Uncategorized

Ask Umbra knocks off Twinkies organically [VIDEO]

You’ve heard of knockoff purses, but have you ever heard of knockoff junk food? Michael Pollan’s book Food Rules encourages us to make our own junk food. Yep, eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself. Umbra takes junk food into her own hands and shows how to make […]

Featured Friend: Heidi Pickman

Each month, we showcase one of our beloved Friends with Benefits — folks who have donated to support our work. Want to take your relationship with Grist to the next level? Just donate any amount to join the fun.  Heidi Pickman “Climate change is one of THE most important issues of our time, trumping health care as […]

Zero-Carbon Buildings

The building sector is responsible for a large share of world electricity consumption and raw materials use. In the United States, buildings—commercial and residential—account for 72 percent of electricity use and 38 percent of CO2 emissions. Worldwide, building construction accounts for 40 percent of materials use. Because buildings last for 50–100 years or longer, it […]

How to be as persuasive as Abe Lincoln and Marc Antony, Part 2: Use irony, the twist we can't resist

I almost let the Ides of March slip by without reexamining Marc Antony’s “Friends, Romans, Countrymen” speech.  It is a model of rhetorical brilliance — and a model for “The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President.”  Both speeches were built around one of the most important figures of speech:  irony Irony derives from the Greek eironeia (”dissimulation”), […]

Friday music blogging: Sarah Jaffe

I don’t make it a point to try to spot the Next Big Thing here at FMB. But sometimes the Next Big Thing just falls into my lap. In May of this year, Kirtland Records will be releasing Suburban Nature, the debut album from Texas artist Sarah Jaffe. I recommend you mark your calendar. The […]

Old growth, slow gain

Change is often incremental. Good change, usually glacial. That describes the update I recently received from a friend in Poland, anyhow, whose work I had just profiled in Earth Island Journal, here. His group’s efforts to win additional protections for the Bialowieza Primeval Forest, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and Europe’s largest lowland old growth […]

Grist’s rejected punny headlines from the week of 1 March 2010

If you’ve ever wondered how Grist’s famous (and mysterious) pun machine works, wonder a little less. We present you with a glimpse into its inner workings: a list of rejected punny headlines scooped up from the last week’s digital cutting room floor. Please, enjoy the witticisms and groan at the miss-icisms. Story: James Cameron: I’m […]

Friday music blogging: Aloe Blacc

The new HBO show How to Make It In America is pretty good, but by far the best thing about it is the opening credit sequence. When I first saw it I thought it was soundtracked with a particularly righteous soul song from the ’70s, maybe a Bill Withers b-side dug out of the crates. […]

EPA stands by as polluters ignore the Clean Water Act

(iStockphoto)Another entry in the New York Times fantastic “Toxic Waters” series came out on Sunday. This latest one is about the slow but tragically effective weakening of the Clean Water Act: Thousands of the nation’s largest water polluters are outside the Clean Water Act’s reach because the Supreme Court has left uncertain which waterways are […]

China's changing energy economy

In Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, I have presented a plan to dramatically reduce carbon emissions by increasing energy efficiency and replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy. In the push to reduce emissions, all eyes are on China, the world’s most populous country and now also the world’s top carbon emitter. Here are […]