Grist List

Firsthand accounts from inside Texas' raging inferno

Texas, which is rapidly turning into just the sort of desert we were promised it would soon be, has already seen a year of record-breaking drought and out-of-control wildfires. Now the flames are threatening residential areas, even the state capital itself.

Bear steals Prius

Here's a cautionary tale for hybrid owners: A Prius-owning family in California lost its car to a joy-riding bear. 

Here’s what happens to EPA whistleblowers (hint: it isn’t pretty)

Marsha Coleman-Adebayo's new book, No Fear: The Whistleblower's Triumph Over Corruption and Retaliation at the EPA, tells about the ordeal she went through while working at the EPA in the 1990s. She told NPR:

For me, working at the EPA was a very harrowing experience. … I was surprised that the in environment of the EPA, instead of being rewarded for being proficient in what you do, loyalty was a much greater value. When I began questioning U.S. policy, I was considered disloyal. And at that point, at the minds of many people at the EPA, I had become their enemy.

Coleman-Adebayo says she faced racial and gender-based discrimination during her time at the office. But her real problems started when she questioned her supervisors' reaction to a problem she found out about while working with the 1996 Gore-Mbeki commission in South Africa.

Even Tea Partiers don't think environmental protection kills jobs

Yale University and George Mason University took a deep dive into the relationships between political identity and views on climate change. In other words, they tried to figure out what the hell is going on in the minds of Tea Partiers. Godspeed, brave souls.

Here's what sets Tea Partiers off from the rest of us:

• They do not believe global warming is happening. Duh. Only 34 percent of Tea Partiers believe in global warming, vs. 53 percent of Republicans. 53 percent of Tea Partiers aren't even wavering: they know global warming's not happening.


• Those snowstorms last winter made them wonder if global warming was real at all.


• They seriously believe there's disagreement about the science behind this stuff.


• They're so damn sure of themselves!

Critical List: Oil industry says it has jobs to offer; Senate could cut clean energy funding

Need a job? Alberta's tar sands industry wants YOU.

But if you want to stay in this country, never fear, the oil and gas industry wants to create jobs here. On the one hand: Yay jobs! On the other hand: Boo oil and gas industry!

A European court put the kibosh on honey that contains even a tiny bit of pollen from GMO crops. If we know Monsanto, they’re now working on a genetically modified bee that neutralizes evidence of genetic modification from the genetically modified pollen it collects.

Light pollution is stealing our night sky — here's how to get it back

This (left) is your sky. And this (right) is your sky on ONE MAJOR LIGHT SOURCE. So it's no surprise that suburban starscapes have been totally desaturated by the lights on buildings, roads, and parking lots. Less than half the U.S. -- and almost none of Europe -- has dark enough night skies to see the Milky Way.

Mom could be arrested for letting her kid bike to school

There are a few factors that make it tricky for kids to bike or walk alone: Bad drivers who face insufficient consequences, lack of sidewalks and protected bike lanes, too few crosswalks. We COULD improve biking and walking infrastructure, and have cops actually crack down on illegal driving maneuvers. But that's hard! Instead, let's just arrest everybody who doesn't drive their kids to school. That appears to be the approach in Elizabethton, Tenn., where Teresa Tryon has been threatened with arrest if she keeps letting her daughter bike to school on her own.

Don’t tell Bachmann, but lightbulb standards were a Republican idea

Republicans have been whining about the Obama administration’s liberty-squashing decision to phase out inefficient incandescent bulbs in favor of CFLs, LEDs, and (surprise!) more efficient incandescent bulbs. But (double surprise!) the idea of requiring efficient lightbulbs sprang fully-formed from the head of a Republican, Michigan Rep. Fred Upton. 

Las Vegas actually pretty good at conserving water

The Las Vegas strip likes to pretend it’s flush in all manner of luxuries, including water -- even though Lake Mead, which provides the city with water, could disappear within the next decade. Running a giant fountain or indoor canal in the middle of the desert is the hydrological equivalent of flashing fat stacks of cash. But while casinos aren't exactly down with water conservation (that’s for poor people!), the Las Vegas government is.