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Friday music blogging: Coconut Records

I’ve missed a few Fridays, what with vacation, but don’t worry, our long national nightmare is over: FMB is back. Today comes a song that was stuck in my head the entire time I was gone: “West Coast,” by Coconut Records. Coconut Records is Jason Schwartzman, who’s an actor (Rushmore; I Heart Huckabees) and used […]

Not eco-related

But everything about this story is just awesome.

Fare Isn’t Fair

L.A.’s bias toward rail and against buses is racist, argues Eric Mann When are public-transit rail projects a bad thing? When they come at the expense of a strong bus system that low-income working people of color depend on, argues Eric Mann. He’s knee-deep in the fight over Los Angeles’s public transit, working with other […]

Unhappy Feet

Manatees may lose endangered status, penguins may get it Manatees and penguins and hornshell clams, oh my! Yes, it’s time for an endangered-species update. Flush with success from removing the bald eagle from the endangered-species list, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is suggesting that Florida manatees be downlisted from “endangered” to “threatened” status. It’s […]

Overfishing, pollution contribute to exponential rise

Oceana divers documenting the state of ecological communities in Cabrera Marine Park along the Mediterranean Coast encountered swarms of jellyfish, with numbers in the thousands, 30 miles south of the area.

On a seamount some 130 meters from the surface, Oceana's unmanned submarine robot revealed especially high concentrations of these jellies that have wreaked havoc along the Mediterranean in years past. Oceana is working to have the area added to the national park.

High concentrations of jellyfish are not a local problem. The same factors that allow jellyfish to "overflourish" in many parts of the world are at play here: Essentially humans are creating a jellyfish wonderland by overfishing and polluting our oceans.

Tracking the nation’s most brilliant up-and-coming health researchers

What’s that you say? Some vaginal spermicides may ease transmission of human papillomavirus (HPV)? Why, what kind of brilliant post doc researcher uncovered that counterintuitive and potentially industry-shaking result? Must have been one smart fella.

Soap Opera

New documentary takes a look at eccentric soap purveyor Dr. Bronner The wackadoo jargon encircling bottles of Dr. Bronner’s organic, animal-friendly soap products is infamous (“ENJOY ONLY 2 COSMETICS, enough sleep & Dr. Bronner’s ‘Magic Soap’ to clean body-mind-spirit instantly uniting One! All-One!”), and the story of the not-really-a-doctor and his all-purpose cleaning empire is […]

Live Earth was a smash hit, and more

Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: Black Coffeyville That’s a Mighty Full Circular File The Day the Music Lied? Stewards Jolly Stick It Where the Sun Do Shine Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: Diamond Off the Cuff Heads You Lose Ka-Boom

Another reason the well-off do well

Here's a story that tracks with older reporting (such as from Rachel's Environment & Health Weekly) about the pernicious social consequences of lead.

Boy, there's a superhero quartet we could really use: Environmental Justice Crusaders, a band with superhuman powers to counteract our pervasive (and worsening) racial and economic segregation that puts the people on the bottom of the socio-economic divide into the places where the better off folks dump their environmental insults.

Look, We Made a Book!

Grist hawks its first book, Wake Up and Smell the Planet Attention Grist fans: we’re pleased to announce that we’re making our first foray into fiber-space. This fall, your favorite bits of Grist — including sage green-living advice, creative ideas from readers, and all manner of educational and entertaining prose — will be printed in […]