Grist List
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Critical List: More Midwest deaths after storms; White House, NASCAR go green
More deaths in the Midwest after storms hit Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. Some areas of Texas have received less than one-fifth the normal amount of rain in the last six months. The drought has cost $1.5 billion so far. But these catastrophes are totally unrelated, right? Bill McKibben takes his sarcastic stick to anyone who'll […]
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Denmark calls in armed commandos to fend off Greenpeace
Hippies near an oil rig! Send in the SWAT team! The Guardian is reporting that armed Danish commandos have been helicoptered onto an oil rig off Greenland, out of fears that Greenpeace activists will interfere with the rig’s deepwater drilling. Apparently Greenpeace has sent two ships to monitor the rig, owned by Scottish company Cairn […]
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Chicago’s government prepares for climate change to turn the city into Baton Rouge
While other cities ignore climate change, Chicago is doing the obvious: planning its infrastructure as if the next 50 years, and the next generation of Chicagoans, actually matter. Its efforts, started under one of the mayors Richard Daley (we can’t keep track), are now bearing fruit, leading to everything from flood-proof streets to heat-tolerant trees. […]
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Japan to mandate solar panels on all new buildings
What do you do if your country depended on nuke plants for energy, but is now too freaked out about nuclear disaster to trust them anymore? You harness the awesome nuclear power OF THE SUN! At least that’s the plan of Japan’s prime minister Naoto Kan, who announced an energy policy that may require all […]
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Authorities finally admit that all three reactors at Fukushima melted down
It's official: All of Fukushima's working reactors saw drops in their water levels sufficient to melt their radioactive cores. (Experts have been telling us this for months, but Japanese power company TEPCO wouldn’t acknowledge it.) The only way the self-immolation of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex could get any worse would be a large […]
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Are the Kochs pushing for an international oil pipeline?
House Republicans are trying to speed up the review process for Keystone XL, the controversial pipeline that would carry oil from Canada’s oil sands all the way down to Texas. This is potentially very dangerous, probably overpriced, maybe unnecessary, and almost certainly advantageous for certain corporate bigwigs. In other words, it stinks of unwashed Koch. […]
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No bike lane? Make your own!
"Safety First" is a video art installation in Prague, not an actual solution to the lack of bike lanes. We don't recommend projecting a custom bike lane off the front of your ride — or, I mean, go ahead, but that doesn't really make that staircase/train track/highway into a protected lane. But it's still cool […]
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Tim Pawlenty is not interested in winning Iowa
Here’s a great way to start your campaign in Iowa: Tell them you want to phase out ethanol subsidies. Classic Tim Pawlenty! Does he even want to be president? Grist is no fan of corn ethanol, mind you — if you have a spare moment you should get Tom or Dave started, it’s super entertaining. […]
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Monorails suddenly a thing again
Futuristic as they look, monorails never really got a toehold outside of airports, Disney World, and I Can Haz Cheezburger. Now elevated single-track trains might be getting a second chance to become the transportation of the future. Part of the problem with monorails is that they’re slow, and part of it is that they’re really […]
