Grist List

PETA wants to change ‘Tenderloin’ to ‘Tempeh District’

Is PETA a day early for April Fool’s, or have they simply whizzed past the point of self-parody? The group’s executive vice president has petitioned San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee to change the name of the city’s historic Tenderloin area to something that doesn’t glamorize meat. Of course, the Tenderloin isn’t actually named after a […]

Jess Zimmerman Cities

The nuts were right — airplane contrails WILL kill you

Wow, Fortean Times was right about something: Airplane contrails really are dangerous. The carbon emissions from air travel are profound, but the water vapor planes emit is just as bad, or worse. And airplane-spawned water vapor is what makes up the high, thin clouds known as contrails. Michele Bachmann would surely object — water vapor […]

Jess Zimmerman Health

California goes balls to the wall on renewables

As of 2020, California will be getting fully one third of its energy from renewable sources. So says a bill passed yesterday by the state assembly. It's a "renewable portfolio standard" so aggro that it makes a WWE elbow drop to the throat look like a tiddlywinks match played by pink cloud-people in a straight-to-DVD […]

Christopher Mims Uncategorized

Small number of senators ready to act like grownups

In the midst of a hair-pulling, face-scratching tussle over the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases, a number of senators are looking into reviving 2008’s bipartisan “energy gang.” The last gang crumbled under bickering about high gas prices — but not before swelling its ranks to 20 senators, and putting forth a bipartisan plan that […]

Jess Zimmerman Energy

Arnold Schwarzenegger and the mayor of London walk into a bike share …

That's not a joke setup, it's just Thursday. The Governator and the London mayor tooled around on two-wheelers today, looking awkward and getting hollered at by photogs, to promote Mayor Boris Johnson's new bike share plan for the city. Schwarzenegger praised bikes' ability to let you "eat a few extra wiener schnitzel and … get […]

Jess Zimmerman Transportation

Where does Obama stand on climate change?

Obama didn’t say much about climate change in his speech yesterday, even as he laid out some ambitious energy goals. This leaves the media and activists guessing at what his next move will be — he’s a sort of Schroedinger’s President, who can be interpreted as a climate hawk or a climate wuss. Here are […]

Jess Zimmerman Energy

Map: Every nuclear reactor on earth, present and future

Where my nuclear reactors at? HUH!?! Climate Central just rolled out a series of interactive maps to help you figure that out. Here's the world shaded according to how many nuclear reactors each country has: USA! USA! We have 104. That's almost twice as many as France. France is much smaller, sure, but also, they […]

Christopher Mims Technology

Getting to 100 percent renewables in 20 years

Boffins at the Institute for Policy Research and Development in London have calculated just how much fossil fuel we have to burn to get to the point that we never have to burn them again. Their paper, "A Solar Transition is Possible," argues that in a best-case scenario, "a renewable energy infrastructure could double present […]