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Articles by Daniel Penner
The National Park Service’s efforts to protect Quitobaquito Springs almost destroyed it
This story was originally published by Grist and Arizona Luminaria, and is republished here by permission. The story is part of The Human Cost of Conservation, a Grist series on Indigenous rights and protected areas. The transcript has been edited for length and clarity. On a breezy spring day, Lorraine Eiler, a member of the Hia-Ced O’odham tribe, walked with me around the border of Quitobaquito Springs — a strawberry-shaped oasis in the Sonoran Desert near Pima County, Arizona.
The Colorado River wars are based on bad math
This story, an edited excerpt from the video above, was originally published by Gristand is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. California and Arizona are currently fighting each other over water from the Colorado River. But this isn’t new—it’s actually been going on for over 100 years. At one point, the states literally went to war about it. The problem comes down to some really bad math from 1922. To some extent, the crisis can be blamed on climate change.
The very bad math behind the Colorado River crisis
This transcript has been edited for length and clarity. California and Arizona are currently fighting each other over water from the Colorado River. But this isn’t new — it’s actually been going on for over 100 years. At one point, the states literally went to war about it. The problem comes down to some really bad math from 1922. To some extent, the crisis can be blamed on climate change. The West is in the middle of a once-in-a-millennium drought.
The very bad math behind the Colorado River crisis
This transcript has been edited for length and clarity. California and Arizona are currently fighting each other over water from the Colorado River. But this isn’t new — it’s actually been going on for over 100 years. At one point, the states literally went to war about it. The problem comes down to some really bad math from 1922. To some extent, the crisis can be blamed on climate change. The West is in the middle of a once-in-a-millennium drought.
New Orleans lost its bike share. Residents stepped up to rebuild it.
This story is part of the Cities + Solutions series, which chronicles surprising and inspiring climate initiatives in communities across the U.S. through stories of cities leading the way. For more solutions stories like these, subscribe to the Looking Forward newsletter. Geoff Coats still remembers how he felt when, in May 2020, all 1,350 bicycles in New Orleans’s popular bike-share program vanished. “It was horrible,” says Coats, who managed the service, called Blue Bikes, for its owner, Uber.
Could your next car be an e-bike?
The following transcript has been edited for clarity and length. Electric bike sales are booming. In the United States, retailers more than doubled their sales in 2020 and demand has only increased. Globally, we’re expected to reach 40 million e-bikes sold in the year 2023. It’s easy to see why. On the spectrum of transportation options, e-bikes have some clear benefits: They use a great deal less energy (and therefore cost less) than a personal car.
What's the true cost of an induction stove?
The following transcript has been edited for clarity. For decades, cooking with a gas stove has been seen as the fanciest and most enjoyable way to cook. But are we really better off with natural gas? Climate experts and professional chefs alike say that there is an alternative that could give gas a run for its money: induction stoves. The secret to an induction stove is that it’s basically just a big magnet.
Heat pumps can help save the planet. But can they save you money?
This transcript has been edited and condensed for clarity. The following sentence doesn’t make any sense, but is actually true: A heat pump can turn 1 kilowatt-hour, or kWh, of electricity into up to 4 kWh of heat. For the home heating and cooling technology known as the heat pump, this means big potential savings both for carbon emissions and for utility bills. Recently, I’ve been looking at two different questions: First, how good are heat pumps for the climate?
The deadly acid refineries are reluctant to quit
Hydrofluoric acid can form a deadly cloud of gas that can travel for miles. At oil refineries nationwide, a toxic release is only an accident away.
How Tesla shows Obama's green loan program was a success
Published Jul 21, 2021 Share/Republish Twitter Facebook Republish A little over a decade ago, Solyndra was the hottest thing in solar power. Solyndra was so exciting that then-President Barack Obama, who was trying to create green jobs while pulling the country out of the financial crisis, decided to give the company a $535 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy. Within two years, Solyndra was bankrupt, out-competed by cheaper solar panels coming from China.
The fairly complicated truth about bitcoin's energy use
Published Jun 22, 2021 Do cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin amount to climate arson or a clean-energy boon? It’s complicated. Support solutions-based climate news The only newsroom focused on exploring solutions at the intersection of climate and justice. Our in-depth approach to solutions-based journalism takes time and proactive planning, which is why Grist depends on reader support. Your gifts keep our unbiased, nonprofit news site free. Donate today, to support the climate news you can trust.
Why electric cars are cheaper if you're rich
Electric vehicles are getting a lot of press lately — but can people actually afford them? Reporter Shannon Osaka has the details on fuel savings, the perils of charging, and that pesky EV tax credit (which mostly helps people who have a lot of money already).
Why electric cars are cheaper if you're rich
Published May 11, 2021 Electric vehicles are getting a lot of press lately — but can people actually afford them? Reporter Shannon Osaka has the deets on fuel savings, the perils of charging, and that pesky EV tax credit (which mostly helps people who have a lot of money already.) For more, check out Shannon’s piece on where we’re going to put Biden’s 500,000 charging stations.
How 100% clean energy could power our cities and towns
Published Jan 07, 2021 Support solutions-based climate news The only newsroom focused on exploring solutions at the intersection of climate and justice. Our in-depth approach to solutions-based journalism takes time and proactive planning, which is why Grist depends on reader support. Your gifts keep our unbiased, nonprofit news site free. Donate today, and all gifts will be TRIPLED but only for a limited time.
Here’s how youth climate activists are coping with the pandemic
quaran-teen Grist’s senior justice fellow Rachel Ramirez called up three prominent youth climate activists —Xiye Bastida, Jamie Margolin, and Wanjiku Gatheru— to find out how they are carrying on during the coronavirus pandemic. Despite social distancing measures, they say there are ways to advocate for the planet — even if that means balancing online classes, public health mandates, and family obligations at the same time. Published Apr 22, 2020
Fertilizer feeds humanity - and it’s destroying the Gulf of Mexico
American farmers’ use of fertilizer to grow crops results in a yearly oxygen-starved dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico that kills fish, shrimp, and other sea creatures. But that’s not the only environmental issue fertilizer is responsible for. It also can contaminate drinking water, turn into smog, and contribute to climate change. How can we slow down a pollutant that we depend on for survival?
North Carolinians battle the $7.5 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline
Published Dec 10, 2019 Share/Republish Twitter Facebook Republish Residents living in the rural parts of Eastern North Carolina are no stranger to environmental hazards. Various industries have pinpointed the region — where the environmental justice movement was born — for projects, such as coal ash dumps, liquid fertilizer plants, and concentrated hog farms. Local grassroots activists have fought off many of these efforts. The latest threat?
How the U.S. accidentally raised the IQ of an entire generation
All gifts matched until midnight! Help us raise $55k by midnight tonight. Did you know we’re a nonprofit, enviro media org? At Grist, our mission is to tell the story of a better future that's so irresistible you want it right now. Every day we work hard to produce journalism that matters — stories that elevate solutions to resonate with readers like you. That’s why we’re aiming to raise $55,000 by December 31. Donate now, and all gifts will be matched! Donate now No, thanks
Can I have my climate-friendly seafood and eat it, too?
Well, it’s actually pretty complicated. We laid out all the (sometimes contradictory) factors that go into a climate-friendly, fish-filled diet in this video.
America’s largest irrigated crop is in your yard
Lawns suck up water, fertilizer, and time. Here’s a look at how we got into this mess — and where we could go from here.
How to build a climate movement before your 17th birthday
Jamie Margolin isn’t your typical teen. At the age of 15, she launched a global climate movement for young people out of her Seattle home. One year later, this past July, the organization Margolin helped found, Zero Hour, held its first climate march on the Washington Mall. Watch Grist’s short doc on how she, her co-founder Nadia Nazar, and a distributed network of climate-conscious youth made it all happen — and what they’re giving up to fight for a just and sustainable world.
Japan and Europe have wonderful train systems. Why can't we?
The U.S. passenger rail system is… underwhelming. It’s full of delays, creaky infrastructure, and inconvenient stops. What would it take to make our trains run on time and look a little more like, say, Japan’s? We explain how we got here and what we could do to get back on track in the video above.
For immigrant gas station owners in Texas, even the fines are bigger
In Texas, regulators go after small, often immigrant-owned gas stations while giving major polluters a slap on the wrist. Watch our mini-documentary on this uneven treatment or, if words are more your speed, check out our long-form collaboration with the Texas Observer.
This Hawaiian island is the future of energy
Clean Energy Battlegrounds This Hawaiian island is the future of energy Kauai might be a tiny island on the map, but it holds big lessons for the rest of the world. Watch our video to see how goats, Tesla, a former Miami Dolphin, and (formerly) Thoreau-lovin’ off-gridders came together for solar energy. Want more? Read our story on the power grid of the future.
How coal communities can outlive coal
The coal industry has been in decline for nearly a century. That’s good news, since it means less carbon and pollution. But there’s a catch: It can also means fewer jobs and tax revenue for coal communities. But, wait. There is a way to make moving on from coal a win-win proposition. Watch our video to see what happens when labor, environmental, and community groups come together to forge a path forward.
Biking basics for folks who’ve always wanted to ride, but didn’t dare [VIDEO]
You say you want to get around the city without spending the $9,000 to maintain and operate a car each year, and maybe get some exercise while you’re at it? You don’t have that kind of cash. And you know, the planet. But those bike lanes can look pretty intimidating, with all the mustachioed hipsters on their superbad fixies, the spandex-clad adrenaline junkies, and the cars whizzing by.
We asked young voters why they don’t see a big difference between Clinton and Trump on climate
You might have missed the recent poll commissioned by NextGen Climate showing that many millennials don’t see much difference between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton when it comes to climate action. Or maybe you just couldn’t make sense of it! We took to the streets of Grist’s Seattle hometown looking for answers from young voters. Watch the video above to find out what we learned.
This video explains America’s love affair with meat
Americans eat a lot of meat. We eat nearly twice as much as the average Norwegian and roughly nine times as much as the average Ghanaian. Why’s that? Well, our past informs our future (and our present), so I called a meat historian, Maureen Ogle, to find out. Watch the video to find out more.
Watch us explain how to feed the world and end poverty at the same time
How can the world feed itself more equitably, sustainably, and deliciously even as populations rise? It just takes 2.5 minutes to figure that out. OK, so that may be overstating it slightly. Actually, the smartest people in the world have been trying to figure out how to insure that everyone on Earth can feed themselves reliably, and no one has ever come up with a working formula. The problems of hunger and poverty are wickedly difficult.
The future of bread comes from a lab - here’s why that’s good
The Bread Lab has been receiving a lot of buzz recently. It’s graced the pages of the New York Times, New York Magazine, Mother Jones — and it even inspired its own section in Dan Barber’s opus The Third Plate. If the Bread Lab were a schmancy new restaurant run by an innovative chef, the coverage wouldn’t be too surprising. Instead, the Bread Lab is a part of Washington State University’s ag extension program. “Hold the scone — why should I care about a dang agriculture program?” you may ask.
Watch this Kansas farm beat the market with the honor system (and a llama)
JaKo Farm avoids the farmers market by selling 95 percent of their products through an on-farm store — using the honor system. While this obviously wouldn’t work for all farms, it’s a fascinating case study in direct marketing in Kansas, of all places. Being from the Wheat State, and around agriculture for most of my childhood, I had to see it for myself.
This video explains how to make you richer and protect the climate
This video explains how to make you richer and protect the climate Author Peter Barnes stopped by the Grist office to talk about his new book, With Liberty and Dividends for All: How to Save Our Middle Class When Jobs Don’t Pay Enough. Naturally, we took him to our building’s service elevator to give his elevator pitch. Our own David Roberts interviewed Barnes further, so read David’s post to learn more.
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