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Navy resumes sonar training off California coast

As a legal battle rages on over the U.S. Navy’s use of whale-addling sonar, the military maritimers have resumed sonar training off the California coast.

Romney criticized McCain on climate, and more election news

In his victory speech after triumphing in the South Carolina Democratic primary on Saturday, Barack Obama called on Americans to come together to make “energy cleaner” — but environmental issues weren’t a notable factor in the state’s contest. Green concerns are more visible in Florida, where Republicans are currently duking it out in advance of […]

South Carolina primary

Barack Obama is projected to win the South Carolina primary. UPDATE: Did I say win? I meant romp like Godzilla. In other news, popular Florida governor Charlie Crist has endorsed John McCain. This is a big blow to Romney in a hotly fought contest. I’m guessing McCain’s (relative) sanity on global warming had something to […]

Scared-straight birds and kite-powered cargo ships

New protections that required longline tuna fishing fleets to use bird-scaring lines, or tori lines, went into effect. In addition, international measures asked longliners to fish at night, when few birds are active, and to sink baited hooks out of reach ...

... an open fish farm that cultivates kahala, also known as Hawaiian yellowtail or amberjack, planned to double its capacity ...

... a 14-man British and Irish rowing crew crossed the Atlantic in 33 days, seven hours and 30 minutes, a full two days faster than the previous record ...

... a female leatherback turtle crossed the Pacific while tagged, resulting in the longest recorded migration journey in the ocean. She covered 12,744 miles before the signal was lost after 647 days ...

... scientists recorded, for the first time, a giant internal ocean wave breaking underwater near Hawaii. The researchers used instruments strung along 900 miles to capture the data ...

Friday music blogging: The Avett Brothers

Last week I mentioned Southern rock as one of the things I’d spurned in my youthful rejection of my native culture, only to rediscover and appreciate it as an adult. A similarly inclined reader wrote in to recommend the Avett Brothers, a band out of North Carolina (not rock, per se, but quite Southern in […]

Scientists will study coral in this International Year of the Reef

If you were wondering what that odd smell is in the air, it’s because 2008 is the International Year of the Reefer. Oh, wait, we read that wrong. The reef — it’s the International Year of the Reef. Ahem. The World Conservation Union (IUCN) says that warming seas and increased hurricanes affected more than half […]

Brazil unveils plan to slow deforestation and soy cultivation in Amazon

Following Brazil’s recent announcement of a dramatic rise in Amazon deforestation in the country in the last months of 2007, the country this week announced new plans to try to slow the destruction. Plans include tapping the army to conduct inspections of known problem areas and keep deforested land from being cultivated or used for […]

Dennis Kucinich drops presidential bid

Dennis Kucinich, perhaps the most truly green of the presidential candidates — and a vegan! — has abandoned his bid for the White House. Take a last look at Grist’s interview with Kucinich and fact sheet on his policies, and shed a tear for what might have been — were the U.S. political landscape entirely […]

Homuncular Americans lose their greatest advocate

Dennis Kucinich is dropping out of the presidential race, or as he puts it, “transiting out of the presidential campaign.” Good to see him leave on a note of support for public transportation. It is a widely held belief in liberal quarters, and in some pockets of the Grist office, that Kucinich was the greenest […]

Rule change eases restrictions on wolf kills in northern Rockies

Photo: iStockphoto The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today announced it is altering a rule that will make it easier to kill gray wolves in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. Gray wolves in the area are still protected under the federal Endangered Species Act, though the FWS intends to delist them this spring and hand management […]