Skip to content
Grist home
Grist home
Grist home

Climate Technology

All Stories

  • Top green stories of the ’00s

    POP ‘TIL YOU DROPCelebs and movies and magazines and TV go green Everyone who’s anyone made a show of going green during the ‘00s — sometimes literally. Cameron Diaz had her Trippin’ series on MTV, kicking off a trend later embraced by stars like Brad Pitt and Adrian Grenier. Leonardo DiCaprio whipped up both a […]

  • Chicken or Egg – – Health Care or Climate Change?

    President Obama, who will personally participate in the Copenhagen climate talks this week, said last Sunday that he expects to get a health care bill on his desk before Christmas. The barriers to meeting that deadline may revolve around the answer to an age-old question: which comes first – – the health care chicken or […]

  • Atlantic bluefin tuna inches towards protection

    Can we change our tuna?With the Atlantic bluefin tuna fishery on the verge of collapse and ICCAT, the entity charged with protecting it, ignoring its own scientists’ call for a fishing ban, the tuna’s last hope appears to be a March 2010 meeting of an international wildlife management group. Marine biologists and fisheries experts (along […]

  • For Wisconsin’s Doyle, it’s all about green jobs

    When you think of renewable energy, the image that comes to mind is often a solar array in California, a windmill in Texas, or a cornfield in Iowa. Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle (D) wants you to think of Wisconsin first, which explains why he’s one of several governors attending the Copenhagen climate talks. I sat […]

  • Steve Howard on our energy-efficient future

    Steve Howard, CEO of the non-partisan nonprofit organization The Climate Group, took some time away from his Copenhagen climate duties to share a tantalizing glimpse into our energy future: Q. How will our day-to-day lives change if we really do adopt more sustainable energy practices and products? A. You’ll walk out of a building and […]

  • California’s water woes worsen

    NASA just released a disturbing report on California’s shrinking water supplies: New space observations reveal that since October 2003, the aquifers for California’s primary agricultural region — the Central Valley — and its major mountain water source — the Sierra Nevadas — have lost nearly enough water combined to fill Lake Mead, America’s largest reservoir. […]

  • George W. Bush’s man in Copenhagen

    COPENHAGEN — To understand how global climate negotiations reached such a troubled state before the U.N. talks began here last week, one could do worse than to look to James L. Connaughton. James L. Connaughton headed George W. Bush’s Council for Environmental QualityFile photo / Wikimedia CommonsFor eight years, Connaughton was the top White House […]

  • Gregoire: ‘America is back in its rightful position’

    Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire (D) is in Copenhagen for the last few days of the climate conference. I sat down with her for a brief interview. An edited transcript follows: Q. The spirit of optimism is higher in my conversations with governors than with any other officials at this conference. What drives your optimism and […]

  • Big business’ climate conundrum: lead, follow or obstruct

    Is that government out front, or big business?iStock PhotoCOPENHAGEN — The most popular American CEO here these two weeks, at least among other business leaders, has been Duke Energy chief Jim Rogers. Which doesn’t make much sense, as Duke generates most of its electricity from coal, the dirtiest of fossil fuels. Consider Rogers’ own confession: […]

  • Natural gas as a near-term CO2 mitigation strategy

    Discussions of CO2 reduction tend to start from a presumption of near-term economic disruption coupled to long-term investment in green technology. The presumption isn’t right. The U.S. could reduce its total CO2 footprint by 14-20 percent tomorrow with no disruption in our access to energy services, without investing in any new infrastructure. The Waxman-Markey proposal […]