Articles by Christopher Mims

‘I will rather invest in cycle tracks than freeways,’ says Danish politician

Denmark is going to be the best cycling country in the world. Cycling leads to better public health, a cleaner urban environment, and helps us reach our climatic goals. So I will rather invest in cycle tracks than freeways!

So sayeth Margrethe Vestager, the new Danish minister of the economy and the interior. Vestager wants to increase the share of trips taken by bicycle 50 percent in 10 years, with at least half of those trips representing a replacement of a car with a bike.

Wall Street and ethanol cause starvation, say scientists

Today's supervillains are soooo boring. If only they'd wear tights and touch entrapped damsels’ hair in a way that made us uncomfortable, we'd be up for patriotically pistol-whipping them, Captain America style. Instead we find out that Wall Street and ethanol -- a diffuse network of trading computers and a colorless inebriant, respectively -- are the reason billions are going hungry in the developing world. How are we supposed to launch a hideously expensive vendetta-war against that?

Greens join Occupy Wall Street, protest against everything being super screwed up

In all of the navel-gazing that climate activists conduct in order to figure out why the world is on the highway to carbon hell, one thing that's easy to forget is what we're up against: Gigantic, tremendously wealthy entrenched interests whose only goal is to maintain the status quo right up until the Once-ler burns the last of our fossil fuels. In other words, corporations.

Corporations fund the climate denial machine, lobby for subsidies to keep themselves viable long after the social and environmental costs of their ways have become egregious, and at the slightest provocation, sic their anointed party on any alternative energy that should threaten their unsustainable model.

That's why it should be no surprise that a movement aimed, at least vaguely, at reducing the power of corporations should be appealing to anyone who cares about the future of life on earth.

Detroit everyman uses DIY moxie to turn his town into a solar mecca

Dave Strenski, resident of Detroit exurb Ypsilanti, got it into his head that he would help the local food co-op reduce its bills by installing solar panels on its roof. […]