Climate Technology

Critical List: Climate change is happening (no, really!); the gas industry has some weird ideas

A Berkeley scientist who was once critical of climate science did an independent study that confirmed that climate change is happening and that common claims from skeptics are totally spurious. Skeptics are still skeptical.

Three-quarters of Americans think that the government should push harder on developing clean energy.

Shocker: The government also invested in electric cars and some of them were not perfect, i.e., THIS IS THE NEXT SOLYNDRA.

Natural gas companies don't understand why the EPA would want to make rules about fracking wastewater disposal: "We'll do it in a responsible way! Well, at least, we do now, after the New York Times revealed that we've just been dumping it into a river! But we'll do better! Honest!"

Politico doesn’t quite get it: The real problem with Solyndra media coverage

Media coverage of the Solyndra bankruptcy has been driven by conservatives, but the bigger problem is that it has completely lost touch with the real world.

Quantum levitation: Probably not the secret to hover-trains, but still amazing

A few places around the internet are calling this phenomenon — quantum levitation — the first step to magical hover-trains. This is probably not true, according to my physics source (it's my husband). Maglev trains use superconducting magnets, but that's just a type of electromagnet — it has nothing to do with the Meissner effect, […]

Northeastern states build giant electric vehicle network

A consortium of northeastern states stretching from New Hampshire down to Maryland is working together to construct an electric vehicle network. EV infrastructure is only just starting to build up, so it's great that states are coordinating on it, rather than each building their own system and creating a hodgepodge of nonsense that no sensible person could actually use.

Critical List: U.S. solar files complaint against China; crayon sculpture melts in Texas heat

American solar companies filed a trade complaint against China for dumping cheap solar panels in the U.S. market.

California could pass cap-and-trade.

Adrian Grenier from Entourage is opening a pop-up gallery in L.A. that focuses on sustainable living.

Tell us how to Occupy Grist

Occupy Wall Street could be the first step towards a saner, smarter future -- and Grist is there with you to help make sense of it.

E-waste idea: Turn an iMac into an aquarium

The iMac was built to be pretty. So why not sidestep the difficulty of recycling e-waste by making discarded iMac carapaces into something attractive for the home? Jake Harms had the clever idea to make them into aquariums, for "Mac and fish enthusiasts worldwide." The cases for his pre-made iMacquariums are sourced from recyclers, so you're not […]

New skimmer can capture nearly 90 percent of spilled oil

After the BP oil spill, the X Prize Foundation offered a $1 million prize to anyone who could come up with a better way of cleaning up oil. But the winning team, Team Elastec/American Marine, didn’t merely do better -- they blew other oil skimmers out of the water (ha). Their skimmer sucks up nearly 90 percent of spilled oil. You can check it out in the video above. The details, according to NPR:

Is the company behind GMO salmon the next Solyndra?

With the FDA only weeks away from announcing official approval of GMO salmon, parent company AquaBounty is struggling to stay afloat.

Huge, polluting container ships that carry all our stuff clean up their act

Everyone knows that our iPads, clothes, kitchen appliances, furniture—our entire lives, basically—are made in China. But everyone might not know the container ships that bring that stuff over to the U.S. are climate-destroying juggernauts. According to OnEarth, just one container ship emits as much sulfur oxide (the stuff that makes smog) per year as 50 million cars. Plus, shipping accounts for 3.5 percent of all GHG emissions, twice as much as aviation.

The good news is that air pollution rules are pushing container shipping companies to clean up their act.