Tag Archives: grist

Amazon’s “advanced shopping technology” will end the greatest threat to humanity: long checkout lines.

by GeoffrePutilin Posted on December 5, 2016

Grist sent former fellow Melissa Cronin aboard a four-seat prop plane to the tiny village of Tyonek, Alaska, this summer. Her on-the-ground investigation helped expose a Texas energy company’s plans to develop a coal mine across wetlands and forest that are extremely valuable to the local indigenous people.

Through her dogged reporting, Melissa published Coal’s Last Gamble — the type of fearless journalism we are proud to produce. If you missed the story, check it out here.

As part of our annual winter fund drive, we’re highlighting the stories of 2016 that defined our year. Why? Now more than ever, the world desperately needs independent nonprofit journalism. With the media landscape rife with antagonism, spectacle, and fake news, Grist dives deep and brings important stories you just can’t find elsewhere.

Donate Now

Grist’s journalism is powered by readers like you. So, if you learned something valuable from Coal’s Last Gamble or any of the great work the team brought you this year, please consider making a gift!

As an added bonus, all new monthly donors will receive a limited-edition Grist steel pint glass to drink your political sorrows away toast to the progress we make toward a more sustainable, just future. Supplies are limited — get yours now.

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Amazon’s “advanced shopping technology” will end the greatest threat to humanity: long checkout lines.

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The muck beneath our feet could be our destruction, or our salvation.

by Jeanett21S Posted on December 5, 2016

Grist sent former fellow Melissa Cronin aboard a four-seat prop plane to the tiny village of Tyonek, Alaska, this summer. Her on-the-ground investigation helped expose a Texas energy company’s plans to develop a coal mine across wetlands and forest that are extremely valuable to the local indigenous people.

Through her dogged reporting, Melissa published Coal’s Last Gamble — the type of fearless journalism we are proud to produce. If you missed the story, check it out here.

As part of our annual winter fund drive, we’re highlighting the stories of 2016 that defined our year. Why? Now more than ever, the world desperately needs independent nonprofit journalism. With the media landscape rife with antagonism, spectacle, and fake news, Grist dives deep and brings important stories you just can’t find elsewhere.

Donate Now

Grist’s journalism is powered by readers like you. So, if you learned something valuable from Coal’s Last Gamble or any of the great work the team brought you this year, please consider making a gift!

As an added bonus, all new monthly donors will receive a limited-edition Grist steel pint glass to drink your political sorrows away toast to the progress we make toward a more sustainable, just future. Supplies are limited — get yours now.

Continued here – 

The muck beneath our feet could be our destruction, or our salvation.

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Al Gore wants to convince millennials to vote for Hillary Clinton.

by curseuroraiffeisenbank Posted on October 10, 2016

The majority of Sunday’s presidential debate involved the candidates trading blows on tax returns, Donald Trump’s so-called “locker room talk” about assaulting women, and Hillary Clinton’s email account. Just when we had given up hope, energy policy got over four minutes of stage time.

Although there was no direct question about climate change, one audience member asked how the candidate’s energy policies would meet the country’s energy needs in a way that doesn’t destroy the environment.

Trump declared affection for “alternative forms of energy, including wind, including solar,” but added “we need much more than wind and solar.” He went on to say: “There is a thing called clean coal … Coal will last for 1,000 years in this country.”

Clinton responded that she has “a comprehensive energy policy, but it really does include fighting climate change, because I do think that’s a serious problem.” She described making the United States a “21st century renewable energy superpower,” while also touting natural gas as a “bridge to alternative fuels.”

This is the third debate in a row (two presidential and one vice presidential) in which environmental issues have been marginalized. The conversation on climate in the first presidential debate amounted to just 82 seconds.

Update: See Grist’s detailed fact check of last night’s energy exchange.

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Al Gore wants to convince millennials to vote for Hillary Clinton.

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The amount of methane in the atmosphere is growing, but it’s not coming from where you think.

by MargheritaHeine Posted on October 6, 2016

The U.S. and all of its major allies have now ratified the Paris climate agreement, pushing it over the threshold needed for it to go into effect in 30 days — just before the U.S. presidential election.

Donald Trump has promised to “cancel” Paris if he’s elected — and that may have unintentionally sped things along.

Robert Stavins, director of the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, told Grist by email, “the threat of a Trump presidency has pushed countries to go forward with ratification more quickly than anyone had anticipated at the time of Paris.” For historical comparison, ratification of the Kyoto Protocol took five years.

Once the deal is underway, it would be more difficult for Trump to extract the U.S. He’d need to give three years notice and allot an additional year for withdrawal.

Still, Trump could simply decide not to deliver on the U.S.’s pledges, by, say, refusing to implement the Clean Power Plan.

Even then, Stavins argues that progress would continue to be made in energy efficiency and at the state level. “Trump could slow down action on climate change, but not as dramatically as Trump may think he could.”

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The amount of methane in the atmosphere is growing, but it’s not coming from where you think.

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The warmer it gets, the more it snows in Antarctica. Huh?

by AlbertinaKimpton Posted on August 26, 2016

global weirding

The warmer it gets, the more it snows in Antarctica. Huh?

By on Aug 26, 2016Share

Antarctica is a weird place. While it’s losing ice faster than an heiress in a caper movie, it’s also getting a whole lot more snow — at least, it’s supposed to.

Warmer air holds more moisture, so globally warmed jet streams should dump even more snow over the frozen continent than they used to. Since Antarctica is cold as fuck, scientifically speaking, the snow won’t melt despite the warmer air, making the continent probably the only place on Earth where glaciers might actually grow (at least for the time being).

All that extra precipitation is good for the rest of us: Snow that falls on Antarctica is water that’s not adding to sea-level rise. While sea level is definitely increasing (you didn’t think it was that easy, did you?), Antarctica’s blizzard forecast could spare us a few critical inches.

But, so far, the snowfall has not increased as scientists expected. According to research published this week, that’s OK — there’s enough natural wobble-wobble in Antarctica’s climate to account for the lower-than-expected snow levels. In the next couple of decades, however, we should see the white stuff really start to pile up.

But as Antarctica’s ice sheets continue to crumble into the sea around the edges, faster and less predictably than scientists had hoped, we’ll need more than snow to save us.

Election Guide ★ 2016Making America Green AgainOur experts weigh in on the real issues at stake in this electionGet Grist in your inbox

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The warmer it gets, the more it snows in Antarctica. Huh?

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Police are finally catching cars that veer too close to bicyclists

by MalissaHitchcoc Posted on August 22, 2016

space invaders

Police are finally catching cars that veer too close to bicyclists

By on Aug 22, 2016Share

There’s nothing quite as alarming as an SUV veering into your personal space as you bike down a busy street. Enter a handy device called C3FT: a sonar gadget that measures the distance between a bike’s handlebars and the car that’s driving too close for comfort.

Police departments are using C3FT, short for “see three feet,” to warn off and even ticket drivers who fail to give bikers enough space. Since its launch last year in Chattanooga, Tennessee, 11 cities have adopted the device, from Las Vegas to Ottawa.

Youtube

Though 28 states have laws requiring a three-foot gap between bikers and vehicles, such laws can be tough to enforce. In Florida, for example, 500 tickets were handed out in 2014 to drivers who veered too close to cyclists, but only eight were found guilty. It’s a suspiciously low number considering the nearly 50,000 cyclists injured in bicycle-vehicle crashes each year.

To truly pedal our way out of this mess, we need more than a handy gadget: Improved road design, like adding bike lanes, would add a bigger buffer between bikes and semis. 

Election Guide ★ 2016Making America Green AgainOur experts weigh in on the real issues at stake in this electionGet Grist in your inbox

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Police are finally catching cars that veer too close to bicyclists

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We’ve only explored 0.0001 percent of the ocean, but that’s about to change.

by JulienneScarbrou Posted on August 18, 2016

drop in the bucket

We’ve only explored 0.0001 percent of the ocean, but that’s about to change.

By on Aug 18, 2016Share

Off the coast of Bermuda, tiny vessels are diving 1,000 feet to research something we know surprisingly little about: the ocean itself. Though the ocean makes up 95 percent of the planet’s habitable area, we’ve explored 0.0001 percent of it.

Nekton, a U.K.-based NGO, launched its first mission in mid-July to finally give us an understanding of the deep sea, using tiny research pods that are reminiscent of goldfish bowls — bowls with robot arms that grab samples from corals and sponges. The Guardian reports that the mission has uncovered new species, large black coral forests, and fossilized beaches.

Nekton Mission

There’s one thing we do know about the deep sea: We’re already changing it. Higher temperatures and ocean acidification are starving the deep sea of oxygen and changing how food circulates. That’s worrisome, because the deep ocean performs important functions: absorbing heat, regulating carbon, and terrifying us with alien-like creatures (Exhibit A: the blobfish).

Once the Nekton mission is complete, the pods will turn their grabby little arms to the Mediterranean Sea.

Until then, the goings-on of the deep sea remains one of life’s greatest mysteries — like how life originated or where your socks disappeared to after that last load of laundry.

Election Guide ★ 2016Making America Green AgainOur experts weigh in on the real issues at stake in this electionGet Grist in your inbox

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We’ve only explored 0.0001 percent of the ocean, but that’s about to change.

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Coal lobbyists are the loneliest lobbyists

by CedricGWXofk Posted on August 16, 2016

sad!

Coal lobbyists are the loneliest lobbyists

By on Aug 16, 2016Share

The lifeboat keeping the coal industry afloat is getting a little lonely these days, as everyone abandons ship.

According to a report released Tuesday by Climate Investigations Center, coal lobbying groups American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, National Mining Association, and World Coal Associate have been hemorrhaging member companies in recent years.

At least nine companies confirmed they left ACCCE, and another seven left NMA; additional companies have been removed from the groups’ website but did not confirm their status.

As they shrink in members, the groups’ revenue and spending have shrunk, as well. Take ACCCE, which lost $27 million in revenue from 2008 to 2014:

American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity IRS filings, 2008-2014

Many of the groups cited the lobbying groups’ opposition to climate change legislation for quitting. Last December, the automaker Volvo left the National Mining Association, calling the lobby’s efforts to oppose the Clean Power Plan “crazy.” Other companies to flee the groups since 2014 include Wells Fargo, Chevron, and Michelin.

“Coal mining companies continue to promote climate denial and oppose any serious effort to reduce carbon pollution,” Joe Smyth, the author of the report and a researcher at the Climate Investigations Center, told Grist. “So it makes sense that these companies are departing.”

The shrinking political might of coal country can be felt in other ways, too. More than 50 coal companies, including heavyweights like Peabody, have filed for bankruptcy since 2012.

Maybe someone should start handing out life preservers.

Election Guide ★ 2016Making America Green AgainOur experts weigh in on the real issues at stake in this electionGet Grist in your inbox

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Coal lobbyists are the loneliest lobbyists

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Farm animals are about to get a lot more shots

by LavadaDedman Posted on August 10, 2016

worth a shot

Farm animals are about to get a lot more shots

By on Aug 10, 2016Share

Instead of feeding antibiotics to farm animals, what if we kept them from getting sick in the first place? Pharmaceutical corporations are trying to get cows off drugs by creating new animal vaccines.

A Bloomberg snapshot of the industry shows that companies are spending a lot of money on vaccine development. We don’t know how much they are investing, but they are building new labs and buying up vaccine startup companies. The effort is already yielding results: There are new vaccines for animal pneumonia, circovirus in pigs, pancreas disease in salmon, and intestinal infections in pigs and chickens. Companies say they will unveil several more this year.

Vaccines aren’t a silver bullet. It can be expensive and time-consuming to inoculate every chick, piglet, and salmon fry. And some diseases defy attempts to craft vaccines. But these new preventive technologies will help in the effort to wean farms off antibiotics without causing more animals pain or increasing greenhouse gas emissions from meat.

Election Guide ★ 2016Making America Green AgainOur experts weigh in on the real issues at stake in this electionGet Grist in your inbox

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Farm animals are about to get a lot more shots

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Colorado could vote to limit fracking on November ballot

by BobMoowattin Posted on August 9, 2016

Fracktions

Colorado could vote to limit fracking on November ballot

By on Aug 9, 2016Share

Colorado is one step closer to ditching fracking.

Anti-fracking activists have collected 100,000 signatures, more than the 98,500 needed, to secure two measures on the November ballot. One measure would bring oil and gas drilling operations under local oversight while the other would add a no-fracking buffer zone 2,500 feet around any occupied buildings. Together these would, in essence, prevent drilling on 95 percent of the state’s most oil-rich land, according to the New York Times.

The state has 30 days to review the signatures and submit any challenges.

The industry, however, is already fighting back. Pro-fracking groups have raised $13 million to oppose the initiatives, and Yes for Health and Safety Over Fracking, the group that collected the signatures, reported that volunteer and contractor canvassers were “yelled at, and physically threatened” by people suspiciously spouting oil and gas industry’s favorite lines.

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Colorado could vote to limit fracking on November ballot

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