California | Grist

How will senators vote on a climate bill?

Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) 0
Posted 21 hours, 52 minutes ago Sen. Dianne Feinstein is expected to vote in favor of the Kerry-Boxer climate bill. In a letter to a Grist reader, she doesn't explicitly endorse the bill, but she does say it "represents an important step."
Nothing like a good profit motive to accelerate public policy

Performance anxiety 0
Posted 2 weeks, 2 days ago It’s not just the ads showing a baby-boomer couple sitting in matching bathtubs on a beach at sunset where you can find performance anxiety these days. Try looking in the hardware aisle and at the gas station.
Clean tech reality check

Paging Dr. Chu, venture capitalist 2
Posted 3 weeks, 3 days ago Despite all the entrepreneurial buzz around clean energy companies, it's going to take very deep pockets to get projects online at utility scale. That's why Energy Secretary Steven Chu may be the industry's most important venture capitalist.
Open for Business

Cleantech Open has $100,000 for a green startup idea 0
Posted 1 month ago The Cleantech Open has helped more than 100 startup companies find their footing since it launched in California three years ago. Now it's expanding in some interesting ways. Competitors in Cleantech's new "ideas competition" stand to win $100,000 in support and advice from business experts.
Meg Whitman, former eBay CEO and occasional voter, wants to be governor of California so she can end its leadership in clean energy and destroy its climate

Why do you want to be CA’s govenor? 0
Posted 1 month ago
EV + PV = ROI

SolarCity makes electric cars an even smarter investment 19
Posted 1 month ago The real story behind California's "solar highway" is how the emerging electric vehicle industry will foster the adoption of residential and commercial photovoltaic systems.
Ahnold promises ‘action’ at California climate summit 0
Posted 1 month ago Governor Schwarzenegger's Global Climate Summit in Los Angeles was a meeting of the “sub-nationals,” the global group of cities, states and provinces that have been taking concrete steps to curb greenhouse gas emissions and promote energy efficiency.
Feed-in rates: a hard sell 3
Posted 1 month, 1 week ago I really feel for the renewable energy activists in the U.S. who are trying to get the most successful policy in the world, feed-in tariffs (FITs), implemented.
Does Schwarzenegger care more about tea partiers or the planet? 0
Posted 1 month, 1 week ago Like any Hollywood actor, and like any politician, Arnold Schwarzenegger likes to talk a good game. And on climate, he talks a lot. He loves to promote inconsequential gab-fests like the Governors Global Summit on Climate Change. But when the rubber hits the road, will he actually, you know, do anything about it? Whether a bill on his desk gets a signature will tell us whether he is real or all puffery.
Preserve states’ right to fight climate change 1
Posted 1 month, 2 weeks ago In his Sept. 22 U.N. speech President Obama got it right: the battle to arrest calamitous climate change can be won only if each of us enlists, perseveres, and fights "for every inch of progress."
Too Good to be True? 0
Posted 1 month, 3 weeks ago
Bag it!

Plastic bags are the enemy of the ocean 2
Posted 1 month, 3 weeks ago
This Saturday, join your friends, neighbors, frenemies and complete strangers in a community-wide effort to get the plastic crap out of the ocean.
Wonkeriffic!

An interview with Jason Burnett, who worked on EPA greenhouse gas regulations 0
Posted 1 month, 3 weeks ago

The following is an interview with Jason Burnett, who worked in the EPA under President GW Bush, wherein we discuss efforts by the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases. Burnett quit the EPA in protest in June 2008, alleging interference from the Office of the Vice President.

The interview is meant as a supplement to the story, "Everything you always wanted to know about EPA greenhouse gas regulations, but were afraid to ask."
California screamin'

California’s ag crisis and our concentrated food system 10
Posted 2 months ago
California's severe drought--which could well be related to climate change--isn't just ravaging Los Angeles. The drought has helped tip the state's Central Valley, epicenter of U.S. fruit and vegetable production, into a severe crisis.
What a 1-Degree Temperature Increase Means for Wildfires

Global warming, California, and wildfires 20
Posted 2 months ago
The scientific literature paints a hellish future if we don’t quickly reverse greenhouse gas emissions trends.
A market-based feed-in tariff

California proposes new program for 1 GW of renewables 2
Posted 2 months, 1 week ago
The California Public Utilities Commission issued a new proposal today designed to significantly increase the amount of solar energy installed in the state. It is kind of like a feed-in tariff, but different. Call it a feed-in tariff v2.0.
Trees in the bank

Pacific NW landowners team up to market forest offsets 2
Posted 2 months, 3 weeks ago
A national climate bill could create a huge market for forestry-based carbon offsets. Companies looking to cash in are pooling together relatively small parcels of forestland in the Pacific Northwest.
It's crafty all right

Is this a green home? 21
Posted 3 months, 1 week ago
I’m thinking about reporting on this house as an example of sensible environmental design reproducible for the masses. Can anyone help me decide?
This Week in Placemaking

The greenest grocery store, biggest “living wall,” and more eco-innovations 5
Posted 3 months, 2 weeks ago
From the country's greenest grocery store in Augusta, Maine, to a soaring transit station in Anaheim, Calif., we survey the landscape of green-building projects in the news.
From this VantagePoint

Silicon Valley VC sees bright future for green tech—and a need to engage policy makers 6
Posted 3 months, 2 weeks ago
VantagePoint Venture Partners is making big bets on green tech by funding nearly two dozen startups involved in everything from LED lighting to algae biofuels to water to the smart grid. CEO Alan Salzman talks about what his firm sees ahead.