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How the White House watered down rules on coal-plant water pollution
Posted by Grist: David Roberts on July 24th, 2013
Grist: Coal power plants are the biggest source of toxic water pollution in the U.S., mainly via coal combustion waste, which is the ash and sludge left over after burning the coal and filtering the exhaust (to keep the pollutants out of the air). Combustion waste contains heavy metals like lead and mercury that never degrade - they just "bioaccumulate" up the food chain until they reach us, doing untold damage along the way.
This week, a coalition of green groups released a report [PDF] about water...
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The significance of Obama’s cryptic Keystone comments
Posted by Grist: David Roberts on June 27th, 2013
Grist: In his climate speech on Tuesday - long since swept away by the news cycle, as I predicted - Obama delivered one big surprise: a passage on the Keystone XL pipeline. Not just that, but an utterly inscrutable passage, one that has proven a kind of Rorschach blot for the energy world.
Here`s what he said:
I put forward in the past an all-of-the-above energy strategy, but our energy strategy must be about more than just producing more oil. And, by the way, it`s certainly got to be about more than...
None of the world’s top industries would be profitable if they paid for the natural capital they use
Posted by Grist: David Roberts on April 17th, 2013
Grist: The notion of "externalities" has become familiar in environmental circles. It refers to costs imposed by businesses that are not paid for by those businesses. For instance, industrial processes can put pollutants in the air that increase public health costs, but the public, not the polluting businesses, picks up the tab. In this way, businesses privatize profits and publicize costs.
While the notion is incredibly useful, especially in folding ecological concerns into economics, I`ve always had...
Ten reasons why fracking for dirty oil in California is a stupid idea
Posted by Grist: David Roberts on March 18th, 2013
Grist: The latest target of the unconventional oil craze is California, specifically the Monterey Shale in southern California (see map). Will California become the next North Dakota? Let us ponder.
Oil in California is nothing new - it`s the third highest oil-producing state in the U.S. (after Texas and North Dakota, which recently displaced Alaska for the No. 2 spot). The Monterey area has been drilled for years, profitably, though production has been steadily declining since its peak in the mid `80s....
The virtues of being unreasonable on Keystone
Posted by Grist: David Roberts on February 19th, 2013
Grist: I know Andy Revkin of The New York Times writes posts like this in part to bait people like me. But like Popeye, I yam what I yam. So consider me baited. Self-proclaimed moderates like to lecture anti-Keystone XL activists that they are "distracting" and "counterproductive," without spelling out what the hell that means, yet they seem bewildered when that makes the activists in question angry.
Let`s review. This weekend, close to 50,000 people gathered for the biggest rally ever against climate...
Debunking Nature’s arguments for Keystone
Posted by Grist: David Roberts on February 6th, 2013
Grist: There was a bit of buzz last week when the august scientific journal Nature endorsed the Keystone XL pipeline (ironically, in the course of pleading with Obama to do something about climate change). Despite the hubbub, it was not the first time the journal had done so. Back in September 2011, it boosted Keystone ... in the context of pleading with Obama do to something about climate change. We have always been at war with Eastasia.
Neither editorial makes a fully fleshed-out case for Keystone,...
How can we prepare for climate change without screwing poor people?
Posted by Grist: David Roberts on February 5th, 2013
Grist: Two stories flagged by our Gristmill bloggers yesterday got me thinking. There`s this one, about San Francisco`s "managed retreat" from rising sea levels, and this one, about New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) planning to allow some coastal communities to "return to nature."
Both mean the same thing: Shit is getting real. Coastal cities are facing decisions about how to plan for higher seas and more frequent floods, about which lands to abandon and which to "up armor" with levies and seawalls. These...