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Melting ice is a boon for archaeology

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New York Times kills its ‘Green’ blog

by sreg2 Posted on March 2, 2013

New York Times kills its ‘Green’ blog

By Lisa Hymas

Less than two months ago, The New York Times dissolved its environment desk, eliminating its two environment editor positions and reassigning those editors and seven reporters.

Now the paper is swinging the hatchet again, shutting down the Green blog that had been home to original environmental reporting every weekday. The news was announced in a brief post on the blog today:

The Times is discontinuing the Green blog, which was created to track environmental and energy news and to foster lively discussion of developments in both areas. This change will allow us to direct production resources to other online projects. But we will forge ahead with our aggressive reporting on environmental and energy topics, including climate change, land use, threatened ecosystems, government policy, the fossil fuel industries, the growing renewables sector and consumer choices.

The paper says environmental policy news will move to the Caucus blog and energy technology news will move to the Bits blog.

But a Times insider tells Grist that the decision probably means an end to the significant amount of freelance reporting that appeared in the Green blog.

The insider, who’s not authorized to speak on the record about the blog’s closure, says, “I’m not 100 percent sure that we’re going to spend as much time on the environment as in the past. To a large extent that depends on the news. The paper is plastic — it reorganizes itself to meet the requirements of the world around us.”

With that world getting warmer and weirder by the day, there shouldn’t be any shortage of climate and environmental news to report. If the Gray Lady is serious about keeping her green tint, that is.

Lisa Hymas is senior editor at Grist. You can follow her on

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Can Yahoo be more ‘efficient’ with more workers driving to the office?

by d2wk58 Posted on February 26, 2013

Can Yahoo be more ‘efficient’ with more workers driving to the office?

Adam Tinworth

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer puts the kibosh on telecommuting.

In a decision that sent the internet into a tizzy today, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has decided that employees will no longer be allowed to telecommute to work. USA Today reports:

Yahoo’s decision is meant to foster collaboration, according to a company memo sent to employees Friday.

Yahoo’s head of human resources, Jackie Reses, wrote that communication and collaboration will be important as the company works to be “more productive, efficient and fun.” To make that happen, she said, “it is critical that we are all present in our offices. Some of the best decisions and insights come from hallway and cafeteria discussions, meeting new people and impromptu team meetings.”

According to Census figures from 2010, about 9.5 percent of the U.S. workforce telecommutes at least one day a week. That’s actually not very much, considering telecommuting can be more productive for some workers, not to mention more comfortable. Millions of Americans working from home or local co-working spaces each day save millions of tons in emissions each year, and potentially cut down on traffic deaths.

According to a source inside the company, many workers across all of Yahoo’s divisions have been telecommuting for a long time now, in arrangements distinctly unlike those at other Silicon Valley tech giants.

The telecommuting issue is relevant to many office workers in America, but especially so in the Bay Area, with its crappy regional transit options and big distances between desirable office parks and desirable bedroom communities. Some of the biggest Silicon Valley tech companies have enlisted their own private busing systems to cut down on telecommuting and also keep up with the desires of their workers to live in dense urban areas outside of sprawly, beige, boring Silicon Valley.

It’s not like we’ve looked to Yahoo for leadership in tech in a long (long, looong) time. Still, this is a sudden switch for the company’s culture, and it may be bad news for telecommuters at other organizations that want to get more “collaborative.”

So, Yahoo workers intending to keep your jobs by moving to the Bay Area: Please just don’t move to Oakland. Hey, I hear San Jose is pretty nice!

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

Can Yahoo be more ‘efficient’ with more workers driving to the office?

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For Open Data Day, green hacks and snacks

by RupertxMcmillan Posted on February 23, 2013

For Open Data Day, green hacks and snacks

Civic-minded hacktivists, you best brush off those keyboards and pick out a cute outfit, because tomorrow is International Open Data Day.

Cities around the world will be hosting hackathons to turn government data dumps into useful interactive applications for citizen engagement. Check the map for info on a ‘thon near you.

For this special holiday occasion, San Francisco’s Climate Corporation is hosting EcoHack. “EcoHack is about using technology to improve and better understand our natural environment,” say the event’s organizers. “Based on the hacking model of quick, clever solutions to problems, EcoHack is an opportunity to make a difference while having fun!” Woo, nerds!

EcoHack days held in New York in the past have resulted in some sweet projects, from routing bikes and building pollution sensors to mapping deforestation (fun!).

This year’s crew will be working on mapping community solar projects, visualizing oil spills, and “food’ficiency,” among other worthy data-driven causes. Also there will be pizza, which goes surprisingly well with depressing statistics. Just trust me on this one.

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

For Open Data Day, green hacks and snacks

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100% of electric capacity added in U.S. last month was renewable

by u60uurf Posted on February 19, 2013

100% of electric capacity added in U.S. last month was renewable

By Philip Bump

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the agency which informed us that almost half of all new electricity generating capacity added in the U.S. in 2012 was renewable, has released its data for the month of January. You ready for this?

Here’s how January 2013 compares to January 2012 in terms of new capacity:

Notice anything? Let’s spell it out directly. Here’s how new capacity broke down last January. Brownish sources are fossil fuels. Green are renewable.

And here’s this January.

That’s right: Every single megawatt of new generating capacity added in the U.S. last month was renewable. Every single one.

The full dataset from FERC is here [PDF], outlining the constituent additions: 958 megawatts of wind, 267 of solar, and 6 little megawatts of biomass. In total, 1,231 megawatts of capacity were added in January of this year compared to 1,693 in January 2012. The amount of wind and solar added last month was greater than the amount of coal and natural gas added a year ago.

Experts (aka me) do not expect this no-new-fossil-fuel-generation trend to continue. Sorry.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

100% of electric capacity added in U.S. last month was renewable

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New-old disaster aid may be coming for troubled farmers

by 7GrittonMaine146 Posted on February 6, 2013

New-old disaster aid may be coming for troubled farmers

Last year, American farmers saw the worst drought in more than half a century. At the same time, some disaster aid programs went unfunded. Why? Blame the expired Farm Bill, of course.

Crop insurance and emergency disaster loans are still available to farmers and ranchers, but other relief programs designed to help during times of drought and other disasters saw their funding end more than a year ago.

But now Congress is considering a bill to reinstate that aid “until” a new farm bill happens. (Hahaha [weep].) From the Governing blog:

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) is sponsoring legislation that would retroactively restore those disaster relief programs for 2012 fiscal year as well as the rest of the 2013 fiscal year while Congress works on creating another long-term farm bill.

“These livestock disaster programs expired in September 2011, leaving our livestock producers with no safety net,” Baucus said in introducing his bill. “For over a year and a half, through one of the worst droughts in recent memory, our producers have been left to fend for themselves.”

In addition to helping to pay for dead livestock, the legislation also provides disaster relief for things like destroyed orchard trees and vines, and it helps cover losses not covered by crop insurance.

There are five disaster programs — all created in the 2008 farm bill — that are among the 37 programs that are missing out on funding. Because Congress hasn’t re-authorized them, losses due to disasters that occurred after September 2011 aren’t covered

This is good news for troubled U.S. farmers, but not the greatest for the Farm Bill in total, which looks to be going nowhere fast. Could we get some disaster relief for that, too?

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

New-old disaster aid may be coming for troubled farmers

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Dodge made ‘God made a farmer’ Super Bowl ad, and I made an angry face

by MayeskiLatouf679 Posted on February 4, 2013

Dodge made ‘God made a farmer’ Super Bowl ad, and I made an angry face

Farmers: We like them! So does Dodge, I guess, because there’s not any other clear reason why the American car company would make this ad except to try to associate itself with a trade close to America’s scrappy — and white male — identity.

From Dodge’s portrayal, you’d hardly know that almost a third of farm operators are women, and the population of farm owners of color is growing by full percentage points each year. You’d also hardly know who does most of the work on most of those farms.

American farm worker conditions are likened to “modern slavery,” where a precarious force of 50 to 80 percent undocumented workers picks the vast majority of our produce by hand, earning, on average, about $10,000 each year, though the majority of these workers are also parents supporting children. The numbers vary from state to state, but a large proportion of that workforce that spends each day picking food has to pay for their own sustenance with food stamps. The cheapest Dodge Ram pickup costs more than two years of their salary.

“To the farmer in all of us,” Dodge proclaims at the end of the ad. The farmer in me doesn’t really want a pickup truck, though — she’d much rather pay those field workers 40 percent more, passing along most of the cost to massive corporate distributors such that the average person would only pay $5 more each year for the tiniest (tiniest!) bit of labor ethics and human decency with their supper.

But you know, that’s just my farmer. What does yours think?

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

Dodge made ‘God made a farmer’ Super Bowl ad, and I made an angry face

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Cyclists are the happiest of us all

by gerdi Posted on February 1, 2013

Cyclists are the happiest of us all

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Wheeeeee!

Despite getting run over, doored, harassed, and generally being treated as second-class citizens of the road, bicyclists are the happiest of all commuters. Go figure!

The finding comes via an Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium study released this month. Those who walk to work, the study found, are nearly as happy as cyclists, who are about three times happier than solo car-drivers.

Of course, your commute happiness is improved if you’re on your way to a good job that makes you a lot of money, but income gap aside, even rich workaholic bikers still had safety concerns that chipped away at their smile scores.

New York Daily News columnist Denis Hamill sees your safety concerns, cyclists, and he raises you a head injury, because that’s the only explanation I have for Hamil’s ragey column on New York’s bike lanes that, he says, have “disfigured the city in a logistical and aesthetic way.”

Writes Hamil: “News flash: Life ain’t a smooth sail, kiddos! There’s a big crash just waiting at the end of every bike lane.”

Don’t let this grump get you down, bikers, especially if you live in New York and enjoy those protected bike lanes (jealous!). It’s evening rush hour in the city right now, and something tells me Hamil is road-raging all alone in his car.

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

Cyclists are the happiest of us all

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Fox News guy is mad that Obama talked about climate change instead of ‘pressing issues’

by HarralGeidl697 Posted on January 28, 2013

Fox News guy is mad that Obama talked about climate change instead of ‘pressing issues’

By Philip Bump

Over the weekend, Fox News once again allowed its employees to say things on-air, which the media company somehow fails to understand is generally a risky proposition. But Fox seems committed to letting them do so, and therefore you get things like this.

Ario

On “Fox News Watch” (which is not, as you might assume, a weekly catalog of all of the ways in which Fox News has failed), talkers worried that “cheerleading” from the media for Obama’s inaugural address “threatens to overshadow reporting.” And Fox News hates it when cheerleading obscures objective coverage.

From the Washington Post:

Jon Scott, host of “Fox News Watch,” made clear that he wasn’t part of the adoration crowd. Here’s his take on Obama’s speech:

We heard during the inaugural address, we heard about climate change, we heard about gay rights, we heard about lots of issues but nothing much about the deficit and some of the pressing issues, you know, the really pressing issues of our time.

Emphasis added, because if you watch the clip, he really emphasizes that “really.” After all, Jon Scott, formerly the host of A Current Affair, knows what’s an important issue and what isn’t. The deficit or whatever is a hella big issue. Climate change isn’t. (In 2011, Scott asked Bill Nye if moon volcanoes disproved global warming. Nye suggested that they did not.)

The most recent ratings numbers indicate that Fox News is still the most-watched news channel, nearly tripling its next-closest competitor. Because they cover the pressing issues of our time.

Source

Fox News host: Climate change, gay rights not ‘really pressing issues’, Washington Post

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

Fox News guy is mad that Obama talked about climate change instead of ‘pressing issues’

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U.N. launches new fight against food waste

by 7MelansonHayden940 Posted on January 23, 2013

U.N. launches new fight against food waste

No one can agree on just how much food we’re wasting. But it is so, so much.

sporkist

The United Nations and its Food and Agriculture Organization say it’s a third of all food produced, while other studies say it’s closer to 40 or 50 percent. After it leaves the farm, a lot of food is chucked because it’s not pretty, or it’s past its expiration date, or it simply falls through the cracks. According to the EPA, food waste makes up 21 percent of the garbage bound for landfills in the U.S.

This is not news — we’ve known for a while that our modern foodprint is massive. What’s noteworthy is that people are actually maybe kind of starting to do something about it.

Today the United Nations launched a campaign to reduce global food waste, which it estimates at 1.3 billion tons a year.

“In a world of seven billion people, set to grow to nine billion by 2050, wasting food makes no sense — economically, environmentally and ethically,” said U.N. Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner.

The campaign, “Think-Eat-Save,” calls on eaters to take some logical steps — steps so seemingly obvious that it’s sad we need a campaign to promote them. E.g. make a shopping list and avoid impulse buys and “marketing tricks.” Also: Freeze leftovers, donate to food banks, and don’t be afraid to buy “funny” looking fruit and veg (if they even make it to the store shelves, that is).

This is all good stuff, but I reiterate my sadness. This is a problem of the incredibly privileged. According to the U.N., European and North American consumers waste upwards of 10 times what African and south Asian consumers do. Restaurants are particularly bad at this, even though cutting down on waste could save them thousands of dollars.

One campaign probably won’t do much to change our wasteful habits, so long as those habits are generally good for big business, and so long as that campaign is organized by the toothless U.N.

“Think” is a good place to start, but what else can we do? Sit back and celebrate when fancy real estate firms get a pat on the back for turning their food waste into fertilizer for their fancy gardens? Please, please no. Ugh. I’ll be out back fishing bagels from the dumpster, a-gain.

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for