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Dr. Dirt: Street artist scrubs images into the urban landscape

Photo: c/o MooseStreet artist Moose Benjamin Curtis was having some difficulty with the police. The officers had just arrested him for creating designs on a wall in South London. But it was complicated — as things often are when Moose is involved. You see, Moose doesn’t use spray paint or wallpaper paste — the usual […]

Small fish, big ocean: Saving Pacific forage fish

Photo: Eric Ch A few weeks ago, we told you about the contentious debate over the fate of a tiny fish known as menhaden. Meanwhile, a similar concern is quietly surfacing over several other varieties of small “forage fish” that live along the West Coast. And by forage fish we don’t mean you’ll find them […]

A declaration of independence from Wall Street

Photo: Helga Tawil Souri This piece originally appeared in Salon. After three years of political nonsense, we can hold one truth to be self-evident about our government: It is broken. A financial crisis that should have inspired a grand new set of rules for Wall Street instead delivered a hopelessly compromised reform package — and […]

Solyndra birtherism: GOP demands Obama’s BlackBerry, gives Big Oil CEOs a pass

Watch out — they’re coming for your BlackBerry.Photo: White HouseFor two months, Republicans have been searching for some evidence that political favoritism played a role in the Obama administration’s loan guarantee to Solyndra. They have failed. After a half-dozen hearings, testimony from virtually everyone involved, and the release of thousands of pages of emails and […]

China bulb ban will eliminate 1 billion incandescents annually

Joining the U.S. and just about every other country with an economy, China will ban import and sale of incandescent bulbs beginning in 2014, reports the AP. State-run Xinhua News Agency quoted Xie Ji, deputy director of the NDRC's environmental protection department, as saying China is the world's largest producer of both energy-saving and incandescent […]

Evil mad scientists are clearly behind all energy innovations

Internet hilarity repository Cracked has a roundup of energy solutions that sound more like mad scientist plots. They go from "human body heat" all the way up to "giant invisible energy death ray," and they're pretty awesome. Here, for example, is an electric eel powering a Christmas tree! In perhaps the most uncreative vision of […]

California crusader: What not to ingest when you’re expecting

Grist is proud to present the Change Gang — profiles of people who are leading change on the ground toward a more sustainable society and a greener planet. Some we’ve written about before; some are new to our pages. Some you’ll have heard of; most you probably won’t. Know someone we should add to the […]

American Idol contestants suddenly AGAINST plastic now

Okay, I don't know who this person is. Her teeth are very white and I think she's 13? But evidently she was on American Idol, and she and her other white-teethed glee club buddies from American Idol season 10 (!!!) are taking up arms against plastic. I was pretty sure American Idol contestants were kind […]

Each American consumes as much energy as a 40-ton dinosaur

Yesterday, at the annual conference of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas, where retired petroleum geologists talk about how we're all going to end up like Viggo Mortensen's character in The Road, emeritus professor William Catton pointed out that every American uses so much fossil fuel energy that if it were […]

Give used furs back to the animals with Coats for Cubs

Grab Granny's fur coat (take Granny out first) and bring it to your local Buffalo Exchange, if you're lucky enough to have one nearby. From Nov. 25 through April 22, their Coats for Cubs program will take your furs (including trims, accessories, and shearling) and use them to "provide bedding and comfort to orphaned and injured […]