Grist List
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Look how much more space we'd have without sprawl
If we could just get everyone in the world to pack in a little tighter, we'd have a hell of a lot more open space to work with. Imagine the possibilities! We could pack everyone into the Midwest, fill Canada with wind turbines, and leave everything else for wildlife. Okay, maybe that's not realistic, […]
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Republicans love bike and rail — so why don't Republican politicians?
Listen up, Limbaugh: It's not actually ridiculous for a Republican presidential candidate to take global warming seriously. Americans want solutions, like bike lanes and increased public transit, that will address climate change, and that's true across the political spectrum. In a recent poll, 74 percent of Republican respondents supported bike lanes, and 80 percent wanted more public transportation.
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Critical List: Rich countries renege on Copenhagen promise; solar panels get cheaper
Remember when, at Copenhagen, richer countries responsible for most carbon pollution promised to supply aid to poorer countries suffering the consequences? Yeah, that's not happening.
People want to give Tony Hayward, the ex-BP head, money to buy oil and gas firms in emerging markets, perhaps because the idea of rich people fiddling with the economies of less-wealthy nations gives them warm fuzzy nostalgic feelings of colonialism.
The debt limit fight is going to kill any chance of climate legislation, forever. -
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Could eating poo-burgers save the Earth?
Eat sh*t, cattle farming industry! No, literally, eat sh*t. Japanese scientist Mitsuyuki Ikeda has developed a way to make meat substitute out of "sewage mud," which is exactly what it sounds like. He extracts (bacterial) protein from what is essentially a soup of human feces, then blends it with soy protein and steak sauce to form a sort of poop patty. According to initial tests, the stuff actually tastes like beef, which raises the question: WHO THE HELL DID THEY GET TO DO THESE TESTS?
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Military spends more to air condition tents than NASA's entire budget
Steve Anderson, a retired brigadier general who was Petraeus' chief logistician in Iraq, says that the Pentagon spends $20 billion a year just to air condition tents and temporary buildings in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's more than NASA's entire annual budget. There's an easy fix, says Anderson: Spray tents with polyurethane foam. An existing $95 […]
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The Senate likes ethanol slightly less than it used to
For years, Washington has been really gung-ho about putting corn (America’s crop!) into cars (America’s bikes!), and has supported corn ethanol production with a suite of subsidies. But now senators are ready to say: “With food prices rising, we're not so comfortable with that! Maybe people should eat the corn instead, in the form of some kind of high-fructose syrup.” esterday, the Senate passed a measure that would end a 45-cent-per-gallon tax credit for ethanol producers.
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Climate denier says solving global warming could cause Black Plague
James Taylor (the Heartland Institute guy, not the folk singer, alas) has discovered humoral medicine. See, the Black Plague was caused by too much cold, after the Medieval Warm Period petered out. (God, why didn't those medieval physicians think to treat it with hot poultices and baths to reduce black bile? SO OBVIOUS.) Anyway, if we manage to stem the global warming tide, according to Taylor, we'll be setting the stage for a new outbreak of plague.
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1 million Bangladeshis use solar as sole source of electricity
It's the fastest expansion of solar power ever, says the government of Bangladesh: From 7,000 households in 2002 to 1 million in 2011. Ninety million of Bangladesh's 150 million people have no access to electricity at all, so access to small-scale solar is transformative for this population.
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Beware the pollution-dumping space tube
It has a way of really hamstringing environmental activism. (Image via the always-hilarious Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.)
