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British reality show dumps participants into a trash-heap of trouble

This is an interesting concept for a reality show: Eleven unsuspecting volunteers are left marooned on one of Britain’s biggest landfill sites for three weeks. Their challenge? To survive off the rubbish the rest of us have thrown out. How will they react when they are delivered to a huge, smelly British landfill site instead […]

Al Gore on making room for outrage

This quote from Al Gore is so apt I had to pass it along: I have a lot of friends who share the following problem with me: Our sense of outrage is so saturated that when a new outrage occurs, we have to download some existing outrage into an external hard drive in order to […]

National Park Service may ignore public opinion on snowmobiles in parks

Speaking of things we’ve been over and over, there’s the issue of snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park. (It’s another controversy Grist has covered since the early days while managing to not repeat a headline. Can we have a medal? Maybe a cookie?) Enough with the snowmobiles already? Not bloody likely! Today brings the news that […]

Appeals court overturns ruling, allows Navy to test underwater sonar

It’s the controversy that keeps on controversing: The U.S. Navy wants to test underwater mid-frequency sonar. Marine advocates say such testing effs up whales and other marine mammals. Repeat. (Grist has been writing about this issue since 1999, and we have never reused a headline. Thank you.) Anyhoodle, here we go again: last month, a […]

Organic dairy farm dodged organic rules, and more

Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: The Climate Got Me High Emission Accomplished Agribusiness As Usual Classy Consciousness Sudan Impact Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: How Green Is Your Candidate? Import-Export Business A Shareable Feast

Number of hunters and fishers in U.S. has declined since 1996

Wildlife agencies have been scrambling to make up funding shortfalls in the last few years due at least in part to a drop in the number of hunters and fishers and the revenue-generating licenses they buy. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, hunter numbers have declined about 10 percent between 1996 and 2006, […]

Pope urges youth to care for the planet

Pope Benedict XVI preached the gospel of green to hundreds of thousands of young Catholics in Loreto, Italy, on Sunday, one day after the Italian church’s designated Save Creation Day. While the church gave out recycled-material backpacks filled with biodegradable plates, hand-cranked cell-phone chargers, and prayer books printed on recycled paper, the pontiff implored young […]

Proposed dams in northern Sudan stir conflict

Can’t get enough of depressing Sudan news? Here’s more: The proposed construction of two or three new hydroelectric dams along the Nile River is causing unrest in the northern region of Sudan, which has already had civil war in its south, east, and west. Many fear that demonstrations will give way to widespread violence in […]

Barnacle-killing chemical will be banned

Nasty chemical tributyltin, used to rid ship hulls of barnacles and algae, will be banned under an international treaty expected to be ratified within the next few days. TBT is cheap, effective, used on nearly all of the world’s 30,000 commercial vessels — and deemed by the U.S. EPA to be the most toxic chemical […]

U.S. nuclear weapons program killed over 4,000 Americans, analysis shows

The U.S. nuclear weapons program has sickened an estimated 36,500 Americans and killed over 4,000, according to an analysis of government figures by the Rocky Mountain News. The newspaper’s estimates may be lower than actual numbers because it only counted people who have been approved for government compensation and not those who were sickened or […]