wildfire

Congressional staffers will stop betting on wildfire destruction

We here at Grist mock a lot of people. But we don't always manage to mock some sense into them. Which is why we're pretty psyched about the response to Sarah Laskow's feature story revealing that congressional staffers were making deadly wildfires into a fun office pool: 

McKie Campbell, the [Senate Energy and Natural Resources] committee’s Republican staff director, said the contest has been stopped.

“It will never happen again,” he said in an interview Wednesday. “It was in no way indicative of disrespect for any of the folks who put their lives on the line to battle the fires.”

Critical List: Texas’ neverending wildfire season; clean energy investments could double

Texas' wildfire "season" has lasted for more than a year and won't end anytime soon. Obama: "Over the long term, [reducing carbon emissions] is good for our economies." By 2020, investors could be pouring $395 billion a year, double the current total, into clean energy. Only about half of the Department of Energy's spending for […]

Critical List: Texas drought is a natural disaster; climate change causes extreme weather

After months of drought, the federal government declared 213 counties in Texas natural disasters.

Even if wildfires stay clear of Los Alamos, burning trees and heated soil contaminated with residual radiation from old nuclear tests could be a problem.

Here's the scientific explanation for why extreme weather can be connected to climate change.

Critical List: Wildfire threatens Los Alamos; a sweet electric bike

In Arizona, the wildfire is at the edge of Los Alamos National Laboratory, which has radioactive materials and other nasty stuff on the premises. It’s all safety stored, the government says. We’re also being told that everything’s cool at that nuclear plant in Nebraska that’s knee-deep in the flooded Mississippi.

China's going to run out of water within 30 years at current rates of consumption.

More people want their own personal wind turbine, but it's not a status symbol. Yet.

Critical List: Oil prices drop; Soros invests in energy efficiency

Oil prices went down -- for about a minute, before they started climbing again -- after the International Energy Agency announced the release of emergency supplies.

The Department of Energy is backing the $2.6 billion Project Amp, which will install 733 megawatts of solar -- as much as was installed in all of 2010 -- in 28 states over four years.

To make it even clearer that the the vast liberal conspiracy has it in for dirty energy: The right wing’s favorite bogeyman George Soros joined forces with Google to invest $25 million in an energy efficiency company called Transphorm. (Don't worry, conspiracy theorists, it's only $25 million! They can't be that serious about this.)

Critical List: Al Gore praises Romney; a fifth Brazilian anti-logging activist dies

Al Gore is doing his best to ensure Barack Obama gets reelected. Yesterday, he endorsed Mitt Romney's climate stance.

The Arizona wildfire is the largest in the state's history.

A fifth anti-logging activist in Brazil was killed.

Your HD cable box uses more electricity than your refrigerator.

Science connects climate change and wildfires. Why won't the media?

One of the least controversial impacts of climate change is more frequent, severe, damaging wildfires in America's West. Why won't reporters say so?

Critical List: Sarah Palin’s emails on oil; Firefighters gaining ground on wildfire

Sarah Palin's emails show that even in private that she's not Big Oil's best buddy. In Arizona, the population of two towns was allowed to return home, and firefighters said they were more confident about containing the fire. Obama is visiting an LED manufacturer before convening his jobs council today; NPR asks if investing in […]

Critical List: Bean sprouts likely E. coli culprit; Exxon’s in on natural gas

There’s a high probability Europe's deadly E. coli did come from bean sprouts. We always knew they were gross. Nuclear Regulator Commission head Gregory Jaczko manipulated his colleagues into killing the Yucca Mountain nuclear storage compound, according to an inspector general report. Also, no one likes him. Lower winds are helping Arizona best that wildfire, […]