that you've got a cool new idea, but always (always!) Europe beats you to it. NYC’s been getting all kinds of excited about its High Line park, an abandoned train platform converted into a wonderland of local plants, awesome places to sit and people-watch, and hibiscus ice pop vendors. But at TreeHugger, Alex Davies points out that NYC is just a couple decades late to the elevated park party. For almost 20 years, Parisians have been enjoying a stroll above city streets on the Viaduc des Arts. And just like the High Line, the elevated platform is a converted rail line.

Photos: What America looked like before the EPA

In 1972, the year-old EPA had photographers traverse the country to document the (often dire) state of the environment. This project, Documerica, was "the visual echo of the mission of the EPA," according to one photographer. Now, 40 years later, archive specialist Jerry Simmons has unearthed the photos and put them online at the National Archives website and on Flickr. It's a time capsule of life before the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts.

Critical List: Patagonia becomes a Benefit Corporation; oil industry threatens Obama

Patagonia has become a Benefit Corporation, which means it can prioritize goals other than profit.

The oil industry is sending a message to Obama: Approve the Keystone XL pipeline, or face the political music in 2012.

It is possible to avoid earthquakes when disposing of fracking wastewater. It's just really, really expensive.

The U.S. isn't the only country leery of the EU's carbon trading airline scheme: China's protesting, too.

Goths are the darkest treehuggers ever

Goths have been communing with nature since way before all you hippies. They commune with nature in much the same way as they commune with gravestones, i.e. by draping themselves over it in corsets and taking pictures. Maybe I just love the Goths Up Trees Tumblr because I've committed a goth-in-a-tree photo or two in my time, but also it's hilarious.

Fossil fuels receive 250 different kinds of subsidies

Even though renewables get federal subsidies for research and development, they’re still at a disadvantage when competing with fossil fuels, because fossil fuels receive even more subsidies. We basically all knew that already, but few of us realized it was quite this bad. Turns out fossil fuels get 250 different kinds of subsidies, and they’re getting more all the time.

Huge strides in fuel efficiency innovation canceled out by bigger cars

If, and this is true, automakers have made huge strides in fuel efficiency over the past 30 years, why aren't we all driving the 100 MPG ubercars we were promised at Epcot Center when we were but wee lads and lasses?

The answer is that our cars, like our homes and just about everything else we consume, have been supersized, says MIT economist Christopher Knittel.

Photographer turns unrelenting boringness of suburbia into art

Jason Griffiths is an assistant professor of design at Arizona State, and apparently living in the middle of all that desert sprawl got to him after a while. In the early aughts he jumped into a car, drove all over the country, and made a discovery so banal it’s practically a tautology: Suburbia is the same everywhere.

Newt Gingrich, ‘amateur paleontologist,’ knows science better than you

Sure, there's overwhelming consensus among climate scientists (and scientists in a host of other fields) that climate change is for realsies. These are people with doctoral degrees, decades of experience, high-end instrumentation, and mountains of data -- but are any of them amateur paleontologists? Newt Gingrich is, and that means he knows they're wrong, and so there.