Iowa

Obama’s Partnership for Sustainable Communities will put the feds’ weight behind smart growth

The word “silos” is most often used to talk about grain or coal, not the federal government. But in the case of transportation and housing — two sectors that accounted for more than 43 percent of the nation’s carbon emissions in 2008 — Washington’s siloed approach of divided, blindered policymaking could put wheat farmers to […]

Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) [UPDATED]

Chuck Grassley Sen. Chuck Grassley has dodged and weaved when asked whether climate change is a human-caused problem that needs to be taken seriously, as David Roberts points out. Grassley exhibited that same tendency in an email he sent recently to constituent (and Grist reader) Ben Thompson, who had asked the senator about his views […]

Chuck Grassley does not believe in the threat of anthropogenic climate change

Chuck Grassley In a Tuesday conference call with Iowa agricultural reporters, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) offered some state-of-the-art Republican doubletalk on climate change (maybe he read it in Glenn Beck’s book). This is worth reading in full, in part to admire the blithely inconsistent muddle of it all, but also in part to marvel at […]

Iowa City needs bike sharing

CPSC.govKnow what’s awesome? Bike sharing. Know what’s not awesome? Bike sharing programs that get wrecked by theft and general disregard. As many of them seem to do. But let’s hear it for optimism: Check out this editorial in the daily paper of the University of Iowa. It lays out plans for a bike-sharing program based […]

15 green-leaning mayors

Climate change is a global problem — but as of yet, there’s no global solution. That’s why mayors across the U.S. are taking action, from building green to organizing bike rides, from redeveloping downtowns to cutting emissions. Here are just a few of the municipal leaders who have worked to take our collective future into […]

From Washers to Wind: Obama in Iowa

Yesterday was the 39th anniversary of Earth Day, and to mark the occasion President Obama was in Newton, Iowa, to speak about clean energy. Newton is one of those towns where most of the residents are employed by one major employer, and until October 2007, that employer was Maytag. So when Whirlpool bought Maytag and […]

Climate Central takes on Iowa corn

Climate Central bills itself as "a think tank with a production studio." This is what they do:

Using both staff experts and an extended blue ribbon network of scientists, Climate Central assesses and synthesizes the latest science, technology, and policy proposals. Our experienced communications team turns that information into creative, easily understood, and graphically rich pieces for print, television and the web.

They've got some serious names behind the project, including John Holdren and Jane Lubchenco before they were snapped up by the Obama administration. (Full disclosure: Grist board member Ben Strauss is a member of the CC team.)

CC just got up and running recently -- the full site doesn't debut until Spring -- but it's already turning out some great stuff. The latest is "Iowa: Corn and Climate," a video that recently aired on PBS's The News Hour with Jim Lehrer. Here it is (starts about a minute in):

The coolest thing, though, is that the video comes with an annotated transcript that takes virtually every sentence and substantiates it with a relevant bit of science, news report, or infographic. You get the public-friendly video and the wonk-friendly reference work, all in one package. Not bad.

CC aims to be an impeccably credible source of information on a highly contested set of subjects. It looks like they're off to a great start.

An Iowa sustainable-ag legend speaks on her experience with the former governor

This is a guest post by long-time Iowa organic farmer and food activist, Denise O’Brien, who narrowly lost a bid for the state’s secretary of agriculture post in 2006. —– The phones, emails, and blogs are abuzz with the Obama appointment of former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack as the new secretary of agriculture. On one […]

Grassley calls McCain out for inconsistency on subsidies

I don’t know if everyone else will find this as hilarious as I do, but here’s a story about Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) criticizing McCain’s energy positions as “inconsistent.” You see, McCain opposes ethanol subsidies because he thinks subsidies distort markets. But he supports massive subsidies for nuclear. So, is Grassley’s point that McCain should […]