Last week's earthquake may have shaken a Virginia nuclear plant more than the plant was designed to withstand. There wasn’t much damage, but, uh, maybe it’s time to retrofit these older East Coast plants, just in case. Since Energy Star labels have come to mean next to nothing, there are new ones. Look for "most efficient" Energy Star labels to find appliances that meet the highest standards for energy saving. Japan passed a bill promising incentives for renewable energy, but companies are waiting for the government to hash out the details before they jump in. Collars that can tell when, …

Dyan deNapoli (who apparently goes by the moniker "The Penguin Lady," which is awesome) was very, very put out by a suggestion during the Gulf Coast oil spill that oiled birds should be killed because they're going to die anyway. The Penguin Lady knows that this is not necessarily true, because in 2000, she took part in a rescue of over 20,000 birds, oiled in a spill off of the coast of South Africa. Only 160 died. Above, deNapoli explains to a TED conference how they did it. Basically, it's a lot of hard work. But so is euthanizing thousands …

First dolphins, now whales -- sea mammals in New York City are bigger than Cats! Urban nature blogger Matthew Wills caught a humpback whale frolicking off Sandy Hook, N.J., within sight of the city. (He's got some great pictures over at his blog.) Wills was dismayed by the floating trash in the bay, not to mention all the garbage produced by his fellow boat passengers. But on the whole, the presence of whales and dolphins is a good indicator for water quality.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman subpoenaed three energy companies as part of an investigation into natural gas production estimates. If rats could abandon Ship Earth, they would right about now. Instead, species in the Northern Hemisphere are moving north at about a mile per year — three times faster than anyone imagined. Kick your caffeine habit now: climate change could make 60 percent of the places that now grow coffee inhospitable to the crop by 2050. Pennsylvania agencies can no longer contract for renewable energy. In Texas, oil and gas companies want to lay new pipelines so badly that …

Once nearly extinct in England, otters have now returned to every county, indicating that rivers are at their healthiest in decades. Conservationists had predicted that it would be another 10 years before the otters reached this level of repopulation, so it's a real triumph for the iittle dudes. Not to mention an overwhelming stroke of good fortune for Brits, who can now watch otters play from the comfort of their homes, the lucky bastards. Otters have reappeared in places where they have not been seen since the industrial revolution, including Bristol, Birmingham and Manchester, and even on the Thames and …

You know how when you go snorkeling, the guide tells you not to touch, breathe on, or even think about getting anywhere near the coral because it's really sensitive and also a great marine resource? Well, it's all true, but on a macro level, humans haven't been paying attention to those instructions and instead have been spraying the coral down with water contaminated with our waste. So basically we have been POOPING ON THE CORAL, which is kind of the opposite of not touching it. And human waste infects coral with something called white pox disease, which causes lesions and …

Watch the process demonstrated in an animation by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Mark Fiore.Giant fish blenders: It may sound like a workaday instrument at the Food Network, but it’s actually a very real threat. Power plants are killing fish and damaging our waterways via their outdated once-through cooling systems. We can help, but we need to act fast: The deadline for action to remedy this situation is Thursday, Aug. 18! Let me explain what we mean by "giant fish blenders." Antiquated power plants (many of them coal-fired power plants) throughout the nation use water intake structures to help cool systems that …

Canned tuna, a "magical wonder fish," is sooooo cheap. Just ignore that "shadowy multinational corporation" behind the curtain, and the bloodlust of Chicken of the Sea's creepy mermaid mascot: The "dirty little secret" that Greenpeace unveils in the video is the problem of innocent bystanders … uh, byswimmers. Basically, tuna fleets use fish aggregating devices to attract tons of tuna. But the devices also attract other fish, which get caught and sacrificed to the bottom line.

New York is becoming quite the haven of wildlife! There's the pigeons, the giant monkey on the Empire State Building, and now dolphins have been spotted in New York Harbor. The frisky sea critters haven't gotten into an empire state of mind in two years, so this is a big deal -- it means the water quality is better and the fish populations are rebounding. Of course, regular Grist List readers know that you can't always trust a dolphin, what with their mad lust-fueled killing sprees and everything. But that probably means that the tolerant Big Apple is the best …

While lobster fishermen in the Long Island Sound are stubbornly — but just barely — hanging on, people who depended on the fishing stock in the Great Lakes for their livelihood can no longer make it. Lake Michigan is a "liquid desert," reports Dan Egan in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Even the most devoted fishing family Egan can find is sending one of its own up to Alaska, because "he can catch more fish in one day in Alaska than he can catch all winter off Milwaukee." Although overfishing played a role here in decimating fish populations, the real culprits …